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One of the most prolific areas of misinformation research is examining corrective strategies in messaging. The main purposes of the current study are to examine the effects of (1) partisan media (2) credibility perceptions and emotional reactions and (3) theory driven corrective messages on people's misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing behaviors.

The authors used a randomized experimental design to test the hypotheses. The data were collected via the survey firm Lucid. The number of participants was 485. The study was conducted using Qualtrics after the research project was exempt by the Institutional Research Board of a large University in the US. The authors conducted an online experiment with four conditions, narrative versus statistics and individual versus collective. The manipulation messages were constructed as screenshots from Facebook.

The findings of this study show that higher exposure to liberal media was associated with lower misperceptions, whereas higher credibility perceptions of and positive reactions toward the misinformation post and negative emotions toward the correction comment were associated with higher misperceptions. Moreover, the findings showed that participants in the narrative and collective-frame condition had the lowest misperceptions.

The authors tested theory driven misinformation corrective messages to understand the impact of these messages and multiple related variables on misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing. This study contributes to the existing misinformation correction literature by investigating the explanatory power of the two well-established media effects theories on misinformation correction messaging and by identifying essential individual characteristics that should be considered when evaluating how misperceptions about the COVID-19 crisis works and gets reduced.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0600

Although leveraging social media to access healthcare information is nothing new, a boom in short video apps offers new potential for disseminating health-related information. However, it is still unclear how short video apps might facilitate and benefit users’ consumption of health information. Furthermore, the technology features of short video apps complicate attempts to conduct research about them; as a consequence, they have been understudied. For addressing these concerns, this study adopts an affordance perspective to investigate the relationship between affordances and user experience and to examine factors that contribute to users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information.

Drawing upon affordance theory, we constructed a research model that integrates four types of affordances (livestreaming, searching, meta-voicing and recommending), three types of user experience (immersion, social presence and credibility perception), and user’s intention to continue use. We employed an online survey and obtained a sample of 372 valid responses from TikTok (DouYin) users in China. The partial least squares (PLS) method was used to analyze the data.

The study found that the user experience, in terms of social presence, immersion and credibility perception, can significantly predict users’ intention to continue using short video apps to obtain health information. Furthermore, the user experience was positively associated with the different affordances provided by the short video apps.

The findings of this study have several implications. First, the study contributes to the health information behavior literature by incorporating the aspect of user experience. Moreover, the study extends the application of affordance theory to users’ health information acquisition, and it carries some practical implications on how to leverage the great potential of short video apps to serve public health communication better.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public online consumer complaint responses from three different perspectives: the complainer, the company and third party consumers. Consumer complaint behaviour and management has been studied in various streams of literature, yet the subsequent processes triggered by a company complaint response have not been studied so far. In particular, this paper seeks to divert from examining complaint participants in isolation by recognising interrelated communication effects of complaint dialogue and public media.

Looking at credibility perceptions as a theoretical construct for measuring the utility of a complaint as well as attitude‐orientation as an evaluative moderator, the paper highlights the ambiguity of meaning transfer in an online complaint forum.

It is hypothesised that credibility and congruence in attitude orientation positively enhance complaint utility perceptions and strongly bias complaint dialogue evaluations.

The paper highlights that expected relevant results for online complaint managers and marketers alike are the inclusion of post‐complaint communication into corporate image and relationship management as well as using credibility perceptions as a benchmark for online customer satisfaction and potential positive electronic word‐of‐mouth.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effects of the numerical cues (NC) used in online review comments on perceived review helpfulness and the underlying psychological mechanisms.

An experimental design approach was employed to investigate the proposed research questions. Two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Mplus 7 and Stata 14.0 were used for data analysis.

Empirical findings support the positive correlation between the presence of NC in online review comments and perceived review helpfulness across different product categories. This relationship is mediated by two psychological responses of consumers: cognitive elaboration and credibility perception.

This research adds to the existing literature by focusing on the value of NC in online review comments and how they can enhance perceived review helpfulness. Some practical implications are also addressed. For example, marketers can encourage consumers to post reviews that contain quantitative information to facilitate their target markets' comprehension of a product or brand.

Building on the previous literature, the work adds incremental knowledge on the role NC in online review comments play in affecting consumers' perceptions. In addition, the research uncovers the underlying psychological responses that mediate the relationship between NC in review comments and perceived review helpfulness.

This paper aims to investigate an integrated, holistic assessment of the characteristics by which consumers judge non-sponsored product review video (PRV) source, message and medium components as credible, and how these are linked to personal values for a deeper understanding of multidimensional credibility assessments of PRVs.

Employing a means-end approach, the authors draw on credibility theory and the persuasion knowledge model to analyse data from 21 in-depth semi-structured laddering interviews.

First, the authors demonstrate distinctive contributions of the video modality towards PRV credibility assessments and the interplay between specific PRV characteristics, cognitive and socio-emotional consequences, and personal values in an ongoing process of credibility assessment. Second, high persuasion knowledge creates awareness of the potential phoniness of the market, revealing a dark side to PRV use even in non-sponsored PRV seemingly created and shared as an act of benevolent concern between consumers.

This paper focused on the credibility of non-sponsored PRVs, future studies might investigate motivations and attributes by which users judge sponsored reviews. Also, the roles of specific product categories and existing brand trust on PRVs credibility provide avenues for further research.

This research offers practical implications for reviewers and brand managers to leverage the unique informational values of video by focusing on the interplay between credibility attributes and customer values.

This work advances credibility theory in the PRV context by examining how non-sponsored PRVs are evaluated as credible, by highlighting consumer persuasion knowledge and scepticism and including the holistic effects of the interplay between source, message and video format characteristics and by linking these to consumers’ goals and values.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to optimise corporate social responsibility (CSR) when communicating via social media. In particular, the communication type, cause proximity and CSR motives are addressed facing the increased demand for transparency and the grown consumers' expectations towards socially responsible brands.

Online survey was developed, based on a profound literature review and a field research we did on the actual social media behaviour of socially responsible brands. Consumers attitudes and behavioural reactions in terms of willingness to participate in a campaign, to spread e-WOM and to purchase were investigated, as a function of CSR motives (value vs performance vs value and performance) and cause proximity (national vs international), respectively, with monologue (study 1) and dialogue communication type (study 2).

Cause proximity enhanced the campaign participation, and this effect was pronounced for both, monologue and dialogue type of communication. CSR motives modulated the willingness to spread electronic word-of-mouth, and this holds for both, monologue and dialogue communication. Attitudes and purchase intention were highest when value- and performance-driven motives were communicated, but these effects appeared only when the message was in a dialogue form of communication. Message credibility and CSR motives credibility perception further modulated consumers response.

The outcomes could be used in developing marketing (communication) strategies leading to values and revenues optimisation.

The results are discussed in a framework of how CSR resonates via social media.

In light of Facebook-based viral marketing and social commerce, the purpose of this paper is to test the moderating role of social identification with the Facebook profile owner (celebrity as aspirational reference group vs ingroup member (college student, same school) vs outgroup member (college student, different school)) in Facebook-based fashion brand marketing and management.

A randomized between-subjects experiment (celebrity’s Facebook profile vs ingroup member’s Facebook profile vs outgroup member’s Facebook profile vs control condition, n=73) was conducted. The sample was composed of college students recruited from a subject pool in a US university.

Results of multiple regression analyses indicate that social identification with the Facebook profile owner and ingroup vs outgroup perception moderate the influence of consumers’ materialism, fashion involvement and opinion leadership on interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, wishful identification with the celebrity, emotional quotient, involvement with the ads, advertising believability and willingness to buy the advertised fashion products. Furthermore, the results of structural equation modeling analyses show that source credibility perception (both the celebrity who endorses her own brand and the Facebook profile owner) mediates the relationship between experimental conditions (celebrity as aspirational outgroup vs same school student as an ingroup member vs different school student as an outgroup member) and the outcome variables (interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, involvement with ads, and advertising believability) in viral marketing leveraging a social media platform.

This study makes several theoretical contributions to consumer psychology and provides managerial implications for Facebook-based fashion marketing and fashion brand management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of task and user’s topic familiarity in the evaluation of information patch (websites).

An experimental study was conducted in a computer laboratory to examine users’ information seeking and foraging behaviour. In total, 160 university students participated in the research. Two types of task instructions, specifically defined and non-specifically defined (general) task types were administered. Mixed methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative thematic coding were adopted, from the data of the questionnaire surveys and post-experiment interviews.

In the context of task attributes, users who conducted information seeking task with specifically defined instructions, as compared to the non-specifically defined instructions, demonstrated stricter credibility evaluations. Evidence demonstrated the link between topical knowledge and credibility perception. Users with topical knowledge applied critical credibility assessments than users without topical knowledge. Furthermore, the evidential results supported that the level of difficulty and knowledge of the topic or subject matter associated with users’ credibility evaluations. Users who have lesser or no subject knowledge and who experienced difficulty in the information search tended to be less diagnostic in their appraisal of the information patch (website or webpages). Users equipped with topical knowledge and who encountered less difficulty in the search, exhibited higher expectation and evaluative criteria of the information patch.

The constraints of time in the lab experiment, carried out in the presence of and under the observation of the researcher, may affect users’ information seeking behaviour. It would be beneficial to consider users’ information search gratifications and motivations in studying information evaluations and foraging patterns. There is scope to investigate users’ proficiency such as expert or novice, and individual learning styles in assessing information credibility.

Past studies on information evaluation, specifically credibility is often associated with users’ characteristics, source, or contents. This study sheds light on the context of task type, task difficulty and topical knowledge in affecting users’ information judgement.

One of the scarce studies in relating task orientation, task difficulty and topical knowledge to information evaluations.

This paper aims to first examine tourists’ perceptions of the source credibility and information quality of social media content to see whether they would have an impact on their perceptions of the importance of shared content on social media. The moderating role of gender in this relationship was then examined.

The research sample was composed of domestic and foreign tourists in Alanya, an important tourist destination in Turkey. The data in the current study were collected by the questionnaire method. The structural relationships in the research were examined using the partial least squares structural equation modeling, and the moderating effect of gender was examined via the partial least squares multiple group analysis.

According to the research findings, tourists’ perceptions of source credibility regarding social media content had a positive impact on the importance attached to non-participant shared content, whereas their perceptions of information quality had a positive impact on the importance attached to participant shared content. Furthermore, it was also observed that gender had a moderating effect on the relationship between information quality and source credibility perceptions and the importance of shared content on social media.

Two important predictive variables have been examined in the current research in term of customer-generated contents. It has been demonstrated that the effects of these predictive variables on different customer-generated types could be different. Furthermore, it has been determined that the effects of these influences differ according to the gender of the individuals following the content. Thus, the current study provides significant findings to understand the impacts of these variables on the basis of gender.

This article seeks to understand how live-streaming technology (i.e. interactivity and effective use of live-streaming shopping’s information presentation tool) impacts consumers’ credibility perception regarding live streamers.

The authors empirically examined their hypotheses with data (n = 405) collected from a survey of consumers who engage in live-streaming shopping.

The results demonstrate that vicarious learning strategies (both coactive and independent) can shape consumers’ benefit perceptions (i.e. virtual presence and psychological proximity), and further have a positive effect on consumers’ personal value (i.e. perceived live streamer credibility). Furthermore, the consumers’ perception of the live streamers’ credibility positively affects their purchase intention and ultimately influences their purchase behavior.

Building on the vicarious learning theory and means-end chain (MEC) model, this study investigates the mechanism of the IT features of live-streaming shopping in reducing consumers’ uncertainty about live streamers. This study reveals the value of vicarious learning experiences in reducing consumers’ uncertainty and further enhancing their purchase behavior.