News Presentation and the Third-Person Effect of Violent Video Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-30
Author(s):  
Seong Choul Hong
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Media Effects ◽  
Video Game ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Violent Video Games ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person

The present study explored the relationships between the tone in news presentations and the third-person effect. It investigated whether news stories about violent video games changed viewers perspectives based on the positively or negatively portrayed messages presented by the media. Overall, this study examined how news stories encouraged or discouraged viewers from supporting government regulations of violent video game content. An online survey of 388 American adults served as the main source of data collection. The study found that presumed media effects decreased on both others and self when viewers were exposed to positively presented news coverage. Subsequently, their support for regulating violent video games was reduced. However, no changes were found in third-person perception. In addition, those who were exposed to negative news coverage showed no significant changes in their perceived media effects on self, others, and support regulations on video game contents.

Illusions of Media Power: The Third-Person Effect

1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Erwin Atwood
Keyword(s):  
Media Effects ◽  
Social Comparisons ◽  
First Person ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Media Power ◽  
The Third Person

This study assesses the third-person effect and its alternatives, a first-person effect and equal media effects, among a panel of respondents following the prediction of a severe earthquake and after the earthquake failed to materialize. The theoretical perspectives are provided by social comparisons and cognitive adaption theory. The findings indicate that both third-person and first-person effects result from downward social comparisons following from differences in belief in the message, accuracy of information about the predictability of earthquakes, and perception of the beliefs of others about the message. These media effects and their correlates are interpreted as illusions people create to cope with a predicted disaster and later revise to reflect situational contingencies.

Issue Importance, Third-Person Effects of Protest News, and Participation in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement

2016 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ven-Hwei Lo ◽  
Ran Wei ◽  
Hung-Yi Lu
Keyword(s):  
News Coverage ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Perceived Effects ◽  
Effect Hypothesis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Third Person ◽  
Intermediate Mechanism ◽  
Issue Importance

How do news coverage of a grassroot protest movement and perceived importance of the movement affect people’s participation in the movement? And does people’s inference of the effect of the news on themselves versus others make a difference in participation? Informed by the third-person effect hypothesis, we examine these questions in the context of the student-led Sunflower Movement in Taiwan that rose in opposition to a trade pact with China. In the study, we advanced three propositions: First, that the perceived effects of the protest news on oneself would be a better predictor of political participation than would perceived effects of such news on others. Second, that the perceived effect on oneself, not on others, would enhance the impact of issue importance on participation in the movement. And third, how people processed protest news would be another intermediate mechanism on subsequent participatory activities. We found support for these propositions in data collected from a probability sample of 1,137 respondents. The implications of the findings for the robust third-person effect research are discussed.

Biased Optimism and the Third-Person Effect

1993 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert C. Gunther ◽  
Paul Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Media Effects ◽  
Optimistic Bias ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Tendency ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person

While the third-person effect has proved to be a persistent and robust finding, most research on this phenomenon has employed media stimuli with potentially harmful consequences for its audience. We hypothesized that underlying the third-person phenomenon is a human tendency to see the world through optimistic or self-serving lenses. Such an optimistic bias predicts that people will estimate greater media effects on others than on themselves for messages with harmful outcomes, but no difference in effect for beneficial messages.

scholarly journals Facebook influences you more than me: The perceived impact of social media effects among young Facebook users

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-253
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Corbu ◽  
Oana Ştefǎnițǎ ◽  
Raluca Buturoiu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young People ◽  
Media Effects ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
New Type ◽  
Perceived Impact ◽  
Effect Hypothesis ◽  
The Third Person

The popularity and prevalent use of Facebook among young people are common pre­occupations for communication researchers. They focus on unveiling people’s motivations, usage be­haviour, and gratifications offered by this communication medium. However, little attention has been invested in examining how young people perceive this new type of media consumption and its effects on themselves as compared to others. Drawing on Davison’s 1983 third-person effect hypothesis, this research paper investigates the a differences in estimated Facebook effects on self versus others, b association between the desirability of the message anti-social versus pro-social and estimated Facebook effects on self versus others, and c association between the type of the message and es­timated Facebook effects on self versus others. These relationships are studied with reference to the behavioural component of the third-person effect. Results confirm that Facebook might influence the magnitude and direction of the perceptual gap of media effects.

Effects of Light-Hearted and Serious Entertainment on Enjoyment of the First and Third Person

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Hofer
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
First Person ◽  
Online Experiment ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Third Person Effect ◽  
The Third ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Perceived Enjoyment ◽  
The Third Person

Abstract. This was a study on the perceived enjoyment of different movie genres. In an online experiment, 176 students were randomly divided into two groups (n = 88) and asked to estimate how much they, their closest friends, and young people in general enjoyed either serious or light-hearted movies. These self–other differences in perceived enjoyment of serious or light-hearted movies were also assessed as a function of differing individual motivations underlying entertainment media consumption. The results showed a clear third-person effect for light-hearted movies and a first-person effect for serious movies. The third-person effect for light-hearted movies was moderated by level of hedonic motivation, as participants with high hedonic motivations did not perceive their own and others’ enjoyment of light-hearted films differently. However, eudaimonic motivations did not moderate first-person perceptions in the case of serious films.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document