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The purpose of this paper is to explore the claim that online communication technologies are detrimental to off‐line communication practices.

This paper is based on material from focus groups with students from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), and in‐depth interviews from a mixture of employed people and students. The breakdown is as follows: three focus groups in total are ran, two cohorts of participants were students from University of Cambridge, and the third group from ARU. Six individuals aged between 21 and 36 were interviewed in‐depth on their Facebook use. Questions relating to personal use of Facebook are asked. All names of participants have been changed.

The research findings show that opportunities for communication are increased by using Facebook. Facebook use also impacts on how other types of communicative technologies are used – such as the phone and email. From the small participant sample, it is founded (with only one exception, the Facebook user had accepted a request from a “stranger” on recommendation from her friend, only to reject this friend within a short time from her network due to his reliability. Since the study, it is founded that one individual who has befriended individuals that were not known to him. When asked about this, he explained that many of these friends were developed after playing online games with them. In his mind, he had built up trust through game‐playing and used this as a measure of their reliability. Whilst he only joined Facebook in early 2008, he has now accumulated over 350 friends.) that off‐line encounters were a prerequisite for a friend connection to be made online in Facebook. Finally, it is founded that the participants rarely interact with the majority of their Facebook friends and it is this dormant archive of relationships that hold the most interest as it provides an archive of relationships that would have dissipated without these technologies.

The key value of the paper lies in understanding this technology as an archive of human relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of “social information” in Facebook News Feed ads on American users’ advertising responses, including ad credibility, attitude-toward-the-ad, brand interest, intention to click and purchase intention. Using social impact theory as a conceptual framework, three factors were tested – relationship strength, physical distance and number of affiliated friends. The moderating role of product involvement was also investigated.

A 2 (strength of relationship: weak vs strong) × 2 (immediacy of relationship: close distance vs long distance) × 2 (number of friends: one vs several) between-group factorial design was used, and 397 research participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk).

Significant main effects were found for relationship strength and physical distance. Product involvement was identified as a moderating variable. No significant effects were found under the high involvement condition. Under the low involvement condition, however, relationship strength and physical distance significantly affected Facebook users’ advertising responses.

Research samples were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). It is possible that the characteristics of this specific social group might have influenced the findings of the study. Only one specific product category, fast casual restaurant, was tested. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in certain scenarios. Even though the scenarios were carefully tested in the pretest and clear instructions were given, field experiments might be helpful in future research to better reflect the actual consumer experience.

Marketers should take advantage of the “social information” feature in Facebook News Feed ads, especially for low involvement products. Names of friends with stronger social relationships and within close physical distance should be included in the ads.

The study is one of the first to examine the effects of “social information” in Facebook advertising. It also confirms the Social Impact Theory in a social media setting.

This paper aims to examine the role of Facebook friends on the intention to join brand pages in this social network site (SNS). SNSs have grown in both popularity and use. They allow individuals to articulate their social networks by developing a list of other members on the site with whom they share a connection. These platforms also allow companies to create profiles to promote their brands. However, many firms have jumped into SNSs by creating a “brand page” without fully understanding how to spread it successfully.

Two experiments were developed. In the first one, the authors manipulated how the individual comes to know about brand pages. Participants discovered a brand page through a friend with whom they have either a strong tie or a weak tie. In the second experiment (2 × 2), the authors manipulated tie strength (strong vs weak) and the type of recommendation (active vs passive).

Results of the first study show that as the individual has more experience in Facebook (measured in this paper through satisfaction, past behavior of following brands and Facebook intensity), the effect of tie strength on the intention to join a brand page dilutes. The second study confirms Study 1 and shows that strong ties exert more influence than weak ties when the brand page is actively recommended by Facebook friends.

This paper shows that the influence of strong ties is particularly important for individuals with low levels of experience in Facebook. As experience in SNSs is expected to continue growing, managers should not forget the role of weak ties as a source of information for their networked friends. Strong ties only remain more influential than weak ties when the information about the brand page is received through an invitation.

This paper explores the interpersonal influences in Facebook, asserting that the influence of tie strength depends on the level of experience in the SNS, and on the way, information about the brand page is received.

Motivating users to revisit a social networking site (SNS) by developing a long-term relationship with them is critical for SNS operators to enhance market control and competitiveness. By conceptualizing loyalty intention as an indicator of the long-term relationship, the present study, based on uses and gratification (U&G) theory, aims to explore the role played by online intimacy development with respect to loyalty intention when individuals have gained gratifications through using the SNS.

The study used a questionnaire measuring six types of Facebook gratifications as well as measuring self-disclosure breadth, self-disclosure depth, intimacy with Facebook, intimacy with Facebook friends and loyalty intention. Data, collected from the University of Economics in Vietnam, were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach.

The results support several findings: (1) the gratifications including entertainment, network extension, recognition and emotional support provided by Facebook may stimulate the users' intimacy with Facebook and/or Facebook users; (2) intimacy with Facebook and intimacy with Facebook friends facilitate users' loyalty intention; (3) having a sense of emotional support influences users to engage in self-disclosure with breadth and meaningful depth, thus leading them to develop a sense of intimacy with Facebook friends.

The study contributes to U&G research, intimacy theory and the SNS literature by offering an understanding of users' online communication self-disclosure and intimacy development, wherein the self-disclosure and intimacy stem from the users' gratifications via using specific SNS services and, in turn, create their loyalty intention toward that SNS.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects that reference prices and associated information sources (websites that consumers use to explore and their friends who have similar perspectives on value) have on deal evaluation and intention to disseminate electronic word of mouth (eWOM).

A stratified survey is conducted to empirically test the relations between reference prices, associated information sources (the top five Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) websites and top five Facebook friends with similar perspectives and values on consumption), deal evaluation, and eWOM intention. The study uses a Facebook API to help participants pick five Facebook friends to act as their favorite sources for advice on shopping.

The results suggest that consumers’ deal evaluations (as shaped by the recency effects of previous exposure to prices and the influence of Facebook friends and C2C websites) have carry-over effects on their eWOM intentions. The influence of Facebook friends and C2C websites on deal evaluation is as powerful as that of reference price, especially concerning the mean and the lowest prices.

The findings encourage marketers to invest their resources in targeting online groups, and suggest that C2C website marketers should set their offer prices between the mean and the lowest prices.

This study extends prior research on the motives for eWOM dissemination and elaborates an approach to initiate eWOM intention through deal evaluation.

This paper aims to provide insights into the moral values embodied by a popular social networking site (SNS), Facebook.

This study is based upon qualitative fieldwork, involving participant observation, conducted over a two‐year period. The authors adopt the position that technology as well as humans has a moral character in order to disclose ethical concerns that are not transparent to users of the site.

Much research on the ethics of information systems has focused on the way that people deploy particular technologies, and the consequences arising, with a view to making policy recommendations and ethical interventions. By focusing on technology as a moral actor with reach across and beyond the internet, the authors reveal the complex and diffuse nature of ethical responsibility and the consequent implications for governance of SNS.

The authors situate their research in a body of work known as disclosive ethics, and argue for an ongoing process of evaluating SNS to reveal their moral importance. Along with that of other authors in the genre, this work is largely descriptive, but the paper engages with prior research by Brey and Introna to highlight the scope for theory development.

Governance measures that require the developers of social networking sites to revise their designs fail to address the diffuse nature of ethical responsibility in this case. Such technologies need to be opened up to scrutiny on a regular basis to increase public awareness of the issues and thereby disclose concerns to a wider audience. The authors suggest that there is value in studying the development and use of these technologies in their infancy, or if established, in the experiences of novice users. Furthermore, flash points in technological trajectories can prove useful sites of investigation.

Existing research on social networking sites either fails to address ethical concerns head on or adopts a tool view of the technologies so that the focus is on the ethical behaviour of users. The authors focus upon the agency, and hence the moral character, of technology to show both the possibilities for, and limitations of, ethical interventions in such cases.

Social networking sites (SNSs) offer people the possibility of maintaining larger networks of social ties, which also entails more complex relationship maintenance across multiple platforms. Whom to “friend” and via which platform can involve complex deliberations. This study investigates the relationships between users' perceived friending affordances of five popular SNSs (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn) and their friending behaviors concerning strong ties, weak ties (existing and latent ties) and parasocial ties.

An online survey using Qualtrics was provided to participants (N = 626) through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey asked their SNS use and their friending behaviors with different ties on each of the sites.

Users' friending decisions are dependent on an interplay of socio-technical affordances of each SNS and specific needs for the ties. The authors found that the affordances of bridging social capital and enjoyment are aligned with friending weak and parasocial ties, respectively. The affordances of bonding social capital were not valued to friend strong ties.

The study extends the affordance and social capital literature by assessing users' perceived, contextualized SNS affordances in relation to actual communication behaviors in friending different social ties. This approach provides contextualized insights to friending decisions and practices on SNSs.

Brand “Likes” on Facebook facilitate self-expression, forming part of consumers’ virtual selves. Yet, consumers’ brand “Likes” may bear little resemblance to their material realities. This paper aims to test similarities of brand image with self-image for Facebook “Likes” to determine whether self-congruence with a “Liked” brand leads to positive offline brand outcomes. It also investigates whether consumers’ perceptions about their Facebook social relations influence self-congruent brand “Likes”.

A large-scale survey was conducted of regular Facebook users who “Liked” brands. Data from 438 respondents was analysed and hypotheses tested using structural equation modeling.

Empirical results show that the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand increases with social tie strength. Perceived social tie strength is informed by perceived attitude homophily. When the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand is higher, brand love and word of mouth (WOM) are enhanced. Consumers also have greater brand loyalty and offer more WOM when brands are loved.

Findings demonstrate the influence of consumers’ cognitive network on “Likes” and brand outcomes. Further replication would enhance generalisability. Future research should use a wider sample and investigate other variables.

Findings support managers seeking to grow and analyse Facebook “Likes” by providing insights into brand loyalty, brand love and WOM for “Liked” brands.

The paper addresses the dearth of research exploring how consumers’ perceptions of their Facebook network influence their online brand behaviour and how perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand relates to brand outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to predict tie strength using profile similarities and interaction data between users, and thus distinguish between strong and weak relationships on social network sites (SNSs).

This study developed a program and an online questionnaire to collect the data set from Facebook, and then integrated that data set with a subjective data set consisting of participants’ opinions of the strength of their friendships on Facebook. The model developed here for predicting tie strength performed well when was applied on a data set of 6,477 SNSs’ ties, distinguishing between strong and weak ties with over 50 percent accuracy.

The results developed an algorithm (predictive model) that quantifies and measures tie strength continuously to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The results found that the variables in the dimension of emotional intensity had stronger effects than other interaction variables.

This study developed a predictive model that helps explain the meaning of interaction on SNSs, providing an efficient method to examine tie strength on SNSs. The tie strength estimates can also be used to improve the range and performance of various aspects of SNSs, including link predictions, product recommendations, newsfeeds, people searches, and visualization. Such understanding of the structure of SNSs might lead ultimately to the design of algorithms that can detect trusted or influential users of SNSs.

The purpose of this paper is to apply cultivation theory to social network sites by investigating how Facebook uses cultivates users' ethnic diversity perceptions and attitudes.

The authors’ investigations include an online and offline survey study with 476 Facebook users and a follow-up experiment with 75 individuals.

The authors provide empirical support that Facebook use cultivates ethnic diversity perceptions and ethnic diversity-related attitudes. They show that Facebook use relates to perceptions of ethnic minorities that resemble the world on Facebook that is characterized by high ethnic diversity. The authors further demonstrate that the cultivation of ethnic diversity-related attitudes is mediated by diversity perceptions related to users' close social environment.

Future research should consider culturally and educationally diverse samples as well as longitudinal research designs to address external validity and causality issues.

Algorithms determining the content users are exposed should be thoughtfully curated to avoid attitudinal and ideological polarization.

Facebook can play an important role in positively shaping intergroup relations, thereby countering negative outgroup attitudes, social anxieties and radical right-wing parties.

The authors’ studies extend the scope of cultivation research by identifying a new media vehicle as a source of cultivation influences and shed light on the cultivation-based process of attitude change on social network sites.