Search results

For Internet celebrities, self-disclosure (SD) is a crucial step in building relationships with their followers who perceive this communication as para-social interaction (PSI), which facilitates socialization among followers. Normative commitment (NC) is critical for creating bonds among community members that are strengthened through socialization. However, research on the predictive relationships among SD, PSI and NC has been insufficient. This paper aims to investigate the effects of two facets of Internet celebrity SDs (i.e. private life and opinion) and two facets of PSI (i.e. companionship and following) on NC. The mediating role of PSI on the effects of SD on NC was also analyzed.

People who follow at least one Internet celebrity on a social networking site were recruited to participate in this study, and 494 valid questionnaires were collected for examination. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The results revealed that both private-life and opinion SDs have positive effects on companionship and following PSI, which consequently influence NC. A mediation test revealed that companionship and following PSI mediate the effects of private-life and opinion SD on NC. This study's findings also revealed that NC is influenced more by following PSI than it is by companionship PSI. Furthermore, opinion SD was determined to be the more influential factor in following PSI, whereas private-life SD was the more influential factor in companionship PSI.

This paper is useful for understanding the influence mechanism of the SD of Internet celebrities on PSI and NC.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the supportive capacity of social networks of older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) and heterosexual adults using data from Understanding Society. The principal research objective is to discern whether the companionship and community networks of older LGBT adults compensate for weaker kinship networks.

Understanding Society has data on the frequency of interaction with and proximity to family, friends and the wider community to quantify supportive capacity. Bivariate analyses reveal similarities and differences in network supportive capacity between older LGBT and heterosexual adults.

The study finds that older LGBT adults have significantly weaker kinship networks than do older heterosexual adults. Further to this, the companionship and community networks of older LGBT adults do not compensate for weaker kinship networks.

In essence, this means that many older LGBT adults have weak social networks which increases the likelihood of receiving little or no social contact and informal support which may have implications for their physical and mental well-being. This could be especially problematic for individuals who have care needs where in the context of England, the provision of state funded social care is patchy.

This study contributes evidence to an under researched area of social network analysis. Little research has explored the social networks of older LGBT adults compared with older heterosexual adults; specifically the supportive network capacity of different types of network.

Gamification elements have been increasingly used in online weight-loss communities to help users lose weight. The purpose of this paper is to systemically examine whether and how social interactions influence users’ continued participation in the context of online weight-loss competitions (OWCs).

This study empirically investigated sustained involvement in OWCs using a Cox proportional hazards model. Additionally, the research utilized a text-mining technique to identify various types of social support and explored their roles in sustaining participation behavior in OWCs.

Community response both within and outside OWCs positively influence users’ continued participation in OWCs. Moreover, whereas emotional support and companionship received within OWCs have a greater impact on users’ continued participation than informational support received within OWCs, informational support received outside OWCs has a greater impact on users’ continued participation than emotional support and companionship received outside OWCs.

This paper highlights users’ social needs in OWC engagement and provides empirical evidence on how different types and sources of social support influence continued participation behavior in OWCs. The research additionally provides management implications for online health community service providers.

The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerable healthcare consumers foster social support through visual storytelling in social media in navigating healthcare consumption experiences.

This study employs a dual qualitative approach of visual and textual analysis of 180 Instagram posts from female breast cancer patients and survivors who use the platform to narrate their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study demonstrates how visual storytelling on social media normalises hidden aspects of healthcare consumption experiences through healthcare disclosures (procedural, corporeal, recovery), normalising practices (providing learning resources, cohering the illness experience, problematising mainstream recovery narratives) and enabling digital affordances, which in turn facilitates social support among vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This study highlights the potential for visual storytelling on social media to address shortcomings in the healthcare service system and contribute to societal well-being through co-creative efforts that offer real-time and customised support for vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This research highlights that visual storytelling on image-based social media offers transformative possibilities for vulnerable healthcare consumers seeking social support in negotiating the challenges of their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study presents a framework of visual storytelling for vulnerable healthcare consumers on image-based social media. Our paper offers three key contributions: that visual storytelling fosters informational and companionship social support for vulnerable healthcare consumers; recognising this occurs through normalising hidden healthcare consumption experiences; and identifying healthcare disclosures, normalising practices and enabling digital affordances as fundamental to this process.

To outline the multiple ways in which animals are inserted into sporting practices, outline historical and contemporary approaches to studying human–animal sporting practices, and advocate for the centering of sociological problems in human–animal research in sporting contexts and cultures and for considering such problems in relation to environmental issues.

In the first part of the chapter, conceptual differentiation of animals in the animal–sport complex is presented. Subsequently, studies of interspecies sport are reviewed with reference to the “animal turn” in the literature. In the second part, a critique is presented relating to: (1) the privileging of companion animals, especially dogs and horses, which overlooks the multiple ways animals are integrated into (multispecies) sport; (2) micro-sociological and insider ethnographies of companionship displacing of sociological problems in favor of relationship perspectives; and (3) the environment as absent from analysis. The conclusion offers implications for understanding multispecies sport and the environment.

I chart a general shift in emphasis and focus from animals as an “absent presence” in pursuit of sociological knowledge toward a clearly defined focus on interspecies sport as a field of research characterized by investigations of relationships with companion animals through the “animal turn.”

The focus on companion species means other animals (i.e., noncompanions) are understudied, big picture sociological questions are often sidelined, environmental concerns marginalized, and sociological understanding of the environment more generally is either ignored or reduced to a conduit of human–animal interactions.

This paper aims to study the role of self-concept in consumer relationships with anthropomorphised conversational artificially intelligent (AI) agents. First, the authors investigate how the self-congruence between consumer self-concept and AI and the integration of the conversational AI agent into consumer self-concept might influence such relationships. Second, the authors examine whether these links with self-concept have implications for mental well-being.

This study conducted in-depth interviews with 20 consumers who regularly use popular conversational AI agents for functional or emotional tasks. Based on a thematic analysis and an ideal-type analysis, this study derived a taxonomy of consumer–AI relationships, with self-congruence and self–AI integration as the two axes.

The findings unveil four different relationships that consumers forge with their conversational AI agents, which differ in self-congruence and self–AI integration. Both dimensions are prominent in replacement and committed relationships, where consumers rely on conversational AI agents for companionship and emotional tasks such as personal growth or as a means for overcoming past traumas. These two relationships carry well-being risks in terms of changing expectations that consumers seek to fulfil in human-to-human relationships. Conversely, in the functional relationship, the conversational AI agents are viewed as an important part of one’s professional performance; however, consumers maintain a low sense of self-congruence and distinguish themselves from the agent, also because of the fear of losing their sense of uniqueness and autonomy. Consumers in aspiring relationships rely on their agents for companionship to remedy social exclusion and loneliness, but feel this is prevented because of the agents’ technical limitations.

Although this study provides insights into the dynamics of consumer relationships with conversational AI agents, it comes with limitations. The sample of this study included users of conversational AI agents such as Siri, Google Assistant and Replika. However, future studies should also investigate other agents, such as ChatGPT. Moreover, the self-related processes studied here could be compared across public and private contexts. There is also a need to examine such complex relationships with longitudinal studies. Moreover, future research should explore how consumers’ self-concept could be negatively affected if the support provided by AI is withdrawn. Finally, this study reveals that in some cases, consumers are changing their expectations related to human-to-human relationships based on their interactions with conversational AI agents.

This study enables practitioners to identify specific anthropomorphic cues that can support the development of different types of consumer–AI relationships and to consider their consequences across a range of well-being aspects.

This research equips marketing scholars with a novel understanding of the role of self-concept in the relationships that consumers forge with popular conversational AI agents and the associated well-being implications.

This study aims to explore the evolutionary pattern of discussion topics over time in an online depression self-help community.

Using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method, the authors analyzed 17,534 posts and 138,567 comments posted over 8 years on an online depression self-help group in China and identified the major discussion topics. Based on significant changes in the frequency of posts over time, the authors identified five stages of development. Through a comparative analysis of discussion topics in the five stages, the authors identified the changes in the extent and range of topics over time. The authors discuss the influence of socio-cultural factors on depressed individuals' health information behavior.

The results illustrate an evolutionary pattern of topics in users' discussion in the online depression self-help group, including five distinct stages with a sequence of topic changes. The discussion topics of the group included self-reflection, daily record, peer diagnosis, companionship support and instrumental support. While some prominent topics were discussed frequently in each stage, some topics were short-lived.

While most prior research has ignored topic changes over time, the study takes an evolutionary perspective of online discussion topics among depressed individuals. The authors provide a nuanced account of the progression of topics through five distinct stages, showing that the community experienced a sequence of changes as it developed. Identifying this evolutionary pattern extends the scope of research on depression therapy in China and offers a deeper understanding of the support that individuals with depression seek, receive and provide online.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate which types of service employees provide their customers with social support and to understand why they do so.

The article employs a network‐based inventory method to evaluate a customer's commercial‐based social support network and grounded theory to develop a framework illustrating the interdependence between service providers and their customers regarding the exchange of intrinsic support and extrinsic financial incentives and gifts.

Indirect service employees who do not directly receive tips from customers emerge as key providers of social support. Also, commercial friendships are not marketplace niceties. Service providers and customers engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of social support, gifts, and tips under the guise of commercial friendships.

The article is based upon service provider and customer relationships in an American diner. Researchers may want to apply the offered model to other contexts and locals. Also, researchers may want to reconsider the idea that service providers willingly provide social support to their customers.

The hiring and training of service employees, such as cashiers, hostesses, and “bus boys,” should be taken into consideration as they may be key providers of social support. Service providers should realize the extrinsic and intrinsic benefits or providing support.

The paper empirically investigates the role of indirect service employees in providing customers with social support. Also, it demonstrates that commercial friendships are mutually beneficial relationships where service providers and customers realize extrinsic and/or intrinsic benefits from these relationships.

Celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms (such as Twitter or Weibo) has become a widely adopted marketing practice. Compared to its counterpart on traditional mass media, celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms has some unique characteristics. For example, the endorsement information is usually more implicit and the endorsers tend to use different tactics so as to maximize the impact on their followers. However, these new practices have not been thoroughly investigated and the underlying mechanism by which the endorsers influence potential information receivers is not well understood. Anchored on the theory of parasocial interaction borrowed from the mass communication literature, this paper aims to reveal the underlying mechanism of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms. More specifically, it examines the relationship between the intensity of microbloggers’ various celebrity-following activities and endorsement effectiveness.

The authors designed and conducted a Web-based survey containing scales for all focal constructs and demographic and control variables. Through online and offline campus advertisement, undergraduate and graduates students who have used microblogging for at least three months were recruited.

First of all, the survey results show that the intensity of users’ celebrity-following activities on microblogging platforms has a positive effect on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Second, the positive effect of the intensity of microbloggers’ celebrity-following activities on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement is mediated by the perceived parasocial interaction with the endorsers.

Firstly, most respondents of the survey are university students. Second, because of the intrinsic disadvantage of the survey method, the causal relationship between constructs cannot be examined directly. Last, parasocial interaction/relationship is a complex theoretical construct whose influence is unveiled partially in this research.

First, this study found that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms are largely affected by celebrity-followers’ online involvement. Second, this study revealed that celebrity-following activities that help enhance followers’ perceptions of parasocial interactions are particularly beneficial for endorsement effectiveness. Last, the exploratory analysis further revealed that followers’ perceptions of ingenuousness and companionship are two key sub-dimensions of parasocial interaction.

First, the authors verified the positive relationship between information receiver’s involvement and the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in the context of microblogging platforms. Second, this study found that parasocial interaction fully mediates the relationship between celebrity-following intensity and endorsement effectiveness. Last, through an exploratory factor analysis, the authors further decomposed the construct of parasocial interaction into three sub-dimensions, namely, ingenuousness, empathy and companionship.