MERGING MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY AND THE IMPERSONAL IMPACT HYPOTHESIS

　　The impersonal impact hypothesis suggests that mass media information can only exert influence on societal level risk judgments, but not on personal level risk judgments (people beliefs about risks in their personal life). However, recent studies show that in specific circumstances--in the case of 𠁆"vivid" and "self-relevant" information--personal level risk judgments can be affected by media information. According to the media system dependency theory people use media in order to achieve their information goals, which can be subdivided in goals on a personal and social level. Combination of the two theoretical views leads to the hypothesis that the impact of mass media information on both societal and personal level judgments is dependent on the nature of the information goal that directs someone's media use. The results of the experimental study, presented in this article, show that the subjects who are trying to achieve personal information goals are affected in their personal level risk judgments whereas the judgments of subjects who are trying to achieve a social information goal are not affected.