Ven-hwei Lo

Staying connected while on the move Cell phone use and social connectedness

As people integrate use of the cell phone into their lives, do they view it as just an update of the fixed telephone or assign it special values? This study explores that question in the framework of gratifications sought and their relationship both to differential cell phone use and to social connectedness. Based on a survey of Taiwanese college students, we found that the cell phone supplements the fixed telephone as a means of strengthening users’ family bonds, expanding their psychological neighborhoods, and facilitating symbolic proximity to the people they call. Thus, the cell phone has evolved from a luxury for businesspeople into an important facilitator of many users’ social relationships. For the poorly connected socially, the cell phone offers a unique advantage: it confers instant membership in a community. Finally, gender was found to mediate how users exploit the cell phone to maintain social ties.

Exposure to Internet Pornography and Taiwanese Adolescents' Sexual Attitudes and Behavior

This study examines use of Internet pornography by adolescents in Taiwan and the relationships between exposure to Internet pornography and the sexual attitudes and behavior of surveyed teens. Results show that about 38% of the sample had some exposure to Internet pornography. Further, this exposure was associated with greater acceptance of sexual permissiveness and the greater likelihood of engaging in sexually permissive behavior. Most important, this exposure showed sustained relationships with sexually permissive attitudes and behavior when it was examined simultaneously with exposure to traditional pornography, general media use, and demographics.

Third-Person Effect, Gender, and Pornography on the lnternet

This study examined the role of gender in the third-person effect in the context of Internet pornography. The results indicate that most respondents believe Internet pornography has a greater negative influence on others than on themselves. Female respondents tend to perceive greater negative effects of Internet pornography on other males than on other females, and they are readier to support restrictions of Internet pornography. Finally, the magnitude of perceptual bias appears an unreliable predictor of support for media restriction, which may help explain the mixed results in previous studies. This novel gender-differential approach strengthens the growing literature on the third-person effect.

Reconsidering the Relationship Between the Third-Person Perception and Optimistic Bias:

Studies disagree as to whether an optimistic bias can account for the commonly observed third-person perceptions. This study aims to help clarify the relationship between third-person perceptions and biased optimism in the context of assessing the impact of the news about bird flu outbreaks in Taiwan. Using a random sample of 1,107 college students, third-person perception and optimistic bias were found to be robust but unrelated. Although both optimistic bias and third-person effect are psychological perceptual judgments that can be attributed to self-serving motivation, the third-person perception is a biased interpretation of media influence, while biased optimistic perceptions are a social psychological mechanism of bolstering self-esteem in self-other comparisons regarding a risk.

Third-Person Effects of Health News Exploring the Relationships Among Media Exposure, Presumed Media Influence, and Behavioral Intentions

This study expands third-person effect research to health news coverage. It examines the perceptual and behavioral components of third-person effects. Moderator variables of third-person effects—knowledge and exposure to health news—are also examined. Using data from a survey of public opinion about the coverage of avian flu involving a probability sample of 1,107 college students in Taiwan, findings show that respondents tend to think the influence of avian flu news on others is greater than on themselves. Furthermore, exposure to avian flu news was found to narrow the self—other perceptual gap. Regarding the linkages between the third-person perception of avian news and behavioral responses to the perception, findings show that perceived effects of avian flu news on the self resulted in taking action—seeking information about avian flu and seeking out Tamiflu. However, findings further show that the third-person perception acted like a brake on taking such action.

Ethical Attitudes and Perceived Practice: A Comparative Study of Journalists in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan

This is a comparative survey study of journalists’ attitudes and perceptions concerning various types of conflicts of interest in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Journalists in all three regions are found to be receptive to freebies in the form of small gifts, meals and trips. However, they almost unanimously agree that monetary benefits from news sources are unacceptable. Compared with freebies, moonlighting seems to be a less serious problem in the three regions. Most journalists think that their colleagues do not commonly practice moonlighting. The journalists strongly agree that they should not solicit advertising on behalf of their employer or work for public relations firms or the government as a second job. With regard to self-censorship, journalists in the three regions unanimously agreed that softening negative coverage of key advertisers was unethical. However, there was considerable disagreement about softening negative coverage of government. The results also show that there is in general a discrepancy between the journalists’ value orientations and perceived reality, especially in Mainland China and Taiwan.

The third-person effects of political attack ads in the 2004 U.S. presidential election

This study examines the indirect effects of extensive negative political attack ads in the 2004 presidential election from a third-person effects perspective. Results of a survey using a probability sample of 496 college students indicate that these students believe attack ads harm others more than themselves. Moreover, the respondents tended to perceive attack ads in traditional media to have a greater harmful effect on self and others than attack ads on the Internet. Contingent factors that account for the magnitude of third-person effects include social distance and knowledge. Further, exposure to attack ads was found to be the strongest predictor of perceived harms of such ads on self and others, but only perceived harm on others is a significant predictor of support for restrictions on attack ads. The study contributes to research on the third-person effect by testing perceived harms of attack ads on self and others separately on likelihood to support restrictions.

The Third-person Effect of Tainted Food Product Recall News: Examining the Role of Credibility, Attention, and Elaboration for College Students in Taiwan

This study examines third-person effect of news of tainted food product recalls on oneself relative to others. The survey (N = 1,213) found that respondents tended to think the influence of the news on others was greater than on themselves (the study used reactions to a milk powder scandal in China). Message credibility and attention to and elaboration of the recall news were found to reduce the third-person perceptual gap. Furthermore, the perceived effect of news on oneself, not on others, was positively associated with the behavioral intention of information-seeking and taking protective action.

Examining the Perceptual Gap and Behavioral Intention in the Perceived Effects of Polling News in the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Election

This study examines the impact of polling news in the 2008 Taiwan presidential election from a third-person effect perspective. Results of a survey using a random sample of 1,097 respondents indicate that they perceived news about election polls to have a greater effect on others than themselves, regardless of whether the effects were perceived as negative or positive. Furthermore, findings show that attention to election polling news enhanced the perceived positive effects on self and others. Findings also point to a link between poll credibility and perceived effects on self and others. The less credible elections polls are perceived, the larger is the self—other perceptual gap. Finally, concern about the negative effects of election polling news on others is found to motivate respondents to consider protective behavior. However, findings show that perceived positive effects of such news on self resulted in intention to engage in campaign discourse. Theoretical implications of the findings to advance the third-person effect research are discussed.

Predicting mobile news use among college students: The role of press freedom in four Asian cities:

This study explores how mobile phone-savvy Asian college students use mobile news, especially news posted on mobile-accessible Twitter-like microblogs, to stay informed about current events. Our survey of more than 3500 college students in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan asks why young people turn to mobile phones for news and how the news-getting behavior is related to the level of press freedom in their respective societies. The results show that using mobile phones to read news and follow news posts on mobile-accessible microblogs is rapidly on the rise and significant differences among respondents in the four cities exist; press freedom was found to be negatively related to reading and following news via mobile phones. Finally, the study discusses the role of press freedom in accounting for these societal-level differences.