Media psychology and telemedicine: the growing professional opportunity.

Media psychology and telemedicine: the growing professional opportunity Telecommunication is a powerful force for helping to improve world health. While telemedicine has been prominent in health care for many years, media psychology is acknowledged only now as having central strategic importance in improving all aspects of telecommunications. For the purposes of this discussion, telemedicine is used as the umbrella term and includes telehealth, telecare and other aspects of e-health. Media psychology is the concentration of psychology as applied to telecommunications media. Examples of theories in psychology applied to the media include and accurate empathy. Current research with which I am involved includes the use of media and telecommunications to improve the understanding of obesity and diabetes by Native American youth. The student conducting this study is an African/Native American physician living on a reservation; the object of the research is to share media developments using telemedicine techniques. Another project involves a staff member from the Cancer Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, who is working to use media to increase the public understanding of cancer, particularly in the Philippines. A third student has developed software to analyse telecommunications in order to evaluate the truthfulness of claims. Other applications in which media psychology is relevant include telemonitoring of patients in their homes and the diverse use of television media in helping target populations to achieve a greater understanding of various health issues. The field of media psychology is so new that we face a 'chicken and egg' stage with respect to academically educated professionals having the necessary skills to develop successful programmes in telemedicine. This situation will improve in the future as the graduates of the new programmes enter the field. There will be continuing demand and professional opportunities in telemedicine, telehealth and telecare for the next few decades in both media psychology and media studies. The American Psychological Association (APA) recently identified specific professional opportunities in telemedicine. 1 There are nine areas where those educated in media psychology can contribute: (1) writing or acting as a guest speaker on health topics in the various media; (2) consulting with media personnel on technical matters related to presentations and production; (3) researching ways to improve the television media and the study of media effects; (4) making new television media more effective and user friendly. This includes design, iconography and semiotic applications related to use and performance; (5) using new media to …