“Forensic Psychology in the News” Assignment
Overview: For this assignment, you are tasked with finding a news media article that covers a topic relevant to clinical forensic psychology and compare and critique that article with the peer-reviewed, scientific research from the experts in our field.
Background and Rationale: It is exciting that forensic psychology issues are being picked up by mainstream media; this suggests that the general public is interested in learning about this field! However, there is a somewhat concerning trend among journalists of focusing exclusively on temporary hot-button issues and only sharing limited or biased information about these issues (often due to space constraints and a need to conform to the viewpoints or biases of the publication source as a whole, as well as limited knowledge of how to accurately locate information about the issue in the scientific literature).
The purpose of this assignment is to give you practice in analyzing how the media presents forensic psychology issues and to help the field consider how to better represent the important work that we do. Below I have outlined the steps of this assignment.
Step 1: Choose a news media article that focuses on clinical forensic psychology.
For this assignment, it would be best to use an article from a news media publication that generally publishes “long-form” stories. You can use media sources that are commonly considered to be apolitical, liberal or conservative. The point of this assignment is to consider how forensic mental health is presented by the media, and how that presentation relates to empirically supported research. Some suggestions include Reuters, the AP, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and the Wall Street Journal. You may stray from these media sources, but please do not choose a source like Psychology Today.
Please do not choose an article that focuses on a specific crime story (unless it is using a crime story to demonstrate its point), as this is not the purpose of this assignment. If you find an article that is interesting, but that does not provide any reference whatsoever to the scientific research, that’s probably not a good article. We are looking for good instances of journalism, where the journalist has reached out and interviewed psychologists or lawyers or who references publications from researchers or scientists.
To begin your search for an article, I recommend that you look at the list of topics that we will cover in this course and consider one of those. If you are unsure what the topics refer to, you can get short descriptions by googling them. Here are a few examples of articles that would be good for this assignment:
Step 2: Research your chosen topic in the peer-reviewed, scientific literature.
You should spend at least an hour looking through the library electronic databases for peer-reviewed journal articles that have been published on your topic. The goal is to find and download two articles that you can use to compare with the news media article that you chose.
How should you choose from the thousands of articles on a topic? Please consider the following:
You can choose articles from any time period – but you will need to critically evaluate the article and consider the time period in which it was published… many things have changed since the 1980s and 1990s!
There are two different types of peer-reviewed articles: ones that describe empirical research studies that the authors of the articles have conducted; others are review articles that provide a thorough review of all of the different types of studies and the major findings that other researchers have done. I recommend that you have at least one review article. You can find these by typing in your topic, followed by the word “review.” For example, “insanity plea” AND “review” will give search results that prioritize review articles.
Be sure to choose articles that you can understand! Some are easier than others… read through the first few paragraphs of an article before you commit to using it. Do not just make a judgment based on the title of that article!
Step 3: Conduct your analysis and draft your paper.
The goal of this assignment is to draft a paper that describes your analysis and comparison of the news media article to the peer-reviewed literature that you read.
I recommend the following website to see examples of APA style: APA Style Introduction // Purdue Writing Lab
Please be sure that you adhere to the following APA guidelines:
Include a title page
Double-spaced with 1” margins all around the page
Times New Roman font (size 12)
Write in full paragraphs. A full paragraph contains 4-8 sentences and begins with a thesis statement that makes it clear to the reader what that paragraph is going to be about.
No cover page or abstract is necessary for this assignment.
Please ensure that you have a Reference list at the end, which starts on a new page (use the “Page Break” feature (this does not count as one of the 5 pages). Your reference list should be in APA style. Please google it if you are not aware of the conventions of APA style.
I recommend that you use the following outline for your paper:
Introduction
Introduce your topic and provide some background information about the general topic and research that has been conducted
Provide any definitions that are necessary for your reader to understand
Tell us whether this is something that has been researched a lot or a little and in what forensic settings it is relevant.
Short description of the articles and media sources
You should just be giving your reader a general sense of the article… did the journalist include insights from researchers? Psychologists? Lawyers? Do they include case examples to highlight their points?
What news source was it published in and what should your reader know about that source? Does it have a bias? What type of audience does it cater to? Who is its general audience? National or international? What part of the country reads it most?
Analysis [this is the main part of your paper – devote ~3 pages to it]
The extent to which these articles provide full coverage of the issue (e.g., what info is missing? Does this only pertain to one specific group of individuals?).
The extent to which the articles are biased, in what directions they are biased, an analysis of the rationale for those biases, and an explanation of the unbiased information (from the journal research articles you found).
The extent to which the topic is “trending” and why.
The extent to which the article is covering the latest research on the topic and how the research findings and opinion have changed over time (again, form the research articles you found).
Conclusion
Provide a summary paragraph that ends your paper on a strong note
Recap for us: does the journalist do a good or bad job of summarizing the scientific research on this topic?
What do you think future journalists need to do in order to improve media reporting on this topic and other topics in forensic psychology?
Are there audiences that are not being reached by this media source that should have access to the topic?
End with a strong sentence… do not let your paper trail off into the darkness with an abrupt ending! Tie a bow on it with a broad statement about media coverage of topics [or this specific topic] in forensic psychology!
Term Paper Topics
Child Custody:
Mothers and teens urge Utah lawmakers to pass family court reform
Best Interest of the Child: One mother’s fight against a claim of parental alienation
Insanity Defense:
‘Antifa’ Defendant Stuns SD Court With Insanity Plea in Pacific Beach Riot Case
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/michael-brown-insanity-plea-rodney-brown-murder-1234945395/
Competency:
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/waiting-for-justice-why-a-man-accused-of-killing-a-teen-on-christmas-could-be-incompetent-to-stand-trial
https://www.theindianalawyer.com/articles/competent-to-stand-trial-competency-evaluations-under-spotlight-in-indiana-courts-legislature
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/what-actually-happens-in-wa-when-someones-not-competent-to-stand-trial/
