Page Center funding research into “third-person effect” and media censorship

Following the recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, a number of interest groups and media outlets were willing to blame violent video games for the shooter’s mentality, despite very limited evidence that he played violent video games. In fact, similar arguments have often cropped up after many highly publicized acts of violence. People are eager to blame media effects for real-world violence.

In part, this phenomenon can be explained by a theory called third-person effects. Briefly, the third-person effects hypothesis predicts that people are likely to assume that other people are more affected by media than they are themselves. For example, a person may watch a scary movie, not be scared by it, but argue that other people in the theater were certainly frightened.

One of the common outcomes of this belief in media effects is a willingness to censor media presumed to be harmful. People affected by the third-person effect will assume that particular media fare is harmful to others, and as a result, they will try to protect those vulnerable others by eliminating the offending media. This is likely the phenomenon that motivated historical book burnings and the more recent equivalent, around violent video games.

Media companies clearly have a vested interest in any debates that may result in censorship, such as the ongoing debate over media violence sparked by the Sandy Hook shootings. Presumably, people who believe in harmful effects of media on others and are willing to censor that media because of those effects will have negative perceptions of media companies. In research funded by the Arthur W. Page Center, I plan to investigate these relationships between belief in third-person effects, willingness to censor media, and perceptions of media company reputations.

If media companies are believed, through the third-person effect, to affect the public negatively, there are two potential options for eliminating this belief: (1) stop creating harmful media or (2) take steps to counteract this belief.

The first option, while appealing on its face, is impractical for a couple reasons. Market forces (public demand, competition, etc.) may prevent major media companies from straying too far from the common themes and images of modern media, which are often violent, over-sexualized, etc. Perhaps more difficult is the obstacle of determining what media is harmful and should be avoided.

Decades of media effects research have led to, at best, ambiguous results about harmful effects of media, with recent research suggesting no conclusive linkage between consumption of media violence and real-world acts of violence. Moreover, the definition of “harmful” is necessarily subjective. Quentin Tarantino, for example, might argue that his ultra-violent movies are not harmful, but Neil Postman has famously argued that all television is inherently harmful. Those are two extreme positions, but the difference between them suggests that simply eliminating harmful media may not be so simple.

Instead of eliminating any media that might possibly be harmful, media companies may counteract potentially harmful media effects and the often unreasonable perceptions that those companies are causing those effects. In my research, I am hypothesizing that media companies can do this through corporate social responsibility (CSR). For example, media companies might responsibly engage in the debate surrounding media effects by carefully evaluating the existing evidence, or better yet, by supporting the further collection of the evidence. Similarly, media companies might sponsor media literacy programs that could prevent harmful effects by providing the public with the skills necessary to consume and understand media in healthy, responsible ways.

If, as I suspect, media companies are being blamed for media effects – due to the third-person effect – then their corporate reputations are likely at stake. Efforts to protect those reputations, like appropriate CSR initiatives, may be necessary to counteract the biases against media companies that are created by the third-person effect.