Catherine Marple

Catherine (Cassie) Marple is a doctoral student in the Department of Media and Information. Working at the intersection of positive media psychology and narrative media effects, she studies the psychological processes by which audience members can use narrative entertainment media (e.g., Game of Thrones, Tangled, or Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani) to achieve positive mental health outcomes including prosocial development. Specifically, she explores (1) the narrative content features that influence moral perception of story characters, (2) the relationship between narrative content features and temporary changes in mental reframing of real-life situations, and (3) the mechanisms by which short-term changes in perception can influence chronic patterns of mental reframing. Her work on story design and positive development draws from both South Asian and Western perspectives. While she works primarily with quantitative experimental methods, she also uses qualitative methodology to highlight the insights of narrative content creators, particularly those in the Indian Subcontinent. 

Her work has appeared in the Journal of Communication and the Journal of Moral Education, in the annual conferences of the National Communication Association (NCA), the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (IGEL), the International Society for the Study of Narrative (ISSN), the Association for Moral Education (AME), the Southern States Communication Association (SSCA), and the Eastern Communication Association (ECA), in addition to a variety of subject-specific conferences including the South Asian Media and Cultural Studies Conference (SAMCS) and the Media and Morality Conference.  Prior to joining Michigan State, she received her M.A. in Communication from Wake Forest University.