Social influence in the media and how to resist it

How do the media influence our thoughts, emotions, and behaviour, whether consciously or not? With the rise of social and digital media, the scope of social influence has broadened, bringing new issues like internet influencers, fake news, and conspiracy theories. Recent research also focuses on ‘beneficial’ effects (e.g., social well-being) and ‘problematic’ effects on beliefs or health (e.g., obesity) in both adults and young people. This chapter not only explores foundational theories of social influence at the individual level (e.g., priming, memory accessibility, dual processing models, and modelling) and the inter-individual level (e.g., influence of opinion leaders), but also highlights innovative research, such as obedience to televised authority. While several effective resistance mechanisms are explained (e.g., against persuasion), the chapter also suggests how interventions to protect young people (e.g., media and advertising literacy in schools) can be effective.