Participants in the debate on the media's role in the current AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) epidemic implicitly adopt a set of underlying assumptions about media processes and effects: information about AIDS proffered by the media has the capacity to influence estimates of risk, personal levels of concern, and extent of behavioral change on the part of those who ingest it. Whether these assumptions are warranted has been the topic of numerous health information campaigns. In a study, the knowledge gained from these campaigns was applied to an examination of the ability of information--both mass media and interpersonal--to influence nonscientists' judgments of how great a risk AIDS poses to them, as well as its ability to induce changes in behaviors related to AIDS. Subjects, 505 randomly selected University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate students, were interviewed to determine mass media use, risk judgments, and behavioral change with respect to AIDS. A total of 438 completed interviews successfully. Findings showed that respondents distinguish three aspects of risk judgment about AIDS: self-worry, situational worry, and risk estimation. Of the three aspects of risk judgment, self-worry was most consistently linked to AIDS risk reduction behaviors. Mass media exposure and attention, as well as interpersonal discussion, were found to be associated with risk reduction behaviors even after the application of multiple controls. (Four notes, five tables of data, and one figure are included, and 62 references and two appendixes are attached.) (MS)