ScholarWorks@중앙대학교

초록

This study examines the influence of personalized news stories on attitude change. Specifically, it explores whether the inclusion of ordinary citizens sharing their first-hand experiences in a news article (i.e., personalization) can shape positive attitudes toward a stigmatized group: sexual minorities. The study hypothesizes that empathic responses to the personalized individual featured in the news report mediate the impact of personalization on attitudes toward sexual minorities in general. Furthermore, given that previous research on personalization has rarely considered the effect of the characteristics of the personalized individual appearing in the news, this study seeks to test whether the social distance between the news reader and the person in the news story moderates the hypothesized relationship between personalization, empathic responses, and attitudes toward sexual minorities. The results of an online experiment suggest that personalized news reports indeed foster positive attitudes toward sexual minorities. Empathic responses were found to mediate this observed relationship. However, social distance did not moderate the relationship between personalization and empathy. These findings suggest that mediated intergroup contact through personalization could be effective in reducing prejudice, even for stigmatized groups such as sexual minorities.

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