Final Project – OutlineBelow is an outline template that y.docx

Final Project – Outline
Below is an outline template that you will use to organize your
final paper. Anything listed in RED should be changed to reflect
your specific topic and information. Keep in mind – outlines are
to be brief bullet points as you will expand on these points for
the paper. This is worth 7 points of your overall final project.
The outline is due on Friday, November 16th, 2018 by 11:55
PM, submitted to Blackboard.
Outline Rubric:
Outline contains the topic name, relationship to sociology, topic
sentence 1 point
Outline contains 2 points of background information regarding
the topic 1 point
Outline contains 3 areas of exploration of the topic for the
written paper 1 point
Outline contains 3 sociological theories to be related to the
topic 1 points
Outline contains 2 points on why the topic is important 1 point
Outline contains reason why the topic should be studied 1 point
Outline contains 3 scholarly academic journal references 1 point
Total 7 points
Outline:
I. Introduction
a. What is the topic?
· Media influence on society.
· How can the media impacts society.
b. Topic’s relationship to sociology.
Since sociology is the study of social behavior and human
group. Media influence society behavior and this topic can
reveal how that can be done.

c. Your topic sentence
In this advanced technological age, media has become part of
society’s daily routine. This routine can impact people’s
thoughts and behaviors in many ways.
d. List of theories being applied.
· Media influences society.
· Media create stereotypes or certain images on certain group of
people.
· Media is important in affecting society in creating good or
bad habits.
II. Body of Analysis
a. Definition of topic.
“Media influence on Society” This topic explains what might
the effects that can media influence towards society be.
b. Provide at least 2 brief points of background information
regarding your topic
i. Background information point 1
· Media such as TV or Radio news are structured to keep people
informed of local and worldwide important news and events.
ii. Background information point 2
· Other types of media like TV shows and movies have
influence on society which will be explained in the final
project.
c. Provide at least 3 components of the topic you will be
discussing, below
i. Component 1 / The effects of media effects.
ii. Component 2 / Media creating stereotype for certain groups
of people.
iii. Component 3 / How media can develop new habits.
d. Theoretical Background (at least 3 theories should be used)
i. Theory 1: Interactionist.
ii. Theory 2: Socialization.
iii. Theory 3: Conflict.
III. Conclusion
a. At least 2 brief points of why this topic is important
i. Point 1. To make the most positive outcome from this

advanced age and the use of media, there should be actions
taken and lessons taught.
ii. Point 2. society should be educated on what are the pros,
cons and impacts from using today’s technology such as media.
b. At least one brief point regarding the recommendation
i. Recommendation 1. Media is very important because it can be
misused and misleading intentionally or unintentionally to a lot
of people by the way it’s presented.
IV. Reference Page
a. Academic Journal 1 reference:
Sherrick, B. (2016). The Effects of Media Effects: Third-
Person Effects, the Influence of Presumed Media Influence, and
Evaluations of Media Companies. Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly, 93(4), 906–922.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016637108
b. Academic Journal 2 reference
Heatherton, T. F., & Sargent, J. D. (2009). Does Watching
Smoking in Movies Promote Teenage Smoking? Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 18(2), 63–67.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01610.x
c. Academic Journal 3 reference
Park, S.-Y. (2005). The Influence of Presumed Media
Influence on Women’s Desire to Be Thin. Communication
Research, 32(5), 594–614.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650205279350
d. A list of any additional resources, to date.
Schaefer, R.T., (2019). Sociology matters. 7th edition. New
York, NY: McGraw- Hill.
*** Perhaps, look at interactionist theory, socialization, conflict
theory, labeling theory. Interactionist might relate
to media effects, socialization might relate to new habit

development, and conflict and labeling theories might relate to
stereotyping. These are just recommendations, you do not have
to take these specific theories, but you will want to include 3
theories in your paper.
Theories.
Conflict: Assumes social behavior is best understood in terms of
conflict or tension between competing groups.
Interactionist: Nonverbal communications that generalize
everyday forms of social interactions to understand society as a
whole.
10.1177/0093650205279350COMMUNICATION RESEARCH •
October 2005Park • Presumed Media Influence
SUNG-YEON PARK
The Influence of Presumed Media
Influence on Women’s Desire to Be Thin
This study investigated the effect of magazine use on the desire
to be thin
within the theoretical framework of presumed influence.
Structural equation
modeling supported the hypothesis that reading beauty and
fashion maga-
zines increased the drive for thinness both directly and
indirectly. The indirect

pathway included the perceived prevalence of the thin ideal in
mass media,
the presumed influence of the thin ideal on others, and the
perceived influence
of the thin ideal on self. Social pressure to be thin may be based
both on reality
and the presumption of influence on others. Results suggest
potential
strategies for intervention.
Keywords: body image; eating disorders; presumed media
influence
Body discontent and problematic attitudes toward eating are
facets of a sin-
gle issue that has gained increasing attention in our society
during recent
decades. As many as 10 million women and 1 million men are
estimated to
suffer from anorexia nervosa, and an additional 25 million
people are affected
by bulimia nervosa (Shisslak, Crago, & Estes, 1995). Prevalence
among
young women, who have traditionally been considered at the
highest risk for
these disorders, is estimated at 15% (Levchuck, Kosek, &
Drohan, 2000).
Body image disturbances also appear to start at a young age. In
fact, in one
study, 40% of 6-year-old girls reported wishing that they were
thinner. And
more often than not, these negative body images were
associated with strict
dieting, a potential precursor to serious eating disorders
(Muller, 1998).

As worrisome as these statistics are, there have also been
continuous
efforts to investigate the causes of body image disturbances and
eating disor-
ders. Specific biological traits, psychological characteristics,
and family
dynamics have all been implicated as contributory factors to
eating disorders
594
COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Vol. 32 No. 5, October 2005
594-614
DOI: 10.1177/0093650205279350
© 2005 Sage Publications
(Heinberg, 1996; White, 1992). However, studies using various
methods,
including the analyses of patient records (Garner & Garfinkel,
1980; Striegel-
Moore, McAvay, & Rodin, 1986), historical analyses (Casper,
1983), and cross-
cultural comparisons (Gunewardene, Huon, & Zheng, 2001;
McCarthy, 1990;
Nassar, 1988), have consistently identified the sociocultural
emphasis on
thinness as the likely primary cause of the development of these
disorders.
In response to these clinical findings and the growing public
suspicion
that mass media are a main contributor to this problem, social
scientists have
investigated the connection between thin, idealized images and

eating disor-
der symptomatology (e.g., Bissell & Zhou, 2004; Botta, 1999,
2000; Cusumano
& Thompson, 1997; Grogan, Williams, & Conner, 1996;
Harrison, 1997,
2000a, 2000b; Harrison & Cantor, 1997; Harrison &
Fredrickson, 2003;
Heinberg & Thompson, 1995; Irving, 1990; Levine, Smolak, &
Hayden, 1994;
Myers & Biocca, 1992; Posavac, Posavac, & Posavac, 1998;
Stice, Schupak-
Neuberg, Shaw, & Stein, 1994; Stice & Shaw, 1994; J. K.
Thompson &
Heinberg, 1999; Thomsen, 2002). Previous studies employing
diverse theo-
ries and methods have increased our understanding of the
effects of mass
media on a wide range of relevant psychological responses
including negative
affect, weight concerns, distorted perceptions of body parts, and
self-esteem
and on more comprehensive measures of eating disorder
symptoms. At the
same time, however, these studies have used a limited definition
of media
effects in which individuals react to media messages in social
isolation.
Indeed these effects appear to be primarily of an individual
nature. Yet many
scholars insist that the social context of media use should also
be integrated
into research (Bishop, 2000; Stice & Shaw, 1994).
Social influence to conform to a thin ideal can originate from a
wide range
of relationships ranging from family, friends, and peers to

society as a whole
(Levine et al., 1994; Taylor et al., 1998). Within social
contexts, pressure to be
thin can be explicitly communicated. Alternatively, this
pressure can also
merely be inferred, regardless of its actual existence. This
investigation aims
to explore a previously neglected part of this process by
examining the influ-
ence of media on women through their perceptions of media
effects on others.
The Effects of Presumed Media Influence
In the field of mass communication, the concept of presumed
media influence
on others is hardly new. In fact, early in the history of modern
mass media,
people were aware that the projected opinions of others could
influence an
individual’s decision-making process. For example, the
bandwagon effect, a
long-standing strategy of propagandists, operates by convincing
people that
595
Park • Presumed Media Influence
many important others are adopting a certain position and that
therefore
they must follow (Lee & Lee, 1939). Several decades later,
Noelle-Neumann
(1974) proposed a spiral of silence theory, which states that

one’s perception
of public opinion, as reflected in mass media, will influence the
likelihood that
he or she will express his or her opinion.
The third-person effect is based on a similar perspective
regarding public
opinion—in this case that people tend to perceive greater
influence of mass
media on others than on themselves. Recently, a generalized
version of the
third-person effect was proposed. Founded on an extensive line
of research on
this effect, Gunther and Storey (2003) developed a more
comprehensive
model of indirect media effects. This model, termed the
influence of presumed
influence, is based on the idea that people will perceive some
influence of
communication on others and as a result will change their own
attitudes or
behaviors accordingly.
The more inclusive nature of this model is illustrated by its two
fundamen-
tal departures from the original conceptualization of the third-
person effect.
First, whereas the third-person effect requires the a priori
identification of
the desirability of perceived influence to make any theoretical
predictions,
the new model omits this restriction. Messages with either
positive or nega-
tive presumed influence can be used, and their effects on either
intended or
unintended audiences can be examined, depending on the

researcher’s inter-
ests. Second, because Gunther and Storey (2003) declared that
the perceived
effect on self is not an integral part of this model, a comparison
between the
perceived effects on self and others is no longer an essential
component of
theory testing.
Gunther and Storey (2003) tested this broader model of indirect
effects in
the context of a Nepalese radio campaign aimed at health
workers in clinics.
This campaign used a drama format and was intended to
improve the inter-
personal communication, counseling skills, and technical
knowledge of
health workers. The model was tested by assessing the effects of
the cam-
paign on unintended audiences—the general Nepalese
population—via their
perceptions of the influence of the radio program on clinic
health workers. In
general, results supported the indirect effects model. Members
of the public
exposed to the radio campaign perceived that health workers
would be influ-
enced by the campaign, and in turn this presumed influence
produced a more
positive image of health workers that improved the interactions
between the
public and health workers. As expected, inclusion of the direct
path linking
public exposure to the radio campaign and health worker image
had little
influence on the magnitude of this indirect effect.

596
COMMUNICATION RESEARCH • October 2005
Media, Others, and Me: The Triangle of Influence
Exploration of the relationship between disturbed body image,
which often
results in disordered eating, and mass media began with the
examination of
circumstantial evidence. Content analyses revealed that the size
of women
appearing in virtually all media outlets has decreased
continuously since the
1960s. And this tendency became more prominent after the
1970s, when the
number of reported cases of eating disorders exploded (Garner,
Garfinkel,
Schwartz, & Thompson, 1980; Kaufman, 1980; Mazur, 1986;
Silverstein,
Perdue, Peterson, & Kelly, 1986).
Content analyses were followed by surveys and experiments that
exam-
ined the relationship between mass media exposure and
disordered self-
perceptions and body perceptions. Since the early 1990s, a
substantial
amount of research has been conducted on this topic.
Experimental studies
have typically involved the manipulation of exposure to media
stimuli and
subsequent measurements of self-perceptions and body

perceptions and atti-
tudes toward eating. Surveys have found associations between
participants’
media use and similar outcomes. Using this basic model,
researchers have
found that exposure to the thin ideal increases the risk of body
image distur-
bances and eating disorders, as measured by self-esteem, weight
satisfaction
(Irving, 1990), body esteem (Grogan et al., 1996), body
dissatisfaction, drive
for thinness, attitude toward eating (Harrison & Cantor, 1997),
concerns
about body shape (Thomsen, 2002), self-objectification
(Harrison &
Fredrickson, 2003), and symptoms of anorexia and bulimia
(Bissell & Zhou,
2004).
These studies established a relationship between media use and
various
eating disorder symptoms, but there is also extensive
psychological and edu-
cational research emphasizing the importance of other people in
shaping
women’s body images and eating attitudes. Family members,
especially par-
ents, may be an early and influential source of pressure to be
thin. Parents
exceedingly conscious of their own weight are sometimes
similarly concerned
with keeping their daughters in “perfect” shape (Byely,
Archibald, Graber, &
Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Vincent & McCabe, 2000). Also, a
mother’s concern with
thinness is a significant predictor of weight concerns for girls in

Grades 4 to 8
(Levine et al., 1994; Taylor et al., 1998).
At the same time, the influence of peers may be equivalent to or
stronger
than that of family members. For example, in one study the
combined influ-
ence of family and peers was the strongest determinant of
bulimic tendencies
in high school girls with various personality and social risk
factors (Pike,
1995). And during college years, the influence of family
members seems to
597
subside, whereas the influence of peers remains steady
(Striegel-Moore et al.,
1986).
If we combine the results from research on media effects and
family and
peer influence, we can be reasonably certain that both mass
media and the
people in one’s immediate social environment are crucial
elements in individ-
uals’ body images and attitudes toward eating. Also, because
many previous
studies have shown that mass media exposure can be nearly
ubiquitously
harmful to young women, we can safely assume that the actual
influence of

mass media on individuals and their peers is reasonably
consistent. What is
missing here is a body of research investigating how women are
affected by
their perceptions of how others are influenced by the media.
Still, three studies shed some light on women’s perceptions of
the influ-
ence of the thin ideal on others. In one study that examined the
third-person
effect, female college students estimated that other women
would be more
influenced by idealized images than they expected themselves to
be. When
self-esteem was introduced as an individual characteristic
mediating the
third-person perception, the difference in perceived influence
was more pro-
nounced in the high self-esteem group than in the low self-
esteem group.
Compared with their low self-esteem counterparts, people with
high self-
esteem reported lower levels of perceived influence on both
themselves and
others because of exposure to thin images (David & Johnson,
1998).
Other research, in which in-depth interviews were conducted
with high
school girls, found that presumed media influence can also have
deleterious
effects. In this study, although most participants seemed
capable of criticiz-
ing images in teen magazines for their unrealistic beauty and
thinness, they
also believed that their criticism was not widely shared by other

women and
men. Consequently, they still engaged in social comparison
processes that
made them feel abnormal and inferior relative to media images
(Milkie,
1999). Results of a recent survey appear to illustrate this
process more
clearly. In this study, magazine reading increased college
women’s beliefs
that men expect women to be thin, which in turn increased their
level of con-
cern about body shape (Thomsen, 2002).
Taken together, these studies support the notion that mass
media affects
women’s attitudes toward their bodies and toward eating via
presumptions
about mass media’s influence on other women and men. In
addition, Milkie
(1999) described the nature of presumed media influence as
unrelenting. In
her study, irrespective of whether or not an individual
personally accepted
the thin ideal, everyone still felt pressured to conform to it if
they perceived
the thin ideal to be a norm accepted by others.
598
Construction of a Path Model
Based on this review, a model of relevant media effects was

proposed. The
first independent variable chosen was an objective measure of
mass media
use. Beauty and fashion magazine reading was selected from
among the
many possible types of media use because such exposure
appears to be a pri-
mary source of idealized thin images and a cause of unhealthy
body images
and attitudes toward eating (Harrison & Cantor, 1997; Thomsen,
McCoy,
Gustafson, & Williams, 2002).
Women’s desire to be thin was selected as the outcome variable.
A variety
of measures of eating disorder symptomatology have been used
in previous
research, no doubt because the issue of thinness is intertwined
with other
appearance-related issues, gender issues, and even broader
social issues.
Such measures have included a wide range of attitudes toward
one’s body,
one’s appearance, and one’s self as a whole. However, to
minimize conceptual
complications, this investigation focused solely on the desire to
be thin.
In addition to a proposed direct path between magazine use and
the desire
to be thin, this research model also integrated pathways for
indirect influ-
ence. In a series of studies investigating the persuasive press
inference, Gun-
ther (1998; Gunther & Christen, 1999, 2002) proposed a
presumed influence

process comprised of a series of steps. These steps included (a)
attention to
mass media and the formation of impressions about its content,
(b) an
assumption of representativeness for that particular content
(extrapolation),
(c) an assumption that such content has broad reach, and (d) the
presumption
that the content will influence the opinions and attitudes of
others (Gunther
& Storey, 2003). Because the model is still in the conceptual
stage and has not
been empirically tested, only the second and fourth steps—the
perceived
prevalence of the thin ideal in mass media and the presumed
influence of the
thin ideal on others—were adopted as potential intervening
variables. Also,
although previous studies have not examined whether or not
presumed influ-
ence on other women and presumed influence on men produce
different
effects, a distinction between the two was considered to be a
more careful and
appropriate approach to this gender-specific problem.
Perceived influence on self was also included as a third
intervening vari-
able. The previous finding that women felt pressure to conform
to the thin
ideal because of its presumed influence on others, even when
they resisted
the media influence firsthand (Milkie, 1999), suggests the need
for a clear dis-
tinction between the perceived influence on self and the
presumed influence

on others. The final model is shown in Figure 1.
599
Hypotheses
Because the model was comprised of one independent variable,
one depend-
ent variable, and three intervening variables, the effect process
was exam-
ined in four stages that delineated the hypothesized indirect
path: Reading
beauty and fashion magazines affects the perceived prevalence
of the thin
ideal, which affects the presumed influence on others. The level
of presumed
influence on others in turn affects the presumed influence on
self, which
affects the desire to be thin. Finally, the full model, in which
direct and indi-
rect paths were integrated, was examined.
Stage 1: The Effect of Media Use on Perceived
Prevalence of the Thin Ideal
Repeated exposure to a certain phenomenon or behavior in the
media has
been shown to increase the perceived prevalence of these
occurrences in both
mass media and reality (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli,
1994). There-
fore, reading beauty and fashion magazines is expected to

increase the per-
ceived prevalence of the thin ideal in mass media.
Hypothesis 1: Reading beauty and fashion magazines increases
the per-
ceived prevalence of the thin ideal in the mass media.
600
Presumed
influence
on others
Perceived
Prevalence of
the thin ideal
Perceived
influence on
self
Beauty &
Fashion
magazine use
Desire to be thin
Figure 1. Hypothetical Paths Illustrating the Direct Effect of
Magazine Use (Dotted
Line) and the Influence of Presumed Media Influence (Solid
Lines)

Stage 2: The Effect of Perceived Prevalence
of the Thin Ideal on Presumed Influence on Others
Assuming a broad reach for media content will increase the
degree of pre-
sumed influence of that content on the opinions and attitudes of
others (Gun-
ther, 1998; Gunther & Christen, 1999, 2002).
Hypothesis 2: The perceived prevalence of the thin ideal
increases the pre-
sumed influence of the thin ideal on others.
Stage 3: The Effect of Presumed Influence
on Others on Perceived Influence on Self
David and Johnson (1998) reported that, compared with their
low self-esteem
counterparts, female college students with a high amount of
self-esteem esti-
mated the effects of thin images to be considerably lower on
both themselves
and other women. This finding suggests that women who
estimate a strong
influence of the thin ideal on others may also feel that they are
heavily influ-
enced, whereas women who estimate a weak influence of the
thin ideal on
others estimate the influence on themselves to be relatively
small.
Hypothesis 3: The presumed influence of the thin ideal on
others increases

the perceived influence of the thin ideal on self.
Stage 4: The Effect of Perceived Influence
on Self on Desire to be Thin
The psychological process that includes the perceived
prevalence of the thin
ideal, the presumed influence of the thin ideal on others, and the
perceived in-
fluence on self is likely to ultimately affect the desire to be
thin.
Hypothesis 4: The perceived influence of the thin ideal on self
increases the
desire to be thin.
Full Model
The indirect effect of magazine use on the desire to be thin via
presumed me-
dia influence is expected to exist independently from the direct
effect of mag-
azine use on the desire to be thin.
601
Hypothesis 5: Reading beauty and fashion magazines increases
the desire
to be thin directly and indirectly via the presumed influence on
others.
Method

Sample
Many previous studies investigating the relationship between
exposure to
thin media images and eating disorders examined female college
students, a
group of people with an unusually high risk for developing body
image distur-
bances and eating disorders (Levchuck et al., 2000; Mazzeo &
Espelage,
2002).
In this study, a total of 553 women were recruited to participate
from com-
munication courses at a major midwestern university. Among
them, 432
(78%) completed their participation. Participants were recruited
on a volun-
tary basis and received extra credit for their participation.
Research proce-
dures closely followed the guidelines prescribed by the
university’s Human
Subjects Committee.
Procedure
The data-collection process was primarily managed through the
Internet.
Researchers are increasingly using the Internet as a data-
collection tool, and
it appears to have many advantages over more traditional
methods (Yun &
Trumbo, 2000).
The majority of participants were recruited in their classrooms.

At that
time they received a consent form notifying them of the
personal nature of
some of the questions and the fact that they could withdraw
their consent at
any time. After recruitment was complete, students who had
agreed to partic-
ipate received an e-mail containing the URL of the survey Web
site. Students
were allowed 3 days in which to complete the survey in a single
sitting at a
convenient time and place. On average, participation took
approximately 30
minutes. Data for the entire sample were collected during a 10-
day period.
Variables
All variables, with the exception of magazine use, were
measured by 7-point
Likert-type scales. The direction of these scales was varied to
prevent
habituation.
602
Beauty and fashion magazine use. For this variable, students
were asked
to report the number of issues of beauty and fashion magazines
they read
each month. Vogue and Cosmopolitan were provided as
examples.

Perceived prevalence of the thin ideal in the mass media.
Participants also
estimated the prevalence of the thin ideal within two mass
media channels,
television and magazines: “How often do you see very thin
models and
actresses on television programs and commercials (in
magazines)?” Answers
were measured on a 7-point scale from 1 (never) to 7 (all the
time). These two
responses were highly correlated (r = .70, p < .001).
Presumed influence of the thin ideal on other women. This
variable was
measured by two questions, one assessing the direction of
influence and the
other estimating the intensity of that influence. Direction was
measured by
asking: “Do you think the images make other women in general
prefer a thin-
ner body type?” Responses were assessed on a 7-point scale
from 1 (not at all)
to 7 (very much so). Intensity was measured by asking: “How
much influence
do you think the images of very thin models and actresses in the
mass media
have on other women’s perceptions of the female body ideal?”
Responses were
captured on a 7-point scale from 1 (no influence at all) to 7 (a
lot of influence).
Again, answers to these two questions were highly correlated (r
= .73, p <
.001).
Presumed influence of the thin ideal on men. Presumed

influence on men
was measured in the same manner as presumed influence on
other women
but the word men was substituted for the phrase other women in
each ques-
tion. The correlation coefficient between these items was
similarly high (r =
.71, p < .001).
Perceived influence of the thin ideal on self. Again, the
questions measur-
ing the presumed influence of the thin ideal on other women
were modified to
measure the influence of the thin ideal on self. However, in this
case the
phrase other women was replaced with the word you. Intensity
and direction
were again highly correlated (r = .71, p < .001).
Desire to be thin. For this variable, students were asked to
circle a number
between 1 (not at all) and 7 (very much) that best reflected their
level of agree-
ment with each of three statements, including, “I am strongly
motivated to be
603
thinner”; “My determination to lose weight is strong”; and “I
am driven to
diet.” Principal component factor analysis on these three items
yielded a sin-

gle factor. The reliability for this index was good (α = .87).
Results
Two structural equation models that included either presumed
influence on
other women or presumed influence on men were constructed
using LISREL
8.3. Four goodness-of-fit indices were computed for each
model. The model
including presumed influence on other women produced
reasonably good fit
indices (χ2 = 59.61, df = 28, p < .001; RMSEA = .051; TLI =
.98; CFI = .98). And
the fit for the model that included presumed influence on men
was similarly
sound (χ2 = 70.55, df = 28, p < .001; RMSEA = .059; TLI = .96;
CFI = .98).
Therefore, the unstandardized coefficients obtained from the
maximum-
likelihood estimation procedure were utilized to test
hypotheses. Table 1
shows the significance of individual path coefficients.
In the first stage, Hypothesis 1 predicted that reading beauty
and fashion
magazines would increase the perceived prevalence of the thin
ideal in mass
media. Indeed, the path coefficient was positive and statistically
significant
(β = .14, p < .001). Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was supported.
In the next stage, Hypothesis 2 stated that the perceived
prevalence of the
thin ideal would increase the presumed influence of the thin
ideal on others.

The results were mixed. The path coefficient from perceived
prevalence to the
presumed influence on other women was positive and
statistically significant
604
Table 1
Unstandardized LISREL Coefficient Estimates and Their
Significance Tests
Coefficient SE z Statistic
Model I
Magazine use → perceived prevalence .14 .04 3.34***
Perceived prevalence → (PI) on other women .23 .06 3.94***
PI on other women → PI on self .46 .06 7.60***
PI on self → desire to be thin .56 .07 7.87***
Model II
Magazine use → perceived prevalence .14 .04 3.30***
Perceived prevalence → PI on men .09 .06 1.37#
PI on men → PI on self .29 .06 4.69***
PI on self → desire to be thin .38 .06 6.31***
#p < .10. ***p < .001.
PI = presumed influence.
(β = .23, p < .001). However, the path from perceived
prevalence to the pre-
sumed influence on men approached but did not meet the
accepted standard

for statistical significance (β = .09, p < .1). As a result,
Hypothesis 2 was sup-
ported for presumed influence on other women but only
marginally support-
ed for presumed influence on men.
In the third stage, Hypothesis 3 contended that the presumed
influence of
the thin ideal on others would increase the perceived influence
of the thin
ideal on self. In both models, the presumed influence on others
was highly cor-
related with the perceived influence on self (for other women: β
= .46, p < .001;
for men: β = .29, p < .001). Given these findings, Hypothesis 3
was fully
supported.
In the final stage, Hypothesis 4 predicted that the perceived
influence of
the thin ideal on self would increase the desire to be thin. And
as expected, the
perceived influence on self was very strongly related to the
desire to be thin
(β = .52 and .38 for the first and second models, respectively; p
< .001 for each).
Hypothesis 4 was supported by the data.
Hypothesis 5, which proposed significant direct and indirect
effects of
reading beauty and fashion magazines on the desire to be thin,
was also deci-
sively supported. Figure 2 shows the structural equation model
that includes
the presumed influence on other women. In this model, a direct
effect of mag-

azine reading on the desire to be thin, the predicted indirect
effect path con-
necting all five variables in the predetermined order, and three
additional
indirect paths were significant. As expected, magazine reading
predicted the
desire to be thin directly (β = .09). And at the same time, an
equivalent effect
on the desire to be thin was produced by the combined indirect
paths leading
to this outcome (β = .09). The model fit appeared to deteriorate
substantially
when any one of the predicted indirect paths was deleted. The
full model
explained 24% of variance in this outcome.
The second model, which included the variable for presumed
influence on
men, produced similar findings. Figure 3 shows the results for
this analysis. A
direct path from magazine reading to the desire to be thin, the
predicted indi-
rect path, and two additional indirect paths were significant. In
this model,
though, the direct effect of magazine reading on the desire to be
thin appeared
to be somewhat larger (β = .12) than the combined indirect
effect from all sig-
nificant presumed influence pathways (β = .09). Again, model
fit was optimal
when all of the indirect paths were included. This model
accounted for 17% of
variance in the desire to be thin. Therefore, in support of
Hypothesis 5, read-
ing beauty and fashion magazines appeared to increase the
desire to be thin

directly and indirectly via the presumed influence on others.
605
Discussion
This research found that the use of beauty and fashion
magazines increases
the desire to be thin among female college students not only
directly but also
indirectly via the presumed influence on others. The data
supported Hypoth-
eses 1 to 4, the building blocks of the presumed influence
model. Hypothesis 5
was also supported, confirming the presence of independent
direct and indi-
rect paths to this outcome.
According to these results, female college students who read
beauty and
fashion magazines perceived that idealized thin images were
prevalent in
mass media. The perception of a prevalent thin ideal in mass
media in turn
created an assumption that other women and men are influenced
by this
prevalent image and prefer thin body types as a result. This
presumed
606

Presumed
influence on other
women (.05)
Perceived
prevalence of
the thin ideal (.03)
Perceived
influence on
self (.28)
Desire to be thin
(.24)
Beauty &
Fashion
magazine use
Magazine
TV
Intensity
Direction

Intensity
Direction
Scale 1
Scale 2
Scale 3
1
1.15
1 1.19
1
1
1
1.06
.75
.18***
.23***
.16**

.43***
-.27*** .52***
.15***
.09*
Figure 2. Structural Model Showing the Direct and Indirect
Effects of Magazine Use
on the Desire to be Thin
Note: The indirect path is via perceived prevalence, presumed
influence on other women, and per-
ceived influence on self. Parameters are standardized
coefficients, and R2 values are reported in
parentheses. Rectangles represent observed variables, and ovals
symbolize latent variables.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
influence on others then reinforced the influence of the thin
ideal on the
female students themselves, adding to the pressure to conform
to the norm of
ideal thinness. Finally, the perceived media influence on self
enhanced the
desire to be thin in these women. And this indirect effect
persisted even after
controlling for the direct effect of magazine use on this
outcome.
Within the broader context of research on media effects, the
identification
of this indirect pathway has two implications. First, it increases
our ability to

explicate the key processes behind media effects. In these data,
direct and
indirect paths accounted for comparable amounts of unique
variance. The
second implication lies at the junction of interpersonal and mass
communica-
tion. Although this study is primarily concerned with mass
media effects, the
presumed influence of mass media on other people could also
depend heavily
on interpersonal communication. What is omitted from the
current study is
the role of others’ actual remarks related to the particular media
effect at
607
Presumed
influence on men
(.01)
Perceived
prevalence of
the thin ideal (.04)
Perceived
influence on
self (.19)

Desire to be thin
(.17)
Beauty &
Fashion
magazine use
Magazine
TV
Intensity Direction
Intensity
Direction
Scale 1
Scale 2
Scale 3
1
1.34

1 1.03
.88
1
1
1.06
.75
.19***
.08#
.19***
.27***
.38***
.19***
.12**
Figure 3. Structural Model Showing the Direct and Indirect
Effects of Magazine Use
on the Desire to be Thin
Note: The indirect path is via perceived prevalence, presumed
influence on men, and perceived
influence on self. Parameters are standardized coefficients, and
R2 values are reported in parenthe-
ses. Rectangles represent observed variables, and ovals
symbolize latent variables.

*p < .10. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
issue. For example, some women in this study may have heard
friends wish
aloud that they were as thin as the models and actresses in
magazines or on
television. Such remarks may have served as the basis for the
presumed
influence of mass media on other women. Perceived similarities
between one-
self and others, actual remarks by others, and other aspects of
interpersonal
communication could also conceivably amplify or diminish the
presumed
level of media influence on others.
In the narrower context of presumed media influence research,
this study
provides another piece of supporting evidence for this emerging
research par-
adigm. In addition, these results validate the model of presumed
media influ-
ence previously outlined by Gunther (1998). The presumed
influence path
connecting beauty and fashion magazine use, the perceived
prevalence of the
thin ideal in the mass media, and the presumed influence on
others were sup-
ported by the analyses and were parallel to the original
framework of pre-
sumed media influence. In particular, including the perceived
prevalence of
the thin ideal in mass media as an intervening variable between
magazine

use and the presumed influence on others was instrumental in
this investiga-
tion. In Figure 2, magazine use was not directly related to the
presumed
influence on other women. However, it was associated with this
variable via
the perceived prevalence of the thin ideal in media. In other
words, magazine
reading increased the presumed influence of the thin ideal on
other women
only through an increased perception that the thin ideal is
rampant in our—
and therefore other women’s—media environment. Similarly, in
Figure 3,
magazine use did not have a direct effect on the presumed
influence on men.
However, the association between these variables was revealed
when per-
ceived prevalence was included as a mediator. Based on these
results, the
assumed representativeness of media content should not be
overlooked in
future research on presumed media influence.
These findings should also be discussed in the context of media
effects on
body image disturbances and eating disorders. In this regard,
results provide
a replication of previous reports of a significant association
between media
use and eating disorder symptomatology, a relationship that has
sometimes
been elusive.
One relatively unique contribution of this study is the finding of
a pre-

sumed influence pathway for this outcome that appears to be
separate from
any direct influence of mass media. As expected, female college
students
received pressure to be thin directly from the media. But women
also
appeared to create additional pressure on themselves by
assuming that oth-
ers were exposed to similar images and preferred a thinner body
type as a
result. However, the lack of a direct positive relationship
between the
608
presumed influence on others and the desire to be thin also
suggests that the
assumptions about other people did not increase the desire to be
thin immedi-
ately. Instead, it did so by bolstering the media effect on self.
This finding is
consistent with Milkie’s (1999) observation that teenage girls
received strong
pressure to be thin by assuming media influence on male and
female peers. In
the first model, nearly half of the perceived influence on self
resulted from the
presumed influence on other women (Figure 2), and in the
second model, a
quarter of the perceived influence on self came from the
presumed influence
on men (Figure 3).

A negative and statistically significant path from the presumed
influence
on other women to the desire to be thin was an unexpected but
interesting
finding. All in all, the presumed influence on other women
decreased the
desire to be thin directly while increasing the same dependent
variable via its
influence on the perceived influence on self. How is this
possible?
To solve this puzzle, the relationships among the presumed
influence on
other women, the perceived influence on self, and the desire to
be thin were
examined more closely. A subgroup analysis that controlled for
perceived
influence on self revealed a more accurate picture. Among those
women
whose perceived influence on self was low, the presumed
influence on other
women was negatively correlated with the desire to be thin.
However, for
those women who reported a relatively high level of perceived
influence on
self, there was no relationship between the presumed influence
on other
women and the desire to be thin. In other words, for women who
were rela-
tively free from the pressure to emulate thin media images,
knowing that
other women were getting the same pressure had mixed effects.
But for
women who were already under heavy pressure, knowing that
other women

also suffered the pressure exerted only negative effects.
Although the two models were consistent with theory and
produced
acceptable goodness-of-fit indices, this correlational data set
cannot speak for
the direction of the influence specified by the paths. In
particular, the causal
order for the path between the presumed influence of the thin
ideal on others
and the perceived influence of the thin ideal on self could be
contested. Con-
trary to the direction of influence specified by the model, the
perceived influ-
ence on self may have instead affected the level of presumed
influence on oth-
ers. Consequently, experiments and longitudinal studies are
needed to clarify
the time order among variables.
The overall findings of this study indirectly support the feminist
argu-
ment that the social pressure to be thin, produced largely by the
mass media
industry, turns a woman into another woman’s enemy.
Presumably, as a
result of this competition, women waste personal resources that
could have
609
been spared for self-development (Kilbourne, 1995). But at the

same time,
these results could also potentially be used to inform future
interventions
targeting body image disturbances and eating disorders.
This study demonstrated that a presumption of influence on
others
appears to account for a significant proportion of the pressure
that young
women experience when exposed to thin images. But, many
other studies are
filled with the voices of individuals decrying the media images
(Kates &
Shaw-Garlock, 1999; Milkie, 1999; C. J. Thompson & Haytko,
1997). Taken
together, it’s possible that a substantial portion of the presumed
influence on
other women may be presumed rather than real. And because
women tend to
overestimate the effect of the thin ideal on other women (David
& Johnson,
1998), they might also be likely to overestimate the effect on
men. Although it
has not yet been established, inflated perception about the effect
of the thin
ideal on men may have contributed to women’s overestimation
of men’s pref-
erences for thin body types (Cohn et al., 1987; Jacoby & Cash,
1994). Still, it
should be recognized that the presumption of influence on
others is likely to
be exaggerated rather than entirely invalid. Although in some
previous
reports women have denied any influence of mass media on
themselves
(Milkie, 1999), in this study the positive direct path from

magazine use to the
perceived influence on self was significant and independent of
any competing
indirect path via presumed influence.
Based on these findings, intervention efforts should start from
the under-
standing that the social pressure to be thin is likely to be based
partly on real-
ity but also partly on projection. To combat the real, external
social pressure
to be thin, we should identify and expunge the sources of
information that
encourage comparison and competition among women.
However, to combat
the projected social pressure to be thin, we might instead
facilitate the
exchange of opinions about the issue among members of our
society. In this
way, people could become more aware of the fact that criticisms
of these
images are widely shared.
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Does Watching Smoking in
Movies Promote Teenage
Smoking?
Todd F. Heatherton1,2 and James D. Sargent2,3
1
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth
College,
2
Norris Cotton Cancer Center, and
3
Department of
Pediatrics, Dartmouth Medical School

ABSTRACT—Compared to adolescents with low exposure to
smoking in movies, those with high exposure are about
three times as likely to try smoking or become smokers. We
have observed this effect in nationally representative
samples using cross-sectional and longitudinal designs.
This effect remains statistically significant after control-
ling for numerous other traditional risk factors, such
as personality, parenting style, and sociodemographics.
Indeed, the movie-smoking exposure effect on adolescent
smoking initiation is greatest among those traditionally
considered at lower risk for smoking, such as those low in
sensation seekingand those whose parents do not smoke. In
this article, we consider possible moderators and media-
tors of this important media effect as well as health-policy
implications. The take-home message is that eliminating
smoking in movies may prevent a substantial number of
adolescents from smoking.
KEYWORDS—smoking; adolescence; media influence;

sensation seeking; movies
Nearly everyone knows that smoking is a leading cause of death
in the world. Yet each day in the United States nearly 2,000
adolescents try their first cigarette, and many of them will go on
to smoke regularly, which might ultimately contribute to an
early
demise. So, why do adolescents try smoking? It is clear that
social influences, such as having friends or parents who smoke,
play important roles in smoking initiation. Many children who
try smoking, however, appear to have few such risk factors. An
open question, then, is the extent to which other environmental
factors encourage adolescent smoking. Over the past 10 years,
our research group and others have documented the pernicious
effects of movie portrayals of smoking on smoking uptake
among
children as young as 10 years old. In this article, we describe
research using multiple methods and nationally representative
samples showing that smoking in movies is an important
promoter of adolescent smoking initiation.

Given the central role of movies in American culture, the
potential for them to shape attitudes and influence behavior has
long been of concern to psychologists (Anderson & Bushman,
2002). Most of the research to date has focused on media vio-
lence. But media also have a profound impact on the adolescent
self-concept: They shape views of what is ‘‘cool,’’ what is
attractive, and what is grown-up—all things that adolescents are
trying to be. Indeed, casual observance at any local mall dem-
onstrates that visual media affect how teenagers talk, how they
dress, and how they behave. It seems plausible, then, that media
exposure might affect other behaviors. Our central tenet is that
the more children observe smoking in movies—especially when
smoking is portrayed by highly popular actors who serve as teen
role models—the more likely they are to take up smoking.
EXPOSURE TO SMOKING IN MOVIES
Is it reasonable to suggest that movies contain a lot of smoking?
About 70% of movies made in the United States today contain
cigarette smoking. A variety of content analyses have estab-

lished that the percentage of adults who smoke in movies is
approximately 20 to 25% of characters, that smoking is rarely
associated with negative health outcomes, and that smokers
in movies are more affluent than the typical U.S. smoker. Yet
on-screen smoking is only 1 to 2 minutes, on average, per film.
At issue is the extent to which vulnerable children are exposed
to this smoking. It could be argued that, since the majority
of smoking occurs in movies aimed at older adolescents (i.e.,
PG-13 and R films), children under age 14 might have low
Address correspondence to Todd F. Heatherton, Department of
Psy-
chological and Brain Sciences, 6207 Moore Hall, Dartmouth
College,
Hanover, NH 03755; e-mail: [email protected]
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 18—Number 2 63Copyright r 2009 Association for
Psychological Science
exposure to movie smoking. However, the available evidence
indicates that children in this age group are frequent viewers of
movies that were never intended for young audiences—satellite

television, cable movie channels, home videos, and DVDs
greatly increasing children’s access to the world depicted in
motion pictures.
Only recently has the extent to which young children view
movies been documented. One study showed widespread view-
ing of R movies by children aged 10 to 14, with some
particularly
violent movies (such as Scream) reportedly having been seen by
nearly half of fifth graders in one large sample (Sargent,
Heatherton, et al.,2002). Similarly,a recent nationally represen-
tative study (using random-digit dialing) of 6,522 adolescents
found that an estimated one million American 10-year-olds
reported having seen Scary Movie, in which a cheerleader is
decapitated and her head is disposed of in a lost-and-found bin
in the school locker room (Worth, Chambers, Nassau, Rakhra, &
Sargent, 2008). Thus, children are seeing many movies (and a
lot
of violence)—but how much smoking do they see in these
movies? Our studies have allowed us to answer this question by

linking adolescents’ responses to the movies they’ve watched to
a content analysis that assessed smoking in some 1,000 movies
(using carefully validated measures). The survey technique
allows us to estimate the percentage of children who have
viewed
each of these movies in a nationally representative sample.
Applying techniques from the marketing and advertising fields,
we estimated that some 500 movies delivered nearly 14 billion
smoking impressions to U.S. children ages 10 to 14 (Sargent,
Tanski, & Gibson, 2007). In short, young children are exposed
to a great deal of smoking from the movies they see.
Of course, the context in which smoking is portrayed is likely
to affect the extent to which it encourages a child to smoke.
Consider one such important factor: star smoking. In the study
just described, some 30 actors delivered more than 50 million
smoking impressions each. For instance, Mel Gibson’s 21 epi-
sodes of smoking delivered more than 90 million smoking
impressions because of the popularity of his films. In earlier

studies, smoking status of the adolescents’ favorite stars was
related to the adolescent’s attitude toward smoking (for never
smokers) or their smoking status (Distefan, Pierce, & Gilpin,
2004; Tickle, Sargent, Dalton, Beach, & Heatherton, 2001).
MOVIE VIEWING AND ADOLESCENT SMOKING
Several studies have now examined the relation between the
smoking adolescents see in movies (based on content-based
estimates of exposure to movie smoking) and adolescent smok-
ing. An initial study in 2001 found that there was a strong
relation between exposure to movie smoking and smoking
initiation among a large sample of northern New England
adolescents (grades 5–8) and that this statistical association
remained after controlling for numerous traditional risk factors
for smoking (Sargent et al., 2001). Among the adolescents who
had never tried a cigarette, exposure to movie smoking was as-
sociated with more positive attitudes about tobacco use and the
perception that most adults smoke. A follow-up study of these
never-smoking adolescents found that exposure to movie

smoking at baseline predicted smoking initiation 1 to 2 years
later (Dalton et al., 2003). The follow-up study showed that the
exposure preceded the behavior—an important requirement for
making a causal argument. Indeed, nearly 20% of those in the
highest-exposure quartile tried smoking compared to only 3% in
the lowest-exposure quartile; and this relationship remained
after controlling for smoking by family and friends, risk-taking
propensity in adolescence, and maternal warmth and limit
setting (as well as other sociodemographic variables). Interest-
ingly, the effect was stronger among children of nonsmokers
than
it was among children of smokers, suggesting that the movie-
exposure effect was potentiated by the absence of more tradi-
tional risk factors.
To generalize across racial or ethnic groups from different
geographical regions, a random-digit-dial telephone longitudi-
nal survey was conducted on 6,522 U.S. adolescents aged 10 to
14 years old (Sargent et al., 2005). This sample was represen-
tative of the entire population of American adolescents. Once

again, adolescents with higher exposure to movie smoking were
much more likely to try smoking, even after statistically con-
trolling for sociodemographics, peer smoking, personality, par-
enting styles, and other social factors (see Fig. 1). The results
of
this study, under review, largely mirror the results obtained
from
the Northern New England sample. In this U.S. representative
sample, it has been confirmed that exposure to smoking in
movies is associated with established smoking (having smoked
more than 100 cigarettes) among adolescents over a 2-year
period (Sargent, Stoolmiller, et al., 2007). Another group of
researchers studied a sample of North Carolina adolescents and
found a longitudinal relationship between seeing PG-13 and
0
5
10
15
20

25
30
4321
Movie Smoking Exposure Quartile
P
ro
po
rt
io
n
W
ho
T
rie
d
S
m
ok
in
g
10
11
12
13

14
Age (years)
Fig. 1. Proportion of adolescents aged 10 to 14 who tried
smoking as a
function of exposure to movie smoking (amount of exposure
broken down
by quartile). The sample consisted of 4,538 U.S. adolescents
who were
never smokers at baseline and who were surveyed 16 months
later on their
tobacco use (unpublished data).
64 Volume 18—Number 2
Smoking in the Movies
R-rated movies and smoking initiation (Jackson, Brown, &
L’Engle, 2007). Another study found that German adolescents
have similar exposure to movie-smoking levels as U.S. teens
(about 80% of the movies they see are produced and distributed
by U.S. movie studios). German adolescents have higher
smoking rates, in part because there are fewer restrictions on
tobacco marketing and public smoking in that country. Despite
the cultural differences in approach to tobacco control, German

adolescents were shown to have much the same response to
movie smoking as their American counterparts (Hanewinkel &
Sargent, 2008). Thus, there is consistent and reliable evidence
demonstrating a strong relationship between exposure to
smoking in movies and adolescent smoking in longitudinal
studies and across cultures.
Moderation Effects
To determine if certain groups of adolescents were more or less
influenced by exposure to movie smoking in the studies men-
tioned, the researchers looked for moderation effects. In the
New
England longitudinal study, adolescents with low exposure to
parent smoking were significantly more responsive to the movie
effect (Dalton et al., 2003). This same pattern was observed in a
longitudinal study of German adolescents, providing a cross-
cultural validation of the moderation effect (Hanewinkel &
Sargent, 2008). The effect suggests that adolescents exposed to
real-world images of smokers are less responsive to the glam-
orized images delivered by movies. Similarly, adolescents low

in
sensation seeking were about 12 times more responsive to
movie
images of smoking, another negative moderation that undercuts
the argument that kids who watch a lot of smoking are at high
risk
for smoking because of other unmeasured risk factors (Sargent,
Stoolmiller, et al., 2007; see Fig. 2). Instead, it appears that the
low-risk adolescents are most responsive to movie smoking.
Other researchers have found apparent moderation by race,
with African American adolescents having little or no response
to movie smoking despite the fact that their exposure is 20 to
30% higher than that of Caucasians (Jackson et al., 2007). The
fact that African American adolescents are not responsive may
explain, in part, why they have such low rates of smoking
during
adolescence compared with Caucasian adolescents.
Mediation Variables
Current research is beginning to explore mediating variables
that

maygiveinsightintothemechanismsthroughwhichmoviesaffect
behavior. Postulated mediators include attitudes and cognitions,
as well as other factors such as smoking by peers. A
longitudinal
structural model that included as endogenous variables identifi-
cation as a smoker, normative beliefs about smoking, and
positive
expectancies about smoking was developed (Tickle, Hull, Sar-
gent, Dalton, & Heatherton, 2006); paths from movie-smoking
exposureto adolescentsmoking werefound through identification
as a smoker and through positive expectancies, and we have
replicated this finding in our more recent longitudinal work
(Wills, Sargent, Stoolmiller, & Gibbons, 2007; Wills, Sargent,
Stoolmiller, Gibbons, & Gerrard, 2008). It seems theoretically
plausible that continued exposure to smoking by movie stars
would increase positive expectancies over time, and this fits
with
the finding of a strong association between seeing movie
smoking
and more favorable attitudes toward smoking among those who

have never smoked (Sargent, Dalton, et al., 2002).
Another interesting mediational pathway involves smoking by
peers. Adolescents watch movies with their friends, and there-
fore they are exposed to movies in groups, not only on their
own.
Seeing actors smoke could affect group norms about smoking.
One adolescent in the peer group with a slightly lower threshold
for trying smoking might be pushed into trying smoking and
become the proximal influence for other members of the peer
group. In this scenario, one might see a mediational pathway
through increases in adolescents’ perceptions of the number of
their peers that smoke, and this is exactly what was found
(Wills
et al., 2007, 2008). However, at this point it is not clear whether
this mediational path is due to more peers smoking within stable
peer groups or to changes in peer affiliations prompted by
exposure to movie smoking.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
Several studies have examined the effect of movies or movie

clips with smoking on attitudes and cognitions in adolescents
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
A
dj
us
te
d
H
az
ar
d
R
at
io
,
E

st
ab
lis
he
d
S
m
ok
in
g
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Sensation-Seeking Level
Adjusted hazard ratio
Lower bounds, 95% CI
Fig. 2. Effect of sensation seeking on the effect of exposure to
movie
smoking. The black line reflects the established smoking hazard
ratio (risk
of becoming an established smoker during the study) as
sensation seeking
varies. Sensation seeking is scaled so that 0 equals the 5th
percentile and 1
equals the 95th percentile for the distribution. The hazard ratio
is adjusted
for other media variables (movie-viewing venues, movies
viewed in the past
week, movies viewed with parents), social and other
environmental influ-

ences (friend smoking, sibling smoking, parent smoking, poor
school per-
formance, parental style, extracurricular activities), and
characteristics of
the adolescent (age, sex, parent education, race, tried smoking
at baseline,
and rebelliousness). Adapted from ‘‘Exposure to Smoking
Depictions in
Movies: Its Association With Established Adolescent
Smoking,’’ by J.D.
Sargent, M. Stoolmiller, K.A. Worth, S. Dal Cin, T.A. Wills,
F.X. Gibbons,
et al., 2007, Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 161, p.
854.
Copyright 2007, American Medical Association. Adapted with
permission.
Volume 18—Number 2 65
Todd F. Heatherton and James D. Sargent
and young adults. The results indicate that even brief exposures
to movie smoking can influence beliefs and cognitions about
smoking among actors, smoking in other people, and also per-
sonal prosmoking intentions. Pechman and Shih (1999) showed
adolescents scenes from the movie Reality Bites; the control
group saw the same film, but with smoking scenes edited out.
Adolescents who saw smoking scenes attributed higher social

status to adolescent smokers generally and also reported in-
creased personal intentions to smoke. Interestingly, the effect of
showing the entire movie on personal intentions was blunted by
showing an antismoking advertisement prior to viewing the
movie. These findings need to be replicated, but they provide
the
basis for urging movie makers to include antismoking ads on
DVDs for movies that contain smoking.
Dal Cin and colleagues (Dal Cin, Gibson, Zanna, Shumate,
& Fong, 2007) recently published a theoretically important
manuscript based on transportation theory, the idea that viewers
are affected by stories because of their identification with the
storyline and characters. They looked at implicit associations
between self and smoking as a function of identification with
a smoking protagonist and found that greater identification
predicted stronger associations between the self and smoking
(for both smokers and nonsmokers) and increased intentions
to smoke (among the smokers). In addition, stronger implicit

associations between the self and smoking uniquely predicted
increases in smokers’ intentions to smoke. Taken together, the
experimental research published to date adds support to
epidemiologic studies.
PUBLIC HEALTH IMPLICATIONS
The findings summarized above have important public health
implications. First, if movies really are a causal element in
youth
smoking, then movie smoking should be monitored just as we
would monitor any environmental exposure that adversely
affects health. We partner with the American Legacy
Foundation
to publish annual reports on smoking in the top 100 box-office
hits released each year (see Legacy First Look Reports 16 and
18 at http://www.americanlegacy.org/publications.aspx). These
reports provide a validated metric to determine whether or not
progress is being made in reducing depictions of smoking by the
entertainment industry. Our most recent publications show a
significant decline in depictions of character smoking, espe-

cially for R-rated movies (see Recommended Reading).
Another issue is the identification and promotion of policy
measures that could reduce adolescent exposure. Various public
health advocacy groups (e.g., Smoke Free Movies, http://
smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/) have encouraged the movie indus-
try to take voluntary actions that would reduce exposure, such
as
giving an R rating to movies with smoking, declaring that no
funds have been provided by the tobacco industry, requiring
antismoking advertisements to run before any film with any
tobacco presence, and no longer showing tobacco brands in any
movie scenes. Several individual movie studios have imple-
mented internal guidelines designed to limit smoking depictions
in movies aimed at youth, although most have not.
Another group promoting policies to reduce smoking in movies
is theNational Association of Attorneys General (NAAG).
NAAG
is charged with enforcing the Master Settlement Agreement be-
tween the State Attorneys General and the tobacco industry that

contains a ban on paying for brand placement in movies by any
of
the major tobacco companies. Since this policy was adopted,
tobacco brand placement in movies dropped to almost nil. More
recently, and based in part on our research, NAAG has asked
the
major movie studios to put an antismoking ad in any DVD with
smoking. This suggestion has been taken up by the Weinstein
Brothers, a production company that now puts Legacy Founda-
tion Truth
s
ads in all DVDs with smoking. It has been gratifying
to us to see the research findings so quickly translated into
policy
initiatives to protect children from movie smoking.
Recommended Reading
Sargent, J.D. (2005). Smoking in movies: Impact on adolescent
smok-
ing. Adolescent Medicine, 16, 345–370. A readable detailed
overview of the research described in this report.
Tickle, J.J., Hull, J.G., Sargent, J.D., Dalton, M.A., &
Heatherton, T.F.
(2006). (See References). Describes a social psychological

theory
of how movies might promote smoking uptake; the model is
supported by structural equation modeling.
Worth, K., Tanski, S., & Sargent, J.D. (2006). Trends in top box
office
movie tobacco use 1996–2004 (No. 16). Washington, DC:
American
Legacy Foundation. Report describing trends in how smoking
is portrayed in the movies.
Acknowledgments—Preparation of this manuscript and the
research described herein was supported in part by grants from
the National Cancer Institute (CA 61021, CA 77026), the
National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA12623), and the American
Legacy Foundation. The authors wish to acknowledge their
collaborators on this research, including Michael Beach, Sonya
Dal Cin, Madeline Dalton, Meg Gerrard, Fredrick Gibbons,
Reiner Hanewinkel, Jay Hull, Mike Stoolmiller, Susanne
Tanski, Jennifer Tickle, Linda Titus-Ernstoff, Tom Wills, and
Keilah Worth.
REFERENCES

Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2002). The effects of media
violence
on society. Science, 295, 2377–2379.
Dal Cin, S., Gibson, B., Zanna, M.P., Shumate, R., & Fong,
G.T. (2007).
Smoking in movies, implicit associations of smoking with the
self,
and intentions to smoke. Psychological Science, 18, 559–563.
Dalton, M.A., Sargent, J.D., Beach, M.L., Titus-Ernstoff, L.,
Gibson, J.J.,
Ahrens, M.B., et al. (2003). Effect of viewing smoking in
movies
on adolescent smoking initiation: A cohort study. Lancet, 362,
281–285.
66 Volume 18—Number 2
Smoking in the Movies
Distefan, J.M., Pierce, J.P., & Gilpin, E.A. (2004). Do favorite
movie
stars influence adolescent smoking initiation? American Journal
of Public Health, 94, 1239–1244.
Hanewinkel, R., & Sargent, J.D. (2008). Exposure to smoking in
inter-

nationally distributed American movies and youth smoking in
Ger-
many: A cross-cultural cohort study. Pediatrics, 121, e108–
e117.
Jackson, C., Brown, J.B., & L’Engle, K.L. (2007). R-rated
movies,
bedroom televisions, and initiation of smoking by white and
black
adolescents. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,
161,
260–268.
Pechmann, C., & Shih, C.F. (1999). Smoking scenes in movies
and
antismoking advertisements before movies: Effects on youth.
Journal of Marketing, 63, 1–13.
Sargent, J.D., Beach, M.L., Adachi-Mejia, A.M., Gibson, J.J.,
Titus-
Ernstoff, L.T., Carusi, C.P., et al. (2005). Exposure to movie
smoking: Its relation to smoking initiation among U.S.
adolescents.
Pediatrics, 116, 1183–1191.
Sargent, J.D., Beach, M.L., Dalton, M.A., Mott, L.A., Tickle,
J.J.,

Ahrens, M.B., & Heatherton, T.F. (2001). Effect of seeing
tobacco
use in films on trying smoking among adolescents: Cross
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study. British Medical Journal, 323, 1394–1397.
Sargent, J.D., Dalton, M.A., Beach, M.L., Mott, L.A., Tickle,
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Ahrens, M.B., & Heatherton, T.F. (2002). Viewing tobacco
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Sargent, J.D., Heatherton, T., Ahrens, B., Dalton, M., Tickle, J.,
&
Beach, M. (2002). Adolescent exposure to extremely violent
movies. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31, 449–454.
Sargent, J.D., Stoolmiller, M., Worth, K.A., Dal Cin, S., Wills,
T.A.,
Gibbons, F.X., et al. (2007). Exposure to smoking depictions
in movies: Its association with established adolescent smok-
ing. Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, 161, 849–
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Sargent, J.D., Tanski, S.E., & Gibson, J. (2007). Exposure to
movie
smoking among U.S. adolescents aged 10 to 14 years: A
population
estimate. Pediatrics, 119, e1167–e1176.
Tickle, J.J., Hull, J.G., Sargent, J.D., Dalton, M.A., &
Heatherton, T.F.
(2006). A structural equation model of social influences and
exposure to media smoking on adolescent smoking. Basic and
Applied Social Psychology, 28, 117–129.
Tickle, J.J., Sargent, J.D., Dalton, M.A., Beach, M.L., &
Heatherton, T.F.
(2001). Favourite movie stars, their tobacco use in
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movies, and its association with adolescent smoking. Tobacco
Control, 10, 16–22.
Wills, T., Sargent, J.D., Stoolmiller, M., & Gibbons, F.X.
(2007). Movie
exposure to smoking cues and adolescent smoking onset: A test
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Wills, T., Sargent, J., Stoolmiller, M., Gibbons, F., & Gerrard,
M. (2008).

Movie smoking exposure and smoking onset: A longitudinal
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(2008). Exposure of U.S. adolescents to extremely violent
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Pediatrics, 122, 306–312.
Volume 18—Number 2 67
Todd F. Heatherton and James D. Sargent
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Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
2016, Vol. 93(4) 906 –922
© 2016 AEJMC
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1077699016637108
jmcq.sagepub.com
Media Reputation Measurement and Evaluation of Media
Companies
The Effects of Media
Effects: Third-Person
Effects, the Influence of
Presumed Media Influence,
and Evaluations of Media
Companies

Brett Sherrick1
Abstract
Prior research in the third-person effects domain has shown that
people who believe
in harmful media effects are more willing to engage in
preventive or accommodative
strategies, such as censorship. This research extends that
supposition by testing a
thus-far unstudied strategy: negative evaluations of media
companies. Results show
that an overall belief in harmful media effects is connected to
negative evaluations
of the media companies potentially responsible for those
effects. The third-person
perceptual gap is not related to these negative evaluations of
media companies,
suggesting important differences between third-person effects
research and influence
of presumed media influence research.
Keywords
third-person effects, influence of presumed media influence,
evaluations of media
companies
In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School
shooting, in which a lone gun-
man opened fire at an elementary school in Connecticut, a
number of groups and
individuals were eager to blame violent media—particularly
violent video games—for
the shooter’s mentality, despite limited evidence that the
shooter consumed violent
1University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA

Corresponding Author:
Brett Sherrick, Department of Journalism, University of
Alabama, Box 870172, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487,
USA.
Email: [email protected]
637108 JMQXXX10.1177/1077699016637108Journalism &
Mass Communication Quarterly XX(X)Sherrick
research-article2016
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F10776990
16637108&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-03-16
Sherrick 907
media. Many similar acts of unnecessary violence have been
blamed on the harmful
effects of violent media. In part, this phenomenon can be
explained by third-person
effects and related research, which has shown that the general
public does believe in
media effects—particularly when it comes to effects on others—
and will change their
attitudes and behaviors accordingly. In fact, the “influence of
presumed media influ-
ence” has been verified in a number of recent studies (e.g.,
Gunther & Storey, 2003;
Tal-Or, Cohen, Tsfati, & Gunther, 2010; Tsfati & Cohen, 2005).
Moreover, third-per-
son effects literature shows that a belief in media effects has
potential behavioral out-
comes, such as attempts to counteract or censor the offending
media (Perloff, 2009).
Presumably, individuals who believe in the power of harmful

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