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This study measures to what extent different factors including Islamic religious beliefs influenced Egyptian's voting behavior intentions in the last parliament elections, given the moderating effect of the media and its role in shaping the existence of the Islamic political brand in Egypt. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Qualitative research was initially conducted to modify the Newman and Sheth model to fit the Egyptian culture. A final total of 401 Muslim citizens that participated in the last parliament elections were then surveyed via face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire.

Most factors related to voting for a specific candidate or party seemed to be important for voters' in their decision making, specifically personal events related to the candidate, candidate's image, current events surrounding the elections process, interest in issues and policies and religious beliefs that was added by the authors to the model. The media also had a high level of importance and influence over the relationship between some of the factors affecting voter's decision and voter's behavioral intentions. Overall, citizens demonstrated approach voting behavioral intentions towards the elections process and indicated that they would actively participate in the upcoming elections. Pearson correlations and further analysis were also run to investigate the nature of relationships between the factors understudy and voting behavioral intentions; most of which had significant relationships, as well as the significant role of the media. Some factors were excluded after running stepwise regression for testing the fitness of the model proposed.

Study covering the capital city of Egypt; Cairo only.

It has become important for politicians and governments to understand what are the genuine needs of their societies and what are citizens looking for in political candidates and parties. Political marketing and particularly understanding voting behavior is a booming area that has become an important tool for building political brands as witnessed by this research and how it was used by Islamists to reach voter's and affect their decision making.

This research paper sheds the light on a very contemporary area related to political marketing which is political campaigning and factors affecting voters' intentions given the significant role of candidate's religious beliefs. Furthermore, focusing on the rise of Islamic political parties that are actively becoming important members of the political landscape in the Arab region after a long time of undercover practice and struggle with previous governments before the Arab spring events.

This study examines the effect of social media marketing on voting intention applying a combination of fuzzy logic methodology and a multidimensional panel data model.

The study adopts a multidimensional panel data method that includes several fixed effects. The dependent variable is a multifaceted construct that measures the participants’ intention to vote. The independent variables are electronic word of mouth (eWOM), customisation (CUS), entertainment (ENT), interaction (INT), trendiness (TRD), candidate’s perceived image (CPI), religious beliefs (RB), gender and age. The grouping variables that signify fixed effects are employment status, level of education, mostly used social media and religion. First, the significance of said fixed effects was tested through an ANOVA process. Then, the main model was estimated, including the significant grouping variables as fixed effects.

Employment status and level of education were significant fixed effects. Also, eWOM, ENT, INT, CPI, RB and gender significantly affected participants’ voting intention.

Being based on a questionnaire that asked participants about how they perceive different aspects of social media, the present study is limited to their perceptions. Therefore, further studies covering the voters’ behaviour in action could be efficient complements to the present study.

The findings could guide the political parties into prioritizing the aspects of social media in forming an effective campaign resulting in being elected.

The findings have the potential to help the public in making better informed decisions when voting. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate applications for social media which are beyond leisure time fillers.

Fuzzy logic and multidimensional panel data estimates are this study’s novelty and originality. Structural equation modelling and crisp linguistic values have been used in previous studies on social media’s effect on voting intent. The former refines the data gathered from a questionnaire, and the latter considers the possibility of including different grouping factors to achieve a more efficient and less biased estimation.

Dunhuang murals are rich in cultural and artistic value. The purpose of this paper is to construct a novel mobile visual search (MVS) framework for Dunhuang murals, enabling users to efficiently search for similar, relevant and diversified images.

The convolutional neural network (CNN) model is fine-tuned in the data set of Dunhuang murals. Image features are extracted through the fine-tuned CNN model, and the similarities between different candidate images and the query image are calculated by the dot product. Then, the candidate images are sorted by similarity, and semantic labels are extracted from the most similar image. Ontology semantic distance (OSD) is proposed to match relevant images using semantic labels. Furthermore, the improved DivScore is introduced to diversify search results.

The results illustrate that the fine-tuned ResNet152 is the best choice to search for similar images at the visual feature level, and OSD is the effective method to search for the relevant images at the semantic level. After re-ranking based on DivScore, the diversification of search results is improved.

This study collects and builds the Dunhuang mural data set and proposes an effective MVS framework for Dunhuang murals to protect and inherit Dunhuang cultural heritage. Similar, relevant and diversified Dunhuang murals are searched to meet different demands.

This paper aims to explore how the Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) can be adopted in services marketing to provide deeper customer experience insights.

This paper explores how ZMET interviews, which use images selected by the participant to facilitate discussion, can be used by researchers. This paper draws upon a study of 24 student experiences at a UK university.

Adopting this qualitative method for services marketing can counter depth deficit when compared to other qualitative approaches, because it is participant led. However, the method requires competent interview skills and time for the interview and analysis. We find that ZMET has not been widely adopted in academia because of its commercial licenced use. The paper illustrates how to use the ZMET process step-by-step.

Findings are limited to student experiences. Further research is necessary to understand how researchers could use ZMET in other areas of services marketing.

This paper provides guidance to researchers on how to use ZMET as a methodological tool. ZMET facilitates a deeper understanding of service experiences through using participant chosen images and thus enabling researchers to uncover subconscious hidden perceptions that other methods may not find.

ZMET has been used commercially to gain market insights but has had limited application in service research. Existing studies fail to provide details of how ZMET can be used to access the consumer subconscious. This paper makes a methodological contribution by providing step-by-step guidance on how to apply ZMET to services marketing.

Most existing recommendation systems or technologies are functional-oriented. Recommending services, nevertheless, requires the consideration of service experiences perceived by customers being individually unique and emphasizing the emotional experiences and the co-created value-in-use. This paper aims to present a new recommender system to capture customer emotional needs and address social interactions among service stakeholders.

This paper presents a color imagery-based recommender system (CIRS) capable of capturing customer emotional needs and addressing social interactions among service stakeholders that can collectively co-create the individual value-in-use and beneficial outcomes for customers. Based on the Color Image Scale, the recommender system uses the color imagery format as the uniform representation of customers’ psychological expectations, service providers and the service system, to facilitate the scoring and ranking of recommendations.

This study uses an application context of destination tourism to demonstrate and justify the recommender system’s attempted contributions preliminarily. That is, CIRS can recommend destinations and tour services that meet tourists’ emotional needs with a satisfactory precision of 70 per cent. CIRS can also make stakeholders’ image models evolve over time considering the dynamic interactions among stakeholders. CIRS can also help lesser-known tourism destinations be discovered by tourists who can be emotionally satisfied.

CIRS uses the color imagery as the uniform representation for customers’ expectations, service providers (e.g. small and medium enterprises) and service system (e.g. tourism destinations), considering the continued interactions among the service stakeholders that collectively co-create the individual value-in-use and beneficial outcomes for each customer.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate how the segmentation of voters based on decision‐making processes, using means‐end laddering research innovations and real‐time interactive online interviewing, can aid in the formation of political communications strategy, including theme and message development.

To demonstrate the application of these innovations in a political context, the paper uses data from a sample of 114 voters who were interviewed during the 2004 US presidential election campaign. The paper draws on three recent innovations to the means‐end laddering methodology: elicitation questioning techniques that allow for a decision equity analysis between targeted groups; decision segmentation analysis; and real‐time interactive online interviewing; and applies them to an electoral context. It provides an interpretation of the identified decision segments and an exposition of how these common networks of meaning can serve as the basis for targeted theme and message development.

These three innovations, in concert, were found to provide an efficient set of methods to serve as the foundation for the campaign message development process.

This paper provides deterministic research techniques for campaign strategists who want to understand voter decision making and demonstrates a combination of methodological and technological innovations that addresses the time, cost, and geographic limitations often associated with conducting voter decision making research.

The purpose of this paper is to use data from the 2008 and 2012 US Senate elections to examine the relationship between candidate size (obese, overweight, normal weight) and candidate selection and election outcomes.

Using pictures captured from candidate web sites, participants rated the size of candidates in the primary and general US Senate elections. χ2 analyses, t-tests and hierarchical multiple regressions were used to test for evidence of bias against overweight and obese candidates and whether gender and election information moderate that relationship.

Obese candidates were largely absent from the pool of candidates in both the primary and general elections. Overweight women, but not overweight men, were also underrepresented. Supporting our hypothesis that there is bias against overweight candidates, heavier candidates tended to receive lower vote share than their thinner counterparts, and the larger the size difference between the candidates, the larger the vote share discrepancy. The paper did not find a moderating effect for gender or high-information high vs low-information elections on the relationship between candidate size and vote share.

Further research is needed to understand the process by which obese candidates are culled from the candidate pool and the cognitions underlying the biases against overweight candidates.

Because of the bias against obese political candidates, as much as one-third of the adult US population are likely to be excluded or being elected to a major political office.

This study is the first to use election data to examine whether bias based on size extends to the electoral process.

This paper aims to report the results of a study investigating the relevance criteria used by health care professionals when seeking medical images.

Data were collected from 29 participants using a think‐aloud protocol and face‐to‐face interviews and analysed using the Straussian version of grounded theory (GT).

The results show that participants made use of 15 relevance criteria, although they agreed on topicality being the most important. The findings suggest that users apply different criteria in different situations when evaluating the relevancy of medical images.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there have been few studies that investigate relevance judgments for visually orientated documents. Thus, this study helps to contribute to the understanding of medical image resources and the information needs of health care professionals. A clear understanding of the medical image information needs of health care professionals is also vital to the design process and development of medical image retrieval systems.

The growth in popularity of new media has led some television networks in the United States to experiment with alternative forms of political debate by encouraging viewers of all ages to submit video questions to political candidates. Surprisingly, however, experimentation with this new type of debate format in the 2008 U.S. presidential election cycle did not lead to the adoption of new debate formats in the subsequent 2012 election cycle, despite its success with viewing audiences. This study examines various debate formats to understand the value of participatory, user-generated debate question formats versus more traditional debate question formats whereby moderators or live audience members ask presidential candidates scripted questions.

Using a between-subjects experiment, this study examines four types of televised debate formats to assess young adult viewers’ impressions of each format as well as image perceptions of a political candidate and the individual posing the debate question.

The findings suggest debate formats impact perceptions of a political candidate’s image differently for young men and young women. In addition, varying the debate format impacts young voters’ perceptions of debate questioners as well as their overall perceptions of the debate. Implications for viewing audiences are discussed.

U.S. presidential candidates should embrace presidential debate formats that encourage citizens to participate in the political process via new media technologies.

This study shows implementing more engaging and interactive presidential debate formats can positively impact young voters’ perceptions.

The use of imagery in leadership speeches is becoming increasingly important in shaping the beliefs and actions of followers. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of speech imagery and linguistic features employed during the 2008 US Presidential Election campaign.

The authors analysed a total of 264 speeches (160 speeches from Obama and 104 speeches from McCain) delivered throughout the 2008 US Presidential Election and identified 15 speech images used by the two candidates. Both descriptive coding and axial coding approaches were applied to the data and speech images common to both candidates were further subjected to Pennebaker et al. (2003) linguistic inquiry methodology.

The analysis revealed a number of important differences with Obama using inclusive language and nurturing communitarian values, whereas McCain focusing on personal actions and strict, conservative individualistic values. The use of more inclusive language by Obama was found to be significant in three of the five speech images common to both candidates.

The research acknowledges the difficulty of measuring the effectiveness of speech images without taking into account wider factors such as tone of voice, facial expression and level of conviction. It also recognises the heavy use of speechwriters by presidential candidates whilst on the campaign trail, but argues that candidates still exert a strong influence through instructions to speechwriters and that speeches should reflect the candidate’s values and beliefs.

The research findings contribute to the emerging stream of leadership research that addresses language content issues surrounding and embedded in the leadership process. The research argues that leaders’ speeches provide a fertile ground for conducting research and for examining the evolving relationship between leaders and followers.