Perceived effect of the mass media on self vs. other

Abstract

This study represents the first cross-cultural investigation of the third person effect hypothesis, which states that individuals overestimate mass media effect on others (Davidson, 1983). It is predicted that the difference between perceived effects of the media on self vs. other will be greater in an individualistic than collectivistic culture, because in the latter self and other are not as separate and the motivation for self-enhancement is not as salient as in the former. Survey data were collected from 671 South Korean (n=351) and U.S. (n=320) college students regarding their perceptions about the effects of beer commercials, liquor advertisements, television news about AIDS, and television news about the effects of smoking. The third person effect of undesirable media content emerged from both American and Korean samples, but the size was consistently greater among Americans compared to Koreans. Likewise, the first person effect was greater among Americans rather than Koreans.

Presumed Effects of “Fake News” on the Global Warming Discussion in a Cross-Cultural Context

“…The gaps between the presumed media effect on self and others were more salient in samples of the United States and Spain than these of India and Korea. This finding coincided with the previous cross-cultural comparisons [15,40]. Path analysis showed that self-other disparity in the presumed media effect was related to cultural constructs such as IDN and COL.…”

“…In a cross-cultural comparison, Cho and Han [15] found that the third-person perception was larger among the American samples than the Korean samples. Considering the fact that the Americans were significantly higher on IND than the Koreans, IND suggests a predictor of the third-person perceptions in comparing cultural differences.…”

“…Since self-enhancement bias or optimistic bias varies across cultures [30][31][32], third person effect can be tested and compared in a cross-cultural context. To date, third person effect in most cross-cultural examinations has been tested on the dichotomy of individualism (IND) versus collectivism (COL) societies [15,33,34], because variations in IND and COL consist of the most salient differences between Western and Eastern cultures [35].…”

“…Empirical research on the third-person effect conducted in a cross-cultural context effect often encounters a doubtful and paradoxical fact that countries with smaller third-persons perception have more content regulations than countries with larger third-person perceptions [15][16][17]. In this vein, the third-person perception itself may not always have a causal relationship with its behavior.…”

Examining Third-Person Perceptions in the Context of Sexually Oriented Advertising

“…Consequently, when people believe that negative media messages yield greater influences on others, they would support media censorship to others. Although many studies on persuasive messages can be found in the third-person scholarship, these studies have focused on public service announcements (Gunther & Thorson, 1992), political advertising (Cohen & Davis, 1991;Paek et al, 2005), Holocaust-denial advertising (Price et al, 1998), and cross-cultural investigations of beer and liquor advertising for ethically charged products (Cho & Han, 2004), but have not examined sexually oriented advertising. Thus, it is essential to examine how third-person perceptions would operate in the context of sexually oriented advertising.…”