Internet Research最新文献

Purpose

We argue that the information flow on Twitter is largely driven by elite communication with a top-down flow, while Facebook’s bottom-up flow is driven by mass public communication. Both are crucial news sources for democratic processes in Latin America. We explore how exposure to these flows affects opinions on democracy across 18 countries with varying democratic conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

Using mixed-effects models, our analysis draws on survey data from the 2018 Latinobarómetro paired with democracy measures from the 2018 Varieties of Democracy.

Findings

The results indicate that Facebook’s bottom-up communication correlates with negative perceptions of democracy, whereas Twitter’s top-down model correlates with more favorable views, especially among mass consumers. However, these differences are inconsistent across demographic factors.

Research limitations/implications

Cross-sectional survey data limits causal claims. Longitudinal data could provide stronger insights into the mechanisms underlying the observed relationships.

Practical implications

Understanding how different platforms influence democratic attitudes can inform strategies for political communication and digital governance in Latin America. Policymakers should consider platform-specific interventions to promote democratic engagement.

Originality/value

This study adds to the limited research on platform differences in political public opinion, particularly in Latin America, and highlights the need to explore mechanisms of change across various social media platforms.

Purpose

This study proposes and tests a model to analyse whether achievement, social and immersion motivational affordances embedded in gamified review platforms motivate consumers to altruistically create content in the post-consumption stage.

Design/methodology/approach

We used data from a sample of 343 reviewers and employed SmartPLS to test the research model.

Findings

Findings revealed that, while achievement affordances (i.e. points, levels and badges) have no significant effect, immersion affordances (i.e. avatars) and more especially, social affordances (i.e. receiving helpful votes from readers and having followers) are key for review platforms, as they drive consumers to develop pure, reciprocal and competitive forms of altruism, which, in turn, motivate them to create content.

Research limitations/implications

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of altruistic purpose in the context of gamified review platforms by proposing research questions aimed at eliciting the effects of achievement, social and immersion affordances on altruism, and by providing the first empirical evidence for these paths.

Practical implications

This study provides practical guidance on how review platforms can implement social and immersion affordances to foster altruism and, ultimately, promote user-generated content in the form of comments, photos and videos.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to develop a model to predict whether gamification affordances promote forms of altruism that result in user-generated content. The findings will improve practitioners’ strategies by focussing on social and immersion motivational affordances.

Purpose

With growing concerns about users’ well-being on social media, research stresses the importance of threat appraisals as a crucial first step in motivating self-protective actions. This study, in view of the prevalence of parasocial relationships between followers and social media influencers, aims to unravel the complex dynamics of followers’ threat perceptions within these relationships. Specifically, it examines how factors such as perceived self-efficacy to disengage and the positive affect of social media use influence threat appraisals.

Design/methodology/approach

A theoretical model is proposed based on appraisal theory to examine the impact of parasocial relationships on threat perception in engagement. It is empirically tested with data from 186 Instagram users.

Findings

The study reveals an overall positive relationship between parasocial relationships and perceived threat. This relationship is moderated by followers’ perception of self-efficacy to disengage – followers with a high sense of self-efficacy to disengage experience a decrease in threat perception as their parasocial relationships strengthen, whereas followers with a low sense of self-efficacy to disengage report an increase in threat perception with higher levels of parasocial relationships. This interplay is pronounced when followers experience average or below-average levels of positive affect on social media but diminishes when the positive affect is high.

Originality/value

This work contributes insights into social media influencers, threat appraisal dynamics and digital well-being research. Bridging a critical gap in existing knowledge, the study identifies the pivotal roles of followers’ self-efficacy to disengage and positive affect in shaping their threat appraisals toward parasocial relationships with social media influencers. This not only advances theoretical frameworks but also enhances our understanding of the nuanced dynamics of user reactions to parasocial engagements. Our findings offer practical insights for researchers, practitioners and platform developers aiming to cultivate healthy and responsible social media engagement in the digital era, ultimately contributing to individual well-being.

Purpose

The conventional notion that adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) positively affects firm performance is often confronted with various examples of failures. In this context, large-scale empirical evidence of the economic performance implications of adopting AI is poor, especially in the context of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon the Resource-Based View and the Digital Complementary Asset literature, we assessed whether the adoption of AI affects SMEs’ revenue growth.

Design/methodology/approach

First, we examine the relationship between the adoption of AI and SMEs’ revenue growth. Second, we assess whether AI complements the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics (BDA). We use firm-level data from the European Commission in 2020 on 11,429 European SMEs (Flash Eurobarometer 486).

Findings

Among the key findings, we found that ceteris paribus, the adoption of AI positively affects SMEs’ revenue growth and, in conjunction with IoT and BDA, appears to be even more beneficial.

Originality/value

Our results suggest that AI fosters SME growth, especially in combination with IoT and BDA. Thus, SME managers should be aware of the positive impacts of investments in AI and make decisions accordingly. Likewise, policymakers are aware of the positive effects of SMEs’ reliance on AI, so they may design policies and funding schemes to push this digitalization of SMEs further.

Purpose

This study disentangles the impact of consumers’ adoption of mini-program channels on social media on their purchase behavior in e-marketplaces from a multichannel retailer’s perspective and examines the moderating roles of two types of brand messages (informational and transformational messages).

Design/methodology/approach

Based on 2,204 transaction records from a Chinese multichannel retailer, this study used a Poisson regression model with fixed effects for empirical testing. The case of the WeChat mini-program in China was employed.

Findings

Adopting mini-program channels on social media reduces consumers’ purchase frequency but increases their purchase breadth in e-marketplaces. Moreover, informational messages worsen the negative effect of mini-program channel use on purchase frequency. In contrast, transformational messages reduce the negative effect of mini-program channel use on purchase frequency and amplify its positive effect on purchase breadth.

Practical implications

Managers can effectively leverage mini-programs to widen the range of consumers’ product purchases in e-marketplaces and the intensity of transformation messages posted within mini-programs to alleviate their negative impact on purchase frequency in e-marketplaces.

Originality/value

Previous studies only focus on the intrachannel impact of mini-program channels; however, this study highlights their cross-channel impact. Its findings underscore the dual role of mini-program channel use in e-marketplaces. Additionally, the nuanced moderating effects of informational and transformational messages enrich our understanding of mini-program channels on social media. Moreover, a substitution framework is utilized to understand the cross-channel effects generated by mini-program channels, demonstrating the applicability and generalizability of the framework in a new context.

Purpose

Advancements in augmented reality (AR) technology have increased the interest in improving brand equity by creating AR-enhanced branding experiences. However, despite the potential of AR branding, knowledge regarding the underlying mechanisms required for AR features to build brand equity remains limited. Thus, we considered embodied cognition theory to investigate how designing AR features enhances brand equity, particularly through the vivid experience of AR-enhanced body–environment interaction. Specifically, this study focused on both environmental and physical AR features: environmental embedding (EE) and simulated physical control (SPC).

Design/methodology/approach

The results of an online experiment with 297 participants in a 2 (high/low EE) × 2 (high/low SPC) between-subjects design underwent analysis of covariance and structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between AR features, vividness and brand equity. We also examined the moderating effects of prior AR experiences.

Findings

The results support most hypotheses that the experience of vividness is a crucial mediator linking AR features (EE and SPC) and consumer-based brand equity. The findings confirm the influential role of prior AR experience in the moderated mediation model, implying that AR-enhanced brand equity occurs primarily among technically adept AR consumers.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by identifying AR-enhanced body–environment interactions as a novel approach for enhancing brand equity. We also revealed the antecedents of vividness in the context of AR-enhanced branding. Moreover, the findings reveal that AR effects are contingent on consumers’ prior AR experience.

Purpose

The emergence of social media platforms has revolutionized how brands develop partnerships with social media influencers (SMIs). However, users are seeking more meaningful engagement with SMIs, and little is known about how brands can shift their focus from transient engagements to continued engagement that builds long-term brand–consumer relationships. Extant research has provided inconsistent findings regarding consumer engagement behavior. To address this knowledge deficit, we contribute to the consumer engagement literature by developing and testing a conceptual model that explores and explains the relationships between the factors that influence continued engagement intention (CEI), a form of behavioral intention.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review was conducted to identify gaps and develop a theoretically informed conceptual model and hypotheses. Survey data from 604 Instagram SMI followers were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.3.3 to assess the structural model relationships and conduct post hoc analysis.

Findings

The findings suggest that it is important to positively influence consumer responses to elicit CEI. Furthermore, homophily attitudes toward SMIs moderate the relationship between SMI experience and CEI.

Practical implications

Brands must work with SMIs to create positive SMI experiences and develop CEI. Furthermore, SMIs should focus on brands that fit their lifestyles to enhance homophily attitudes and forge CEI.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by combining social exchange and flow theories to develop and test a holistic framework for examining CEIs regarding SMIs and brands. The findings show that creating positive SMI experiences benefits brands seeking CEI.

Purpose

In the past decade, the use of neurophysiological measures as a complementary source of information has contributed to our understanding of human–computer interaction. However, less attention has been given to their capability in providing measures with high temporal resolution. Two studies are designed to address the challenge of measuring users’ cognitive load in an online shopping environment and investigate how it is related to task difficulty, task uncertainty and shopping convenience.

Design/methodology/approach

Two experiments using behavioral and neurophysiological measures are conducted to investigate how various types of the cognitive load construct can be measured and used in an online shopping context.

Findings

Results of the first study suggest that although all cognitive load measures are influenced by task difficulty, only accumulated load (i.e. total cognitive load experienced during a task) is sensitive to task uncertainty. Results of the second study show that convenience negatively influences accumulated load, and the latter negatively influences user satisfaction.

Practical implications

Our research offers practical value by providing designers with a validated method to measure users’ cognitive load, enabling the identification of usability issues and design improvement.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature by developing a rich and temporally high-resolution measurement of the cognitive load construct and examining how it can inform us about users’ cognitive state in an online shopping environment.

Purpose

Benefiting from the development and innovation of artificial intelligence and affective computing technology, social chatbots that integrate cognitive analysis and affective social services have flooded into the consumer market. For cognition and emotion-oriented tasks, social chatbots do not always receive positive consumer responses. In addition, consumers have a contradictory attitude toward the anthropomorphism of chatbots. Therefore, from the perspective of mind perception and the two dimensions of social judgment, this research explores the mechanism of consumer responses to anthropomorphic interaction styles when social chatbots complete different service tasks.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilizes three behavior experimental designs and survey methods to collect data and the ANOVA, t-test and bootstrap analysis methods to verify the assumed hypotheses.

Findings

The results indicate that when the service task type of a social chatbot is cognition-oriented, compared to a warm anthropomorphic interaction style, a competent anthropomorphic interaction style can improve consumer responses more effectively. During this process, agent-mind perception plays a mediating role. When the service task type of a social chatbot is emotion-oriented, compared with a competent anthropomorphic conversation style, a warm anthropomorphic conversation style can improve consumer responses. Experience-mind perception mediates this influencing relationship.

Originality/value

The research results theoretically enrich the relevant research on the anthropomorphism of social chatbots and expand the application of the theory of mind perception in the fields of artificial intelligence and interactive marketing. Our findings provide theoretical guidance for the anthropomorphic development and design of social chatbots and the practical management of service task scenarios.

Purpose

Short-form video advertisements have recently gained popularity and are widely used. However, creating attractive short video advertisements remains a challenge for sellers. Based on the visual-audio perspective and signaling theory, this study investigated the impacts of three visual features (number of shots, pixel-level image complexity and vertical versus horizontal formats) and two audio features (speech rate and average spectral centroid) on user engagement behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

We conducted a field study on TikTok. To test our various hypotheses, we used regression analysis on 2,511 videos containing product promotion information posted by 60 sellers between January 1, 2020 and November 20, 2021.

Findings

For visual variables, the number of shots and pixel-level image complexity were found to have nonlinear (inverted U-shaped) relationships with user engagement behavior. The vertical video form was found to have a positive effect on comments and shares. In the case of audio variables, speech rate was found to have a significant positive effect on shares but not on likes and comments. The average spectral centroid was found to have significant negative influences on likes and comments.

Practical implications

This study provides specific suggestions for sellers who create short-form videos to improve user engagement behavior.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the literature on short-form video advertising by extending the potential drivers of user engagement behavior. Additionally, from a methodological perspective, it contributes to the literature by using computer vision and speech-processing techniques to analyze user behavior in a video-related context, effectively overcoming the limitations of the widely adopted survey method.