The omnipresence of paranormal entertainment piqued the interest of Paul Brewer, professor of communication at the University of Delaware, who wondered what makes viewers believe — or disbelieve — what they see on the screen.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just any story about paranormal investigators that made people believe in ghosts and haunted houses,\u201d Brewer said, \u201cit was a story about how they were scientific<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n One version of the article described a paranormal investigator\u2019s \u201cscientific\u201d approach to his work, including his use of various instruments, items Brewer describes as \u201ctrappings of science.\u201d<\/p>\n One specifically mentioned in the article is an electromagnetic field (EMF) detector, used to locate sources of electricity. Members of the group who read this article were much more likely to call the investigators scientific and credible, as well as to believe in the paranormal<\/strong>. Brewer said the findings could trouble paranormal skeptics.<\/p>\n \u201cThey might look at this and say, well, all it takes is to sprinkle some acronyms in there and wave around cool looking things that beep and suddenly people believe in ghosts and haunted houses.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, his findings do offer some solace to skeptics.\u00a0 Another version of the article in the study was identical to the \u201cscientific\u201d version until the end, where an extra paragraph was added. It quoted a professor debunking the investigators\u2019 expertise. That article\u2019s group was swayed by the opposing viewpoint and rated the investigators\u2019 credibility at levels below the first group<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the media can do, the media can take away,\u201d Brewer said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the University of Delaware press release by Andrea Boyle Tippett via EurekAlert!: The fourth installment of the Paranormal Activity films topped the box office last week. Television channel SyFy\u2019s… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,319],"tags":[193,363,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7678"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7741,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7678\/revisions\/7741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"movie](\"http:\/\/www.therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/movie_tickets.jpg\")
The fourth installment of the Paranormal Activity<\/em> films topped the box office last week. Television channel SyFy\u2019s hit show Ghost Hunters<\/em> scares up big ratings, and has spawned copycat series on networks ranging from Biography to Animal Planet.<\/strong><\/p>\n