MEASURING THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT OF NEWS: THE IMPACT OF QUESTION ORDER, CONTRAST AND KNOWLEDGE

This study investigated the extent to which the third-personeffect—the tendency of people to estimate greater impactof media messages on ‘other people’ than on themselves—mightdepend upon question-contrast effects (i.e. self-serving comparisonstriggered by back-to-back questions dealing with effect on othersand oneself), the order of questions, and respondents' levelsof background political knowledge. Two hundred and eighty-sevensubjects participated in two experimental studies involvingquestions about media coverage of President Clinton's possiblerole in the ‘Whitewater Affair’, his alleged frequentpolicy reversals, the O. J. Simpson murder trial, and childmolestation charges against Michael Jackson. Both experimentsresulted in significant third-person effects that did not dependupon having the same respondents answer both questions; meansfor single-question (no contrast) conditions did not differsignificantly from comparable means in two-question (contrast)conditions. No significant main effects of question order wereobserved. In Experiment 1 a significant interaction betweenpolitical knowledge and question order was found, such thata negative relationship between knowledge and perceived impacton oneself emerged when the ‘self’ question followeda question about perceived effects on others. Experiment 2 replicatedthe interaction for two of three news stimuli, and indicatedthat it was not a product of differences in the personal importanceof issues. Implications of these results for understanding thethird-person effect are discussed.     

Examining the first,second and third-person effects of Internet pornography on Taiwanese adolescents: implications for the restriction of pornography

To explore the impact of Internet pornography on users as compared with traditional forms of pornography, a total of 1688 adolescents in Taiwan were surveyed. Results show that respondents estimated the harms of Internet pornography to exceed that of pornographic materials in print and broadcast media. More importantly, findings show that exposure to Internet pornography resulted in desensitizing effects in that users tended to perceive the harms of Internet pornography as less on self and others. In addition, exposure was found to be negatively related to support for restrictions of Internet pornography, but the perceived harm on self was found to be positively related to support for restrictions. Finally, the joint effects of the first and third-person effect (the second-person effect) were shown as a more reliable predictor of behavioral intention than the third-person perception. Findings help resolve the contradiction in past research that reported the third-person perception as both a significant and non-significant predictor of support for restrictions on pornography.     

FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS: CENSORSHIP AND THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT

The third person effect hypothesis, which states that individualsexposed to a mass media messaage will expect the communicationto have a greater effect on others than on themselves, may helpto explain the growing trend in support of media censorship.It is suggested here that overestimating the effect of mediaon others may play an important role in the forces underlyinga willingness to restrict various types of communication. Toexamine this relationship, this study focused on the discrepancybetween perceived media effects on others and self, and itsrelation to pro-censorship attitudes within three major topics:the media in general, violence on television, and pornography.The results of this study support the existence of the third-personeffect in mass communication. The findings also indicate thatas the gap between perceived firstand third-person effects increases,individuals are more likely to manifest pro-censorship attitudes.This relationship remained for all three topics even when avariety of potentially confounding demographic, media use, andattitudinal variables were controlled. The data also suggestthat for pornography the effects gap is related to a willingnessto act in favor of censoring.     

INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, AND AGENDA MELDING: A THEORY OF SOCIAL DISSONANCE

Many studies have established that there is a degree of audiencelearning from the mass media, especially of new issues enteringthe news. But recent studies show an agenda-setting effect atdeeper levels beyond broad news categories. Audiences also absorbthe attributes of news—the frames and slants in the waynews is presented—and this suggests that while the massmedia do not tell us what to think, the mass media do have considerablepower to tell us how to think about topics, with implicationsfor social policy. Beyond these two levels of agenda setting,however, is something more significant—agenda melding.Agenda melding argues that individuals join groups, in a sense,by joining agendas. There is a powerful impulse to affiliatewith others in groups as one leaves the original family setting,and one joins these groups via media of connections, mostlyother people but also other media. This paper suggests a modelof agenda melding that accounts for the role of media (massor interpersonal) in helping individuals move toward or awayfrom groups. This attempts to build toward general social theoryby suggesting the role of media in how individuals functionwith others in a coherent social system.     

THE 'OTHER' AS THE VULNERABLE VOTER: A STUDY OF THE THIRD-PERSON EFFECT IN THE 1988 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

The tendency for individuals to perceive a greater impact ofmedia messages on others than on the self, Davison (1983) argues,has led to a number of policy decisions in which éliteshave exercised control of mass media messages in order to ‘protect’vulnerable others. The third-person effect has been well-documentedin experimental research with little attention to its theoreticalunderpinnings, or its antecedents or consequences. This articleargues that the third-person effect can be understood throughattribution theory, especially through the concepts of self-servingbias and effectance motivation. Second, it demonstrates thatthe third-person effect is influenced by certain social structuralfactors, media use patterns, and perceived harm of content.Finally, while perceptions of harm are related to perceptionsof influence, influence does not play a role in predicting supportfor external control of media content, while perceived harmhas a significant impact.     

Need for Orientation and Third-Person Effects of the Televised Debates in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

The televised debates in the 2016 presidential election took place between two controversial candidates, Hillary Clinton and her opponent, Donald Trump, who faced a deeply divided electorate of highly opinioned voters that had already decided on their supported candidates. How did viewing the debates influence them? Would the debates reinforce their existing opinion, or provide them with useful information about the candidates? Drawing on Davison’s third-person effect hypothesis, this study aims to shed light on the question of how viewing the debates influences voters relative to others in the era of social media. The study focuses on the need for orientation as a predictor of debate exposure and the behavioral consequences of debate exposure for electoral engagement on social media. Findings show that partisans are not impacted by viewing the debates, but respondents perceived Independents to be most vulnerable. Further, need for orientation moderated the relationship between debate exposure and perceived effects of the debates on self, which prompted respondents to mobilize support for the candidate of their choice and to vote for their supported candidates.     

The First-Person Effect and Its Behavioral Consequences: A New Trend in the Twenty-Five Year History of Third-Person Effect Research

The perceived effect of the media on the self when compared to others has been adequately established over the last 25 five years. Rather than a third-person effect where individuals perceive a greater effect for self than others, first-person effect perceptions, where individuals perceive a greater effect for self than others, have been considered by scholars recently. Findings indicate support for first-person perceptions. However, research is limited and the behavioral consequences of first-person perceptions are almost nonexistent. The current analysis discusses the evolution of the first-person perception and details the findings of each study as well as the psychological mechanisms used to explain first-person perceptions. Methodological considerations for future studies of first-person effect behavioral consequences are also proposed.     

THE INFLUENCE OF PERCEPTIONS OF MEDIA INFLUENCE: THIRD PERSON EFFECTS AND THE PUBLIC EXPRESSION OF OPINIONS

This paper explores the role of perceptions of the opinionsof others as they relate to the formation of public opinion.Two interrelated theories involving such perceptions, the thirdperson effect and the spiral of silence, are tested in the contextof public opinion regarding divestment of financial interestsin South Africa. As hypothesized by the third person effect, perceptions of theinfluence of media reports on others were found to be consistentlygreater than perceptions of influence on self. Findings werestrongly supportive of this component of the ‘third personeffect’ hypothesis. Perceptions of the opinions of otherswere also explored in relation to respondents' willingness toexpress their opinions publicly. As suggested by the spiralof silence theory, respondents were found to be more willingto express their opinions publicly when they perceived a trendin support of their viewpoint, or when there was a greater perceivedlikelihood of achieving success for their issue position. The size of the effect produced from joining these two processesis moderated by the role of issue salience. People perceivingdivestment as a highly important issue are more likely to ascribegreater media influence to others than to themselves, but theirwillingness to express their opinions publicly is least likelyto be influenced by perceptions of the climate of opinion.     

KILLER AND VICTIM ISSUES: ISSUE COMPETITION IN THE AGENDA-SETTING PROCESS OF GERMAN TELEVISION

The capacity of the mass media to cover issues as well as thecapacity of recipients to be concerned about issues is limited.The coverage on and the concern about new issues will consequentlyremove old issues from the agenda of both the mass media andthe general public. The present study investigates two modelsof this process of issue competition. The equal-displacementmodel assumes that a rise of one issue in the media by a givennumber of stories is matched by an equal fall in all other issuessumming up to a similar number of issues. The restructuringmodel assumes that unexpected, surprising or otherwise newsworthyevents create killer issues that move several other issues completelyoff the agenda and leave others untouched. A content analysisof all news shows of the two major TV stations in Germany and53 weekly surveys regarding 16 different issues covering thewhole year 1986 shows that—within the media agenda—therewere no killer issues affecting the coverage of the TV stations.In the public agenda, however, some killer issues could be identified.Coverage of these issues increased public concern about themand decreased concerns about other issues. Consequences of theseresults for agenda-setting theory and for politics are discussed.     

Not like me: Self vs. other distinctions in first‐person perception

The third‐person perception hypothesis posits that people believe others are more influenced by media messages than they are. The existing literature consistently documents that individuals make self vs. other distinctions when assessing media effects, but not how such distinctions are made. The current study sought to document the self/ other distinction in third‐person perception and to assess differences in how individuals separate their own personal risk from that of others. Findings of a survey of 180 urban minority youth confirm the presence of third‐person perception and significant self/other distinctions in media effects. A clear split between cognitive and social predictors emerged when assessing differences in self/other distinctions. Participants relied on cognitive factors when assessing their own risk, while relying more heavily on self‐esteem when assessing the relative risk of others. Liking and trust of the media was the only shared correlate of self/other distinctions in third‐person perception.     

Priming Effects of Late-Night Comedy

Having become fully integrated into the contemporary politicallandscape, infotainment-oriented media extend Americans’traditional news (e.g. newspaper, radio, and television) toinclude a greater number of sources for political information,and in some cases, political mobilization. Given the increasingprominence of infotainment-oriented media in contemporary politics,this study addresses the effects of one particular type of infotainment—late-nightcomedy—during the 2000 presidential campaign. Specifically,we are interested in whether watching late-night comedy showsinfluences viewers’ evaluations of the candidates whohave appeared on these shows; in particular, we investigatepriming as the mechanism by which such influences occur. Findingsfrom the 2000 National Annenberg Election Survey (N = 11,482)indicate that evaluations of candidates are based in part onrespondents’ sociodemographics, perceptions of candidatesto handle certain issues, and their character traits. Therewas a main effect of watching late-night comedy on evaluationsof candidates; more importantly, viewers were more likely thannonviewers to base their evaluations of George W. Bush on charactertraits after he appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman.     

Inspired by the crowd: The effect of online comments on elevation and universal orientation

Past research on meaningful media has shown that the experience of elevation can foster increased feelings of connection to others due to the affective states that meaningful media elicit. However, what happens when inspiring media are accompanied by cues related to the opinion of others? Does the presumed opinion of the audience moderate the affective indicators or behavioral effects of elevation? An online experiment was conducted to answer these questions using a 2 (news type: inspiring vs. non-inspiring control)?×?3 (comment type: civil vs. uncivil vs. no comment control) between-subjects design. Results revealed that news articles accompanied by either civil or uncivil comments elicited lower affective states associated with elevation. Furthermore, civil comments increased universal orientation through the mediating pathway of bandwagon support.     

Time span of news coverage as an antecedent of perceptual and behavioral components of third-person effect

This study extends the research of the third-person effect by examining the effect of time span of media message on perceptual and behavioral components of the third-person effect. Using a survey of Hong Kong residents, the study explores perceived media effect of the news coverage of a short- and a long-term issue and the predictor of intention to take action to reduce negative effect. The results revealed no third-person effect by the short-term messages and the reverse third-person effect (first-person effect) by the long-term messages. There was a significant difference in discrepancy between the perceived media effect on self and others (third-person perception) produced by the messages of the short- and long-term issue. The study also found that perceived media effect on self is a stronger predictor of intention to take action to reduce the negative effects of the short- and long-term issue than the third-person effect.     

PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF TELEVISION INFLUENCE AND OPINIONS ABOUT CENSORSHIP IN SINGAPORE

It is a common assumption that in many countries mass mediacensorship is imposed by an authoritarian government on an unwillingpublic. This study examines public opinion about televisioncensorship in the island nation of Singapore. More specifically,we tested the third-person effect hypothesis, which suggeststhat people expect media content to have more negative influenceon others than on themselves, and that some support for censorshipis based on that perceptual bias. Data for the study came from face-to-face interviews with 506randomly selected Singaporeans who evaluated ten categoriesof ‘sensitive’ television content. Results revealed(1) a substantial perceptual bias in all content categories;(2) generally strong opinion favoring censorship of televisioncontent; and (3) a significant relationship between these twofactors, suggesting that people may support censorship of mediain part because of a tendency to overestimate its negative influence.     

Fake News Should Be Regulated Because It Influences Both “Others” and “Me”: How and Why the Influence of Presumed Influence Model Should Be Extended

We argue that the influence of presumed influence (IPI) model (Gunther & Storey, 2003) should be extended through an additional interaction term between the presumed effects of media on “others” (PME3) and the “self” (PME1). Doing so would enable testing of whether individuals who perceive a mutually shared influence of the media show stronger support for censorship. The IPI model does not suffer from the methodological limitations of the conventional third-person effect literature relying on other–self disparities (i.e., PME3–PME1), but it focuses entirely on the main effect of PME3; thus, insufficient attention is paid to the role of PME1 in explaining the influence of presumed influence. To validate this Extended IPI model, and determine how it compares with other models, we compared individuals’ presumptions about the effects of fake news on others (PFNE3) and themselves (PFNE1), and how PFNE3 and PFNE1 interact to influence individuals’ support for policies prohibiting the potential negative effects of fake news. We found that individuals’ support for government interventions and sanctions for fake news creators and sharers was stronger if they believed that fake news influenced both other people and themselves. The theoretical and methodological implications of the Extended IPI model are discussed.     

The Third-Person Effect: A Meta-Analysis of the Perceptual Hypothesis

In this study, we report the results of a meta-analysis concerning the third-person effect's perceptual hypothesis. The hypothesis predicts that people judge the media to exert greater persuasive influence on other people than on themselves. Thirty-two published and unpublished studies with 121 separate effect sizes were examined. The overall effect size between estimated media effects on self and on others was r = .50. Among the 8 moderators investigated (source, method, sampling, respondent, country, desirability, medium, and message), 3 (sampling, respondent, and message) yielded significant effect size variations. Third-person perception in nonrandom and college student samples was significantly larger than in random and noncollege student samples. From a theoretical perspective, these findings may have been due to student participants perceiving themselves to be smarter than other people. A more disturbing explanation would attribute these findings to researchers relying on student samples.     

Ted Brader (2006). Campaigns for Hearts and Minds. How Emotional Appeals in Political Ads Work. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 280 pp., ISBN 0-226-06989-3.

Here is a book that makes you want to shout, ‘Finally!’For decades, political scientists and communication researchershave been focusing intensively on the question of how peoplemake their final voting decision and how this decision is influencedby reporting in the mass media and campaign advertising. Nevertheless,even though there is enough literature on this subject to filla library, only very few studies have dealt with the issue ofemotional appeals in election coverage and campaign advertising—andvoters’ emotional, possibly irrational reactions to theseappeals. Although numerous findings in the fields of psychology,neuroscience, and behavioral research suggest that emotionalappeals and reactions play an important role when it comes toall kinds of decisions—which, of course, also includesvoting decisions—social researchers in the United Statesand elsewhere have,     

The roles of value predispositions,communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content

This study aims to examine the roles of value predispositions, communication, and third person perception on public support for censorship of films with homosexual content in Singapore. Findings from a nationally representative telephone survey of adults showed that the majority of Singaporeans supported stricter censorship of films with homosexual characters. Conformity to norms, intrinsic religiosity, and Asian orientation were positively associated with public support for censorship. Media exposure and perceived negative media effects on self were negatively associated with public support for censorship. Our results supported the perceptual component but not the behavioral component of the third person effect.     

A COMPARISON OF FACTORS INFLUENCING ISSUE DIVERSITY IN THE U.S. AND TAIWAN

The study extends agenda-setting research by examining issuediversity as a consequence of media exposure. Results from twosurveys—one conducted in the United States, the otherin Taiwan—illustrate differences in the cultures of thetwo samples. In general, older individuals who find low utilityin advertising information but who read a variety of newspapersand feel a strong civic duty to keep informed believe thereare many important issues facing the United States. Younger,highly educated individuals who have a high interest in politicalnews and who read a variety of newspapers believe there aremany important issues facing Taiwan.     

Accuracy and Bias in Newlywed Couples’ Perceptions of Conflict Styles and the Association with Marital Satisfaction

Styles of handling conflict are highly consequential to marital success. The behavioral model predicts that spouses’ accuracy in perceptions of each other will be associated with marital quality, whereas the benevolent perception model predicts that benevolent perceptions, even when objectively inaccurate, will be associated with marital quality. To investigate the role of perceptions of marital conflict styles, 194 couples married for less than five years completed self- and partner-reports of conflict styles and marital satisfaction. Results indicated that spouses were both accurate (i.e., seeing the self the same as one's partner sees the self) and biased (i.e., seeing the partner the same as one sees the self) in their perceptions of each others’ conflict styles. Little support existed for the accuracy model of perception and marital satisfaction, but more consistent support was obtained for the benevolent perception model in which more positively toned perceptions, regardless of their consistency with partners’ self-perceptions, were associated with higher marital satisfaction. Results of actor–partner interdependence analyses revealed numerous actor effects for conflict styles and satisfaction, and partner effects for the styles of conflict engagement and withdrawal and partners’ marital satisfaction.