A considerable body of research has identified five audience variables---identification, parasocial interaction, personal relevance, transportation, and perceived realism---that facilitate media effects on personal risk perceptions. The literature in this area, however, remains stagnant and fragmented, as research concerning these variables has yet to be effectively integrated to offer a parsimonious account of the underlying process. The present research represents an effort to integrate this disjointed literature by proposing the risk convergence model, a theoretical framework that postulates the reduction of perceived social distance between the self and others depicted in the media as a unifying mechanism whereby media can influence personal risk perceptions.

In an initial test of this model, 500 undergraduate students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, participated in an experiment employing 2 (high vs. low transportation) x 2 (diagnosis vs. scare storyline) between-subjects factorial design. Participants were exposed to entertainment clips that either portrayed a main character who is diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD; diagnosed storyline) or thinks he/she might have caught an STD and gets scared of testing for it (scare storyline). Overall, the risk convergence model received solid support from the data, with all paths emerging as significant except for the link between perceived realism and social distance. Specifically, reduction of social distance completely mediated the relationship between identification, transportation and personal risk perceptions, thus suggesting social distance as a valid causal mechanism of the process involving the two variables. Personal relevance was found to both directly and indirectly (via reduction of social distance) influence personal risk, while perceived realism did not show any significant associations with social distance and personal risk perceptions. The findings suggest that reduction of social distance may be the underlying mechanism that can explain media's influence on personal risk perceptions and that the four audience involvement variables possess distance-reducing qualities that allow them to influence personal risk perceptions.