The dissertation examines the impact of indirect media exposure to stressful life events. Prior research suggests that exposure to trauma-related media content is associated with negative mental health outcomes. This relationship is further explored in three studies. Study 1 assesses how prior acute stress responses and media consumption influence subsequent psychological responses to a public health crisis, more specifically, the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Psychological distress, functional impairment, and worry about the Ebola crisis were measured in a nationally representative sample; the relationships of these variables with media exposure to the crisis were assessed. Results suggest that individuals with higher Boston Marathon bombing (BMB)-related acute stress and who consumed more Ebola-related media were later more worried about contracting Ebola. Study 2 assesses whether prior life events, prior media exposure and responses to events, and fears of future events may prospectively predict consumption of trauma-related media in the future and acute stress responses. Exposure and responses to the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre (PNM) were assessed in the same representative national sample as was utilized in Study 1. Path analyses revealed that media exposure to the BMB was associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms six months later, which was in turn associated with worry about future events, which predicted hours of media exposure and acute stress responses to the PNM. Additionally, BMB-related media exposure indirectly predicted PNM-related acute stress through BMB posttraumatic stress symptoms, worry about future events, and PNM-related media exposure. Study 3 explores the role of anticipated posttraumatic stress as a mediator of the relationship between media exposure to collective trauma and mental health outcomes in the context of a natural disaster. A probability sample of adults in Florida was recruited and assessed in the days prior to Hurricane Irma’s landfall, then reassessed approximately one month later (N=1,427). Path analyses revealed that media exposure to the hurricane partially mediated the relationship between anticipated PTS responses and subsequent PTS, general distress, anger, functional impairment, and worry, controlling for demographics and hurricane exposure. Implications for the media, mental health professionals, and public health across all three studies are discussed.

Decades ago, there was great interest in the creation of a life events scale that could rank order the severity of the events people experienced in their lives, but this approach was eventually abandoned following recognition that appraisal of severity of life events is highly subjective. At this point, little is known about how people think about their various negative life events in relation to one another. We studied what events people considered to be the "worst" in their lifetimes by using data collected in a longitudinal study of a large nationally representative sample of US residents outside New York (N=1609) who were exposed to the September 11th terrorist attacks exclusively via the media. Bereavement events were the most commonly cited "worst" life events (42% of sample); violent events were cited by over 11% of the sample. However, over 21% of the sample named 9/11 as their worst life event, despite the fact that no respondents directly experienced the 9/11 attacks. Having experienced greater numbers of violent and loss events over one's lifetime was associated with decreased odds of naming 9/11 as one's worst life event; having watched 4+ hours of 9/11-related television coverage in the week after the attacks was associated with increased odds of naming 9/11 as one's worst life event one year later. Events experienced through the media can be seen as the worst of people's lives, which has important implications for assessing stressful life event history and for understanding indirect exposure to negative life events.