U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz apparently believes in the third-person effect. His recent statements about the Barbie movie deftly illustrate third-person-effect thinking.

The Republican senator from Texas told the Daily Signal, a media website, that a cartoon world map in one Barbie scene subjected moviegoers to Chinese propaganda, the Houston Chronicle reported July 19. The map shows “nine dashes.” They represent the People’s Republic of China’s claim to sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.

Cruz said that movie producers included the “blatantly false” information “to kiss up to the Chinese communist censors.”

A statement from a Cruz staffer to DailyMail.com (reported July 4) said, “China wants to control what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think, and they leverage their massive film markets to coerce American companies into pushing CCP propaganda—just like the way the Barbie film seems to have done with the map. Sen. Cruz deserves credit for reversing these trends.”

Cruz maintains he is merely calling out Barbie producers for deciding to “appease the Chinese Communist Party” after Vietnam banned the film over the map.

But concerns about “blatantly false” information and control over “what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think” signal that the senator is motivated as well by what communication scholars call the “third-person effect.”

I’ve mentioned the third-person effect before (July 29). It was first identified by sociologist W. Phillips Davidson in 1983:

People think that a message will influence others even though that same message won’t influence them. Those people who won’t be influenced (won’t affect me [first-person objective pronoun]) then act to prevent that presumed effect on others (but will affect them [third-person objective pronoun]) without any evidence of message influence on those individuals.

Lots of Americans have seen Barbie (‘Barbie’ reaches $1 billion at box office, studio says) since it opened July 21. I have read no news reports so far that the movie has influenced public opinion about China. I noted that no Chinese moviegoers quoted in an Aug. 6 New York Times story (Why ‘Barbie’ became a sleeper hit in China) mentioned the world map or their country’s claim to the South China Sea. I asked a few friends and family members who had seen Barbie if they remembered the map. None did.

Evidence from my informal research is clearly not conclusive. But so far, I have seen none of the propaganda effects that Cruz seemed to fear.

I advised clients and students to avoid third-person-effect thinking. Actions in response to assumed effects of any information usually waste organizational resources, disrupt organizational priorities, and sometimes even call greater attention to the “threatening” message. For those reasons, planning for any action should start by gathering solid information about the groups that organizations want to reach.

Nevertheless, third-person-effect thinking is common in political discourse. If the presumed effect on others is plausible, the thinking can spark voter fears of unwanted outcomes and mobilize people to respond—even if such action is unnecessary.

The third-person effect is a very practical social science and communication theory. It helps us explain, analyze, and predict trends in public discourse.

Copyright © 2023 Douglas F. Cannon