Third-person effect on contentious news in a cross-border setting

Abstract

Adopting a multi-stage cluster sampling in Mainland China and Hong Kong, the present study examined the third-person effect (TPE) of a contentious news topic: the milk powder purchase quota policy in Hong Kong. Contentious news refers to the same news topic that can be interpreted in opposite ways by people from different geographic regions, which has not been fully studied by previous TPE literature. Results confirmed the robustness of third-person effect in the context of contentious news. Citizenship is found to be an important moderator in the relationship between social desirability and third-person perceptual gaps. Unlike previous literature, attitude toward regulation is a new and significant predictor of restrictive and promotional behavioral consequences, which is worthy of being examined by future scholars. Apart from contributing to the TPE literature, this study also obtained a policy value by offering empirical implications to cross-border communication.