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The Effects of Media Effects: Third-Person Effects, the Influence of Presumed Media Influence, and Evaluations of Media Companies

Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

Prior research in the third-person effects domain has shown that people who believe in harmful media effects are more willing to engage in preventive or accommodative strategies, such as censorship. This research extends that supposition by testing a thus-far unstudied strategy: negative evaluations of media companies. Results show that an overall belief in harmful media effects is connected to negative evaluations of the media companies potentially responsible for those effects. The third-person perceptual gap is not related to these negative evaluations of media companies, suggesting important differences between third-person effects research and influence of presumed media influence research.