The substituting relationship between presumed media influence and interpersonal health communication for health prevention

ABSTRACT

Background

Based on the influence of presumed influence hypothesis (IPI hypothesis), this study elaborates the processes through which people’s perception of the effect of health media messages on others affects their own intention to engage in health behaviors. This study also examines how interpersonal health communication interacts with presumed media influence on intentions for HIV testing and fruit and vegetable consumption.

Methods

Data were collected using a self-administrated online survey with college students (N = 235) in a large Midwestern university in the United States.

Results

The results support the IPI hypothesis that one’s exposure to media content promoting health behaviors predicts their perceptions of the media’s influence on other people, which in turn affects their own intention to engage in the health behaviors. The findings also indicate that there is a substituting relationship between perception of media influence and interpersonal health communication. The effect of presumed media influence was greater for people who were less likely to talk about the health issues, but presumed media influence had no significant effect on intentions for those who frequently engaged in interpersonal health communication.

Conclusion

This study provides a novel finding that perceived influence of health media messages on others and interpersonal health communication are substituting each other in affecting intention for health behaviors. Promoting perception of media influence can affect normative perception and behavioral intention for people who less frequently discuss health issues with others.

KEYWORDS:

• Presumed media influence
• perception of media effect
• perceptual biases
• interpersonal communication
• health promotion
• health communication
• health behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yangsun Hong

Yangsun Hong (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at University of New Mexico. Her research examines communication as a social contextual factor to reduce health inequalities and/or health disparities. She situates people’s intersectional social positions and communication opportunity at the center of communication research.

Eunyoung Myung

Eunyoung Myung (MA, University of Pennsylvania) is a PhD candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests are in the areas of health communication, particularly how people find, use, and communicate about health information on the Internet.

Sunghak Kim

Sunghak Kim (MA, Chung-Ang University, South Korea) is a PhD Candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on investigating individual and social determinants of health behaviors and understanding their roles and mechanisms in persuasive communications. He also examines ways of developing and applying effective health promotion interventions by considering emerging communication technologies.