Chinese Mass Media Information Flow In The Third Person Effect Research

Davison proposed in 1983 the famous Third Person Effect(TPE)hypothesis which is the tendency for people to perceive that others are more influenced by the media than they are themselves. It is concluded that the third-person effect is a reliable and persistent phenomenon that have been observed in different countries by different researchers. It is illustrated by evidence of First Person Effects(FPE)in response to socially desirable messages.While Third-Person Effect research has flourished over the past decade overseas, however, domestic research of TPE is still in its early stage. The current research consists of theory introduction, empirical test and research expansion.The present research reviewed and summarized the development of TPE systematically, and revealed the relationship between relative variables and TPE and the relationship between the perception of TPE and the consequence of the TPE perceptions. The present research also reviewed the mechanisms at work in the TPE. It especially focuses on the reverse TPE, that is, the First Person Effect(FPE)which is the tendency for people to perceive that they are more influenced by the media than others.Except for the review and synthesis of the published articles, this study also did three local researches under the framework of TPE.Study one(N=321, Simple Sampling)used the negative messages as the media content to test the classic TPE. It is concluded that TPE emerged in local context under the framework of TPE. There is significant relationship between the perception of TPE and the salience of message, self-esteem and the cultural difference. The salience of message is the powerful variable in predicting the consequence of TPE. Finally, Study one suggested that the direction of local research is to find new variables and new topics.Study two(N=1772, Shanghai residents aged from 18-35,Stratified Systematic Sampling)used the new content on the Internet as the research content to test the hypothesis of TPE under the context of new media, it is concluded that there is similarity between the research result of new media and the findings of the traditional media. It is the first time for Chinese local researcher to find the occurrence of TPE in the context of new media. Finally, study two suggested that the future direction of local research is to choose more topics such as preposition of the audience and the vividness of message and to test the TPE in new contexts such as Weblog and new Internet video contents.Study three(N=93, Experimental Method)found the occurrence of FPE and the relationship between the FPE and the other variables in a experimental-analogical method for the first time in Chinese local research context, and the robust existence of TPE in the experimental-analogical method. Research also found that the significant relationship between the local research variable, the only child of the family, and the FPE. However, there is no relationship between the TPE and the local variable. The present study offered the answer of the accuracy of the quantitative data, the research result indicated that the quantitative data of survey apparently higher than the findings of experiment.The present study generalized the research results of the three local studies in the last part, and applied the TPE theory into practice to explain the practical communication phenomena. Seven directions for future research are articulated.