Why academia sometimes just fails

There's a communication theory called Third Person Effect, which argues that people believe the media does not influence themselves, but that it influences other people. So, the argument goes that because people are so convinced that others are influenced by media images and stories, but not themselves, obviously people are more influenced than they care to admit. Then, the literature makes a number of possible rationales behind this.

1. The human tendency to perceive the self in ways that make us look good or at least better than other people.

2. People are motivated by a need to control unpredictable life events. "By assuming that the self is not influenced by mass media, individuals can go about their days in a media-dominated world, using media, deriving gratifications and sensibly integrating media into their lives" (Perloff, 2002).

3. People are actually influenced by the media but cannot consciously acknowledge media influence.

4. Third Person Effect emphasize cognitive rather than motivational mechanisms. (other people can be persuaded, but not them)

5. Media schemas. (Passive sheep view of audience behavior)

6. People lack access to their own mental processes.

So, all these sound great, right? Well, what if I was to put forth a possibility that shows why NONE of them may be correct? What if I was to put forth a possibility that shows that the third person effect doesn't actually exist?

Well, it's easy. What if every person who is surveyed about media just doesn't understand what other people do or know? In other words, what if a survey person asks me about other people, and I just make assumptions based on not actually knowing. I assume that media influences other people, but even though I say it doesn't affect me, I assume it has to affect others. Well, what if I'm wrong? What if there's NO effect on third persons? What if the real "effect" is that people have no clue how media affects other people? In other words, if someone asks me if media affects me, I say no, it does not. If I'm asked if it affects others, instead of saying, well, it must, I guess, I say, "How am I supposed to know? If it doesn't affect me, it probably doesn't affect anyone else either."

Therefore, third person effect goes away completely. Instead, what we have is a media bias that believes that it has more of an effect than it does. What we really have is media driving media to convince itself that it's really the driving force behind the opinions of people when in reality, what is probably happening is that more and more people are just being exposed to this false information and accepting it because the media serves as an information depot, and not the driving force.

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