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Understanding the media effect on behavioral outcomes is critical during a health crisis. Mechanisms explaining the mediation effect of media induced risk perception on individual fears and preventive behavior adoption rarely attend to the assumptions and methods to make a causal inference, nor to explore how the effect differs by socioeconomic status. We applied a causal framework to estimate how differential media exposure motivates fear and behavioral reaction, and to what extent these effects can be explained by risk susceptibility and risk severity perceptions in Israel and China, and whether the effects are conditional on socioeconomic situation. Our results suggest that media consumptions are explanatory predictors for increased fear and behavior through provoked risk perceptions. Moreover, socioeconomic status is a pronounced moderator in differentiating the media effect. These findings emphasize the media effects in the context of pandemic and have potential implications for media campaign and policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The immense popularity of Facebook with more than 1 billion active users continues to spark the attention of communication scholars. While much is known about Facebook members’ motivations, usage patterns, and gratifications obtained from this social networking site (SNS), minimal attention has been given to examine the perceived consumption and impact of Facebook on users themselves versus others. Applying the third-person effect (TPE) hypothesis to the context of social media, this research uniquely investigates the (a) difference in estimated Facebook effects on self versus others, (b) relationship between perceptions of Facebook use and estimated Facebook effects on self versus others, and (c) association between perceived desirability of Facebook as a social medium and estimated Facebook effects on self versus others. The aforementioned relationships are also moderated by gender and age. Implications for the relevance of TPE on users of SNSs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]