<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> This article focuses on people’s beliefs about how other people’s political attitudes are shaped and examines how the hypothesis of a third-person effect is related to non-mediated sources of information such as personal experience and interpersonal communication. Also presented are results on the perceived impact of different media such as television, newspapers and political advertising. A representative sample of the Swedish population answered a national survey during the period November - December 2001, and the results show general support for a third-person effect. Mediated information sources and interpersonal communication are believed to influence others more than oneself. Personal experience, on the other hand, is believed to be more important for oneself than for other people, and first-person effects were found among people with a high level of education or a strong political interest. Thus, one conclusion is that people tend to believe their own picture of politics is more dependent on personal experience and that others’ political attitudes are more dependent on mass media or people in their social environment.</p></abstract>

This article focuses on people’s beliefs about how other people’s political attitudes are shaped and examines how the hypothesis of a third-person effect is related to non-mediated sources of information such as personal experience and interpersonal communication. Also presented are results on the perceived impact of different media such as television, newspapers and political advertising. A representative sample of the Swedish population answered a national survey during the period November - December 2001, and the results show general support for a third-person effect. Mediated information sources and interpersonal communication are believed to influence others more than oneself. Personal experience, on the other hand, is believed to be more important for oneself than for other people, and first-person effects were found among people with a high level of education or a strong political interest. Thus, one conclusion is that people tend to believe their own picture of politics is more dependent on personal experience and that others’ political attitudes are more dependent on mass media or people in their social environment.

The Third-Person Effect

Senior Lecturer, Ph.D, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Göteborg University, SE-405 30 Göteborg,

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"subtitle":"Only a Media Perception?","article-title":"The Third-Person Effect"}

This article focuses on people’s beliefs about how other people’s political attitudes are shaped and examines how the hypothesis of a third-person effect is...

The Third-Person Effect

Publié en ligne: 14 févr. 2017

Pages: 81 - 94

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0248

Mots clés
third-person effect, political communication

© by Bengt Johansson

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

The Third-Person Effect

Publié en ligne: 14 févr. 2017

Pages: 81 - 94

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2017-0248

Mots clésthird-person effect, political communication

© by Bengt Johansson

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Mots clés
third-person effect, political communication