Ego-Involvement and the Third Person Effect of Televised News Coverage

Abstract

Two experiments explored the interface between ego-involvement and the third person effect. In Experiment 1, 34 pro-Israeli, 34 pro-Palestinian, and 34 nonpartisan control-group subjects viewed televised news coverage of the 1982 war in Lebanon. As predicted, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian partisans believed that the news coverage would cause neutral viewers to become more unfavorable toward their side and more favorable toward their antagonists. Partisans also believed that neutral viewers would primarily recall facts that cast their side as the aggressor and their antagonists as the victim. A second experiment explored the accuracy of partisans' perceptions; participants in this study viewed the same news videotape that subjects watched in Experiment 1, and change in attitudes was assessed. The news coverage did not significantly influence subjects' attitudes toward Israel or the PLO, suggesting that involved partisans tend to exaggerate the magnitude and directional influence of mass media news coverage.