First- and third-person perceptions in health communication by the Hong Kong media

Abstract

Since health-related messages are in every kind of media that one might use in a typical day, it has become clearer that the media indeed shapes individuals’ health-related beliefs and behaviors. Negative health communication is a major area of interest within the study of the third-person effect (TPE). In recent years, interest has been increasing in the first-person effect (FPE) in positive health communication. Hitherto, there has been little discussion about the segmentation of potential audiences by their attitudes toward positive health information. Moreover, there is no relevant research to date in Hong Kong.

This thesis discusses the perceptual component of both FPE and TPE, namely first-person perception (FPP) and third-person perception (TPP) respectively. It explores which factors can affect the perceived media influence from both a psychometric and empirical perspective. It aims to investigate the self-other perceptual impact disparity as shown through the FPP and TPP toward health information released by the government and corresponding commercial adverts among local college students from different disciplines. Structural equation modeling is used to conceptually analyze different health topics.

Message attributes is found to be the only factor that always influences self-other perceptual impact disparities toward all adverts and that applies to all the respondents despite their different health-related knowledge. Message attributes is always positively correlated with perceptual impact on self. However, the relationships of message attributes and perceptual impact on other students are varied which depend on different health topic. Respondents show FPP from desirable adverts and TPP toward undesirable adverts.

Although other factors are only found to affect the perceptual impact on self and others toward desirable adverts, they do not cause a significant difference in FPP or TPP. Females and part-time Nursing students with health-related work experience are more likely to perceive positive influence on both self and other students from desirable adverts. Frequently accessing non-official health-oriented websites also leads to more positive perceptual impact on self and others.

No perceptual impact difference is seen between Medicine and Dentistry students who are trained with professional health education and other students from non-clinical disciplines. Comparison within Medicine and Dentistry students indicates that senior students who acquire more professional health-related knowledge show either stronger TPP or weaker FPP. However, in terms of topic teeth care, Dentistry freshmen always perceive stronger FPP than other non-dental students, which may be because their perceived dental knowledge is undervalued.

No clear pattern between health condition and perceptual impact towards desirable adverts can be found. No factor can be found that affects the perceptual impact toward undesirable health-related adverts either.

This is the first study to undertake a comparison among different disciplines of college students, and the findings make an important contribution to the study of positive health communication in a non-Western population. Due to practical constraints, the study topics of this research all evoke mild responses, and the perceived media influence may therefore not be as strong as that of other more intense issues.