Mediated reality bites: Comparing direct and indirect experience as sources of perceptions across two communities in China

Integrating the cultivation and impersonal impact approaches, this research assessed the relative contribution of direct experience, interpersonal com munication, and media use habits on crime perceptions by people from two co mmunities, Hong Kong and the Mainland Chinese city of Guangzhou. A large-sc ale newspaper content analysis and parallel surveys were conducted and crim e statistics were obtained in both communities in 1997 and iggg to investig ate the relationships among sources of influence and three distinct aspects of crime perceptions: estimates of crime rates, mean world judgments, and fear of crime. Within and cross-community comparisons closely connected ind ividuals' heightened crime perceptions with the media's sensational crime c overage to a point that rendered the real life environment practically irre levant. Direct experience and knowledge about the other community tended to contradict the media world, although interpersonal discussions appeared to compliment media portrayals, Findings show some supportive evidence for th e prediction that cultivation and impersonal impact would become strengthen ed when the object of evaluation was removed from one's own community. This 'other-community effect' tended to be reinforced by informal communication .