Third Person Effect

Have you ever sent a text and immediately thought to yourself that the person on the other end was going to take the words out of context, well there is actually a theory behind that. The Third Person Effect predicts that people tend to view messages as having more meaning to others than to themselves. With this being said most people tend to over analyze what they say to people since they do not want them to overthink the meaning of their messages. The Third Person Effect also changes how people view mass communication, again people feel that others are affected by the messages of the media greater than themselves. For example, when a story comes on the news channel talking about a hike in college tuition, people feel that the

higher fees do not hurt them as much as others. Even if they are in the exact same financial situation they still feel they are more capable of handling it because they want to make themselves feel financially secured. These personal feelings can also stem from feelings of higher self esteem since you can feel you are able to keep yourself from falling into the influence of the media messages. In fact most Third person effects happen because they want to feel that they are not falling into the crowd and following them blindly.

There is a another Effect called The First Person Effect where the person feels like they themselves receive a greater message from the media than others. This theory isn’t as common as Third person effect since it only stems from more informative media. Media such as public service announcements or instructional videos lend themselves to this theory by showing the person a set of instructions that make the user feel a more personal connection with the content

Keywords: Third Person Effect, First Person Effect, Media, Effects