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The online Question and Answer community is full of a large number of science and technology topics, the discussion and dissemination of which play an important role in promoting the popularization of new technologies and cultivating public enthusiasm for science. However, the spread of false information and rumors weakens the community's positive effect, making the community more difficult for people to obtain useful information on such topics. Research on the influencing factors and governance of the spread of false information on science and technology topics has become the key to the spread of popular science.

Therefore, this paper uses the Elaboration Likelihood Model as the theoretical framework to examine the role of the factors influencing the spread of false information on science and technology topics in Zhihu community on the information persuasion and the impact on public behavior attitude from the core path and the edge path. This paper compiles a crawler program to capture 12,893 response information under the “Metaverse” topic in Zhihu community as an empirical sample and uses text mining and conducts visual correlation analysis to explore the key factors affecting the persuasive transmission path of information on science and technology topics.

The research finds that the content specialization, content consistency and content coherence of science and technology topics affect personal judgment from the aspect of information content through the core path and have a positive correlation with information persuasion; the number of comments, the length of the text and the publishing authors' influence from the edge image characteristics through the edge path are positively correlated with the information persuasion. Then, from the perspective of topic platform, government and topic participants, this paper puts forward a general plan to improve the information persuasion of science and technology topics so as to deal with false information.

Compared with the small data set of the traditional questionnaire survey, the research based on community empirical big data is more reliable. The model takes into account the attitude and behavior of users and is more suitable for the research on the transmission path of scientific and technological information in the internet era. This research provides a direction for analyzing the text characteristics and development trends of information in the field of science and technology and is conducive to promoting the optimization of the network information environment and building a good ecology, with the spread of rumors about science and technology topics curbed and the governance of false information strengthened.

This study aims at building a framework for the electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) response under the social media environment. The elaboration likelihood model was adopted to explain how message source credibility and message appeal jointly influence the eWOM response process, while source credibility provides a central route and message appeal plays a peripheral route for information processing.

This study used a scenario design to test the decision behavior in the Facebook environment through message content manipulation. A convenience sampling method was adopted in this study. We collected 203 valid questionnaires and tested this research model with LISREL 8.8. This study used a two-stage structural equation modeling data analysis method with LISREL 8.8, by which the measurement model was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis for the reliability and validity of the research model, and the causal relationship among factors was assessed through exploratory factor analysis .

The results showed that 53% variance of eWOM responses could be explained by message source credibility and emotional message appeal from the elaboration likelihood model perspective. Message source credibility plays a central role in the social media environment. The model was further tested with a demographic profile analysis for both gender and age. It is found that a female user is influenced by both source credibility and emotional appeal, but a male user is only influenced by message source credibility. The mature age group is more responsive to eWOM messages.

The sample might not represent all social networking sites (SNS) users. The participants represent a small segment of the Facebook population around the globe. Secondly, this research design could be improved by using more recreational messages to test the effects of message appeal and message source credibility. Thirdly, the mobile phone is a type of physical product rather than an experiential product. Future studies could try to identify the same eWOM determinants with different SNS functions, for example, the inbox message function. Similarly, Facebook users are allowed to use both text and pictures to disseminate promotional messages.

This study provides an insight for SNS administrators regarding the determinants of driving more customer responses toward a message. Message source credibility and message appeal are identified as the antecedents for eWOM responses in SNS. Companies could make use of this finding to improve their marketing communication strategy in SNS. The finding can inform administrators of the importance of focusing on both customers’ psychological state and message attributes during the dissemination of promotional messages to improve the efficiency of the promotional effort. Companies aimed at receiving different types of eWOM responses in SNS may need to consider other factors for creating their promotional messages.

Previous studies have mainly identified factors influencing eWOM responses from the people-centered variables such as personal traits and social relationships. This study proposes that the eWOM response is a dual information processing process that can be explained by the ELM. When a user processes information in SNS, he follows both the central route and the peripheral route (i.e. source credibility and message appeal) which can influence the eWOM response. It is the first time that the source credibility is investigated as the central route in ELM model.

The purpose of this theoretical paper is to introduce a conceptual model to investigate e-learning persuasion through gamification elements using the social psychology theory of elaboration likelihood model (ELM).

The author systematically reviewed several theoretical and empirical papers which applied the ELM in various settings. Based on the literature, the author identified six research prepositions which facilitate to investigate e-learning persuasion through gamification.

This study contributes to the existing literature by identifying an ELM-based conceptual model which can be used to empirically investigate the e-learning persuasion using gamification elements. Accordingly, the central route persuasion could be conducted through argument quality, demographic differences and technology context facilitated through gamification elements. The peripheral route persuasion could be conducted through variables such as source credibility, social presence and message content.

This study contributes important findings to the e-learning research by introducing a conceptual model–based on the social psychology theory of ELM. Thereby, this study introduces a method for the future researchers, to investigate the e-learning persuasion using gamification elements. Further, future researchers can use this model to investigate the e-learning persuasion through gamification in different contexts including primary, secondary and tertiary educational levels.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study can be considered as the first theoretical paper which developed an ELM-based conceptual model to investigate the e-learning persuasion through gamification in education context.

The effectiveness of a message and its attributes have become important for digital media. This study aims to investigate how different elements of a website including both argument-oriented and emotional stimuli based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) can affect the issue involvement and change the attitude of the website visitors of a healthcare service provider.

The Ministry of Health and Education (MOHME) website was selected to explore how its content and design can persuade visitors. An online survey was conducted on 355 adults engaging in health protection behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that one design element, i.e. website navigation and one social cue, i.e. social connectedness, have positive impact on issue involvement, while social presence and website satisfaction have a negative effect on issue involvement because of the random fluctuation suppressor effect. In addition, prior knowledge significantly influenced the issue's involvement. Further, website satisfaction has impacted attitudes directly. There was no significant relationship between argument quality and issue involvement.

Previous works have studied health-related behaviors in offline contexts; however, the scholars have not focused on the individuals' persuasion using ELM regarding the healthcare services provided in online communities. The results of the current study have theoretical and practical implications for scholars, website designers and policymakers.

This study aims to analyze the motivations underlying information usefulness, attitude and acceptance of health information related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) avoidance based on the information acceptance model (IAM) and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM).

This study conducted a quantitative approach using survey that generated 364 valid responses. Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the data and evaluate the hypotheses.

The results of this study showed that the determinants of information usefulness are argument quality (comprising accuracy and timeliness) and peripheral route (comprising credibility and relevance), whereas no significant relationship was found between completeness and information quantity and information usefulness. Further analysis indicated that attitude and information usefulness significantly affect health information acceptance to COVID-19 avoidance.

Using ELM and IAM, an explanation of health information acceptance in the salient pandemic context was given. This study contributed to the current literature by offering insights into attitude and information usefulness for information acceptance. The validation of the model was strengthened by identifying the effects of argument quality and peripheral route attributes on information usefulness, which is stated to make contributions to the earlier literature.

Practitioners should strive to understand the facilitators regarding argument quality and peripheral routes to broaden information usefulness. The findings of this study are helpful for practitioners to implement communication campaigns that foster attitude and health information acceptance in the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in similar disease situations.

This study provides individuals and organizations with necessary information about the importance of mobile applications (m-applications) in distributing online information and about reliable guidelines for the implementation of disease avoidance to improve their health status.

Existing studies investigated users’ health information acceptance in some contexts related to general disease, but less is known about this behavior among young individuals via m-applications at the moment of COVID-19 and in emerging economies. This study identifies the efforts made by the relationship between information and technological diffusion to help individuals surmount difficulties in times of crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of self-disclosure intention on mobile social applications. This study integrates privacy calculus model and elaboration likelihood theory to reconcile the rational and heuristic views of privacy decision making.

Using a “random dialing” sampling method, an empirical survey with 913 respondents was conducted. A series of regression models were employed to test the proposed relationships. Robust checks with sub-group analysis were conducted.

Self-disclosure intention develops along a dual route including the central route and the peripheral route. When the central route predominates, social media users form their attitudes toward self-disclosure based on a rational calculus of the privacy concern and perceived rewards. When the peripheral route predominates, users perform a more heuristic evaluation of relevant informational cues (information about privacy harms, the extent of information asymmetry between users and operators) and contextual cues (flow experience, privacy disclosure of friends). Peripheral cues moderate the relationships between central cues and self-disclosure intention.

This paper extends the Elaboration Likelihood Model by investigating the interaction between the central route and peripheral route. The results provide alternative explanations on the renowned “privacy paradox” phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, develop and test a conceptual model to understand customers’ intention to adopt online complaining. Second, to assess two competing perspectives regarding elaboration likelihood for the moderating impact of individual differences.

A scenario‐based survey was used to assess respondents’ beliefs, attitude, and usage intentions toward online complaining. Furthermore, individual and situational characteristics were assessed. The data were analyzed using partial least squares path modeling.

Attitude toward online complaining is a function of both process and outcome beliefs. It is also influenced by individual characteristics, but remains unaffected by situational characteristics. In contrast, usage intentions are influenced by situational characteristics, but by personal differences. For the moderating impact of affect‐based personality characteristics, the often used cognitive effort perspective to elaboration likelihood is not supported. Rather the consumption value perspective applies for these variables.

The use of a single setting, as well as the use of scenarios, may negatively impact external validity. Future research is needed to further explain the contradictory perspectives regarding information processing.

The results provide insight into determinants of customer online complaining. This opens up new possibilities to increase the number of complainants in case of service failures and for firms to take corrective action.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this is a first empirical study aimed at understanding what drives online customer complaining.

This research paper aims to examine consumers' perceptions and behaviours towards “pre-loved luxury fashion products” and focusses on analysing the moderating influence of consumers' attitude strength. Additionally, it investigates the impact of desirability in sustainable luxury experiences (LEs) on consumers' purchase intentions (PIs). The study draws inspiration from the Norm Activation Model theory and operationalises attitude strength using the Elaboration Likelihood Model theory.

Purposive sampling technique was employed to collect 317 useable samples from respondents who had previously purchased or intended to purchase pre-loved luxury fashion goods. SPSS and AMOS version 25 was used for data analysis.

The findings reveal that consumers' environmental concern influences their intention to purchase pre-loved luxury fashion products. Furthermore, sustainable LE acts as a significant mediator in this relationship. The study also demonstrates that the intention to purchase pre-loved luxury fashion products is strengthened when consumers possess a strong attitude towards them.

Luxury marketers can strategise accordingly to motivate consumers to purchase pre-loved luxury fashion products by resonating with their cultural correlates through persuasive advertising to favourably affirm their attitude towards pre-loved luxury fashion products.

This study contributes to the literature by addressing the unresolved area of PIs for pre-loved luxury fashion products, considering the moderating role of attitude strength in emerging markets. It highlights the significance of advocating and promoting pre-loved luxury fashion products and provides valuable insights for luxury marketers.

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on outbound tourists’ intention to visit a destination through a dual-process perspective – the central route of argument quality (AQ) and the peripheral route of source credibility (SC). With the pervasion of Web 2.0 and information and communication technology, user-generated content (UGC) has become popular in the online environment, and it affects consumers’ decisions greatly.

A structural model based on Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) is proposed in this study to explore the influence of eWOM on outbound tourists’ intention to visit a destination. Empirical data were collected among Chinese outbound tourists via an online survey. The data were analyzed using structural equation model with SPSS Amos 22.0.

The research results indicate that tourist’s attitude toward a destination was positively influenced by AQ of eWOM, and intention to recommend the destination before travel was positively influenced by attitude toward destination and SC of destination-related eWOM. Outbound tourists’ intention to visit a destination was positively determined by AQ, attitude toward destination and WOM intention. Several practical and theoretical implications are also discussed in the study.

This study contributed to the understanding of individual’s decision-making through a dual-process perspective. Findings indicate that the dual influence process delineated in theory of ELM is also applicable to explain individual’s decision in complicated information source.

Users' voluntary forwarding behavior opens a new avenue for companies to promote their brands and products on social networking sites (SNS). However, research on voluntary information disseminators is limited. This paper aims to bring an in-depth understanding of voluntary disseminators by answering the following questions: (1) What is the underlying mechanism by which some users are more enthusiastic to voluntarily forward content of interest? (2) How to identify them? We propose a theoretical model based on the Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM) and examine three types of factors that moderate the effect of preference matching on individual forwarding behavior, including personal characteristics, tweet characteristics and sender–receiver relationships.

Via Twitter API, we randomly crawled 1967 Twitter users' data to validate the conceptual framework. Each user’s original tweets and retweeted tweets, profile data such as the number of followers and followees and verification status were obtained. The final corpus contains 163,554 data points composed of 1,634 valid twitterers' retweeting behavior. Tweets produced by these core users' followees were also crawled. These data points constitute an unbalanced panel data and we employ different models — fixed-effects, random-effects and pooled logit models — to test the moderation effects. The robustness test shows consistency among these different models.

Preference matching significantly affects users' forwarding behavior, implying that SNS users are more likely to share contents that align with their preferences. In addition, we find that popular users with lots of followers, heavy SNS users who author tweets or forward other-sourced tweets more frequently and users who tend to produce longer original contents are more enthusiastic to disseminate contents of interest. Furthermore, interaction strength has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between preference matching and individuals' forwarding decisions, suggesting that users are more likely to disseminate content of interest when it comes from strong ties. However, the moderating effect of perceived affinity is significantly negative, indicating that an online community of individuals with many common friends is not an ideal place to engage individuals in sharing information.

This work brings about a deep understanding of users' voluntary forwarding behavior of content of interest. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine (1) the underlying mechanism by which some users are more likely to voluntarily forward content of interest; and (2) how to identify these potential voluntary disseminators. By extending the ELM, we examine the moderating effect of tweet characteristics, sender–receiver relationships as well as personal characteristics. Our research findings provide practical guidelines for enterprises and government institutions to choose voluntary endorsers when trying to engage individuals in information dissemination on SNS.