SDF

Na Eun-Yeong has devoted her career to furthering interdisciplinary study. She studied English literature and psychology at Seoul National University and received her doctorate in social psychology at Yale University. She subsequently conducted research in media studies as a professor in Sogang University, going on to earn numerous distinctions for her pioneering work in the field of media psychology, including the Korea Association for Broadcasting & Telecommunication Studies’ Best Book Award and Korea Society for Journalism and Communication Studies’ Outstanding Paper Award.

As a researcher, Eun-Yeong applies the principles of social psychology to media in order to better understand the illusions engendered by the media and the ways attitudes become polarized on the Internet. Through such work, Eun-Yeong has played an ongoing role in helping people overcome deceptive ideas – so readily disseminated in the flood of modern media – about beliefs and opinions unlike their own, and reducing needless division to promote greater social cohesion.

Eun-Yeong’s research also includes a long-term study into how attitudes and patterns of media use have become increasingly diverse among younger generations as a result of dramatic changes in value systems as well as the forms of media available today. The objective behind this project is to facilitate dialogue between different age groups in Korean society, where intergenerational conflict has become a major social issue.

Eun-Yeong has also conducted research on the relationship between mobile phone use among young people and their communication with their families. By shedding light on this dynamic, she hopes to offer parents insight into improving communication within their families and guidance for young people on healthy, non-addictive ways to use the newest forms of media.

More recently, under a publication grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea, Eun-Yeoung has been writing a book titled Emotions and Media: How Media Can Touch the Human Heart. She has also been exploring the intersections between media psychology and neuroscience, seeking in this way to integrate the social and natural sciences. A firm believer in the power of media and psychology to restore the human spirit and support human connection, namely in the sharing of talent and expressions of humanity, Eun-Yeong is committed to working with others to build a more harmonious world.

Eun-Yeong aspires to play her part faithfully, however small, in fostering social harmony rather than division, and it is her hope that the human capacity for depth of perception and understanding will not be diminished by the narrow lens of the self-referential gaze, or the narrow worldview that emerges through “pick-and-choose” media consumption.