The third person effect is a theory from the media studies field, which refers to the thought that the media has an impact
on the global public, but not on me (The third person is
affected, but I''m not). In his research, Davison asked journalists about the impact of editing decisions in newspapers. Most of them answered that people like them, who knows the media and work in the field, are not affected, but the simple people are extremely affected.
Davison performed several
researches about the subject. In his researches, he asked people about the measure of the media''s impact in a specific matter (for example advertisements) on them and on the public. Altogether, his researches show that people actually think that the media affect the general society more than it affects them. The fact that many people think in this particularly way is a paradox.
We can see proofs for the third person theory in our everyday life. For example, if we invest in a certain company, and we find negative publication about it in the news, we will assume that these publications will make other investors to sell their shares. In order to cope with the publication''s influence on the other investors, we will try to sell our shares before them, so we won''t lose money. It seems that we are not affected by those publications, but we actually are.
Another example: if it is published that a shortage of rice is coming (or of any other commodity), we will assume that everyone will buy rice as soon and as much as they can before there will be no rice left. According to this assumption we will go to buy rice as soon as we can- before everyone else will. The problem is that the third person effect doesn''t affect only us- it affects almost everyone. Everyone will buy rice as soon as they can, so there will be no rice left.