Expanding the third-person effect: an analysis of third-person perceptions and behavioral consequences in the context of news coverage of social protest

Perse, Elizabeth M.The third-person effect occurs when participants who see a stimulus material think that others are more affected by media content than they are affected, and as a result of this effect, are likely to support censoring this media material. In this study, news stories were shown for both pro choice and pro life protests; on either side of the abortion issue, versions portrayed the protesters positively or negatively. It was predicted that third person effects would be greater as social distance increased and when the news story was perceived to be contrary to one’s own beliefs about abortion. In addition, it was predicted that as third-person effects increased in size, so would the desire to censor the media content in question. Students enrolled at a large mid-Atlantic university completed surveys that were designed to test the hypotheses of this study. Overall, results supported the predicted relationship between the third person effect and viewing a news story that contradicted one’s own beliefs on the abortion issue. Pro life participants’ third-person effects were affected by gender and prior attitudes toward protest, while pro choice participants’ third-person effects were more affected by the treatment of the news story they viewed. In addition, results showed support for relationship between the third-person effect and social distance. No support was found for the relationship between the third-person effect and the desire to restrict or censor protesters’ expressive rights. The results of this study support prior third-person research by showing a third-person perception as well as support for social distance. The major contribution of this study is that it found that a third-person perception can be detected when exposing subjects to a news story about protest. In addition, third-person effects do differ when participants are able to judge for themselves whether the stimulus material in question is pro social or anti social in nature.University of Delaware, Department of CommunicationM.A