The effects of mass media repor ts on r isk perception and images of victims: An explorati ve study Akashi YAM AMOT 0 (fnstit te f or M edta and Commumcatio s esearch, Kezo nz υ e szty) The pur pose of this paper was to investigate the effects of mass media repor ts on r isk perception and images of victims. Study 1, which exam ined newspaper ar ticles about human deaths, revealed that: (1) the ages of dead persons tended to be repor ted i n headl ines when they were ver y young or ver y old,

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... d (2) suicides were repor ted m ore, while m urders were repor ted less relat ive to actual rate of occur rence per population. Study 2 conducted through a sur vey revealed that: (1) the main information source of traffic accidents, fires, suicides, and m urders was the mass media, and (2) more than half of respondents had some personal exper iences wi th traffic accidents (m ore than 80%) and fire (more than 50%). Also, it was apparent that (3) the respondent's estimates and the amount of exposure to mass media repor ts about the dist ribution of dead persons over a lifetime per iod were cor related. The im plications of these findi ngs and future problem s to be solved were discussed.