Media dependency and perceived reality of fiction and news

Two studies examined whether familiar and unfamiliar contexts influenced the relationship between the typicality of a news or entertainment story and the perceived realism of that story. For shopping mail patrons in the United States, typicality had a significantly weaker effect when news events were presented as coming from Brazil rather than from the United States. Entertainment stories presented as coming from Brazil Were seen as more real than identical stories presented as coming from the United States. However, the familiarity of the setting did not influence the story typicality and perceived reality relationship for entertainment stories.