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Fact-checking is a process of seeking and displaying facts to confirm or counter uncertain information, which reduces the spread of fake news. However, little is known about how to promote fact-checking posts to online users on social media. Through uncertainty reduction theory and message framing, this first study examines the effect of fact-checking posts on social media with an avatar on online users' trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The authors further investigate the congruency effects between promotional message framing (gain/loss/neutral) and facial expressions of the avatar (happy/angry/neutral) on online users' trust, attitudes, and behavioral intentions in the second study.

The authors conducted two studies and statistically analyzed 120 samples (study 1) and 519 samples (study 2) from Facebook users.

Results showed that including the neutral facial expression avatar in fact-checking posts leads to online users' greater trust and more positive attitudes. Furthermore, the congruency effects between loss message framing and the angry facial expression of the avatar can effectively promote online users' trust and attitudes as well as stronger intentions to follow and share.

This study offers theoretical implications for fact-checking studies, and practical implications for online fact-checkers to apply these findings to design effective fact-checking posts and spread the veracity of information on social media.

The Internet is a breeding ground for rumors. A way to tackle the problem involves the use of counter-rumor messages that refute rumors. This paper analyzes users' intention to follow rumors and counter-rumors as a function of two factors: individuals' risk propensity and messages' prior endorsement.

The paper conducted an online experiment. Complete responses from 134 participants were analyzed statistically.

Risk-seeking users were keener to follow counter-rumors compared with risk-averse ones. No difference was detected in terms of their intention to follow rumors. Users' intention to follow rumors always exceeded their intention to follow counter-rumors regardless of whether prior endorsement was low or high.

This paper contributes to the scholarly understanding of people's behavioral responses when, unknowingly, exposed to rumors and counter-rumors on the Internet. Moreover, it dovetails the literature by examining how risk-averse and risk-seeking individuals differ in terms of intention to follow rumors and counter-rumors. It also shows how prior endorsement of such messages drives their likelihood to be followed.

The paper explores the hitherto elusive question: When users are unknowingly exposed to both a rumor and its counter-rumor, which entry is likely to be followed more than the other? It also takes into consideration the roles played by individuals' risk propensity and messages' prior endorsement.

This research investigates consumer intention to follow online community advice. Applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) to the context of online restaurant communities, the study empirically examines the effects of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and trust on the intention to follow online advice.

The data were collected from 360 members of online restaurant communities on Facebook and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The findings revealed that trust, perceived usefulness and attitude are key predictors of the intention to follow online restaurant community advice.

Extant research on the influence of online reviews on consumer behavior in the restaurant industry has largely focused on the characteristics of the review, reviewers or readers. Moreover, other studies have investigated consumers' motivations to write online restaurant reviews. This study, however, takes a different approach and examines what drives consumers to follow the advice from online restaurant communities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of consumers’ perceived enjoyment and usefulness on their intention to follow and recommend an official account of a brand community on Instagram through satisfaction, following a perception-evaluation-intention chain.

The present study suggests that both perceived enjoyment and usefulness have a positive influence on satisfaction, which in turn affects intended following and recommendation of an account on Instagram. Data are collected from 548 members of a fashion brand community official Instagram account. After the validation of measurement scales, the hypotheses are contrasted using a structural equation model.

Results show that both perceived enjoyment and usefulness have a positive effect on satisfaction with the Instagram account, which in turn positively affects the intention to follow and recommend the account. Specifically, satisfaction fully mediates the influence of perceptions on intentions, except for the influence of perceived usefulness on intended recommendation as these variables are also directly linked.

The findings help managers to understand consumers’ behavioral intentions on Instagram and note the relevant role of perceived enjoyment and usefulness in creating a satisfactory experience in this context.

Nowadays, brands and users are continuously joining Instagram and, as a result of its growing importance, there is a need to better understand consumer behavior in this context. This research analyses the antecedents of both the intention to follow and recommend an account on Instagram.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the mediating effect of fan-page followers’ engagement activities and moderating role of followers’ demographic profile and trust level on their purchase intention.

This study utilised the customer engagement behaviour and consumer involvement theory as a foundation to explore the impact of variables. Structural equation modelling was utilised to test the model with the data collected from 307 Facebook fan pages’ followers of five Malaysian companies.

It was shown that following fan pages will influence fan page engagement, which in turn affects purchase intention and social media connectedness. Further analysis indicated that the impact of “follow” and “engagement” on purchase intention differs between genders, ages, level of trust and income.

The study serves as a basic fundamental guideline for academics and researchers to interpret the concept of following fan pages and engagement actions and its effects on purchase intention and social media connectivity, as well as opening a vast area of unexplored researches on the subject of social media.

The research provides information for business-to-consumer companies in utilising fan page based on user categories.

This study proposes the application of an empirically tested framework to the fan-page follow actions. The authors argue that this framework can provide a useful foundation for future social commerce research. The results would help academics be aware of fan page and its user’s engagement actions, which will provide a new avenue of research.

More people share their tourism experiences on social media today than in the past, and as a result, more people follow these posts in their trip planning. However, studies into tourists' intention to follow such posts are scarce. Therefore, this study investigates the antecedents influencing social media users' intentions to follow tourism-related posts (TRPs) when planning their trips.

Questionnaires were collected from 402 social media users who had followed TRPs for their trip planning. Data were then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural networks.

The authors found that blogger–user fit and users' involvement with TRPs influenced behavior components (attitudes toward TRPs and intention to follow TRPs) via assessment components (bloggers' credibility and content quality), and the authors developed a framework to explain this relationship.

The findings advance prior studies by investigating (1) the antecedents of intention to follow TRPs when trip planning, (2) the two main social media elements – bloggers and posts – to understanding the role of social media on travel behavior and (3) involvement with TRPs and their impacts on travel behavior. This study contributes to the research on social media and tourism marketing and proposes practical indications for bloggers, social media platforms and destination marketing organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the moderating effects of the social influence of the blogger and the extent to which the reader has experience of that blogger, on loyalty toward the blogger, via two variables: blogger interactive practices (BIPs) and blogger credibility.

A quantitative empirical study was undertaken to estimate the research model. Structural equations were employed.

The results show that blogger social influence moderates the relationships between BIPs and intention to recommend the blogger and blogger credibility; and between credibility and intention (to recommend the blogger and to follow their suggestions). Meanwhile, the extent of the reader’s experience of the blogger moderates the relationships between BIPs and intention.

The present work offers criteria that may be of value to bloggers and firms in assessing the extent to which the blogger’s activities are effective in terms of achieving reader loyalty. The proposed variables are measured objectively online, using the Klout Index of social influence and the extent of the reader’s experience of the blogger (inferred from the number of bloggers followed by the reader).

Blogs are considered a mechanism to manage information overload in social media, and they are recognized for their influence on the reader’s decision-making process. The study contributes to the knowledge-base by proposing two moderating variables of loyalty-formation: blogger social influence and the extent of the reader’s experience of the blogger.

This research seeks to simultaneously test the effect of attitude towards the behavior of following the “Stay at Home” policy, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity on people's intention to follow the “Stay at Home” policy during COVID-19 pandemic.

The data were collected through an online survey with 148 respondents in the Greater Area of Jakarta, Indonesia. The data were then analyzed using multiple regressions.

The findings show that attitude towards the behavior, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively and significantly affect intention to follow “Stay at Home” during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity of COVID-19 do not significantly influence the intention to follow “Stay at Home” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research was limited to the Greater Area of Jakarta, Indonesia. Furthermore, sampling was done through convenience sampling. Therefore, future research should be conducted in a different context to test the generalization of this research's findings.

To encourage citizens' adherence to the stay-at-home policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, they must be directed to have positive attitudes toward the policy. Financial and non-financial supports are critical to ensure citizens' ability to sufficiently observe the policy sufficiently. Another important aspect is the influence of leaders and public figures to consistently call for obedience consistently.

This is the first research that studies citizens' behavior related to the “Stay at Home” policy requisitioned by the government to hinder the spread of COVID-19.

The service recovery literature provides little guidance to firms on how users of self-service technology (SST) perceive assistance provided by human and non-human service agents following a service obstacle. This research responds by addressing two important research questions about SST recovery: (1) how are perceptions of assistance provided following a service obstacle influenced by a customer's psychological needs? and (2) does supporting the psychological needs of customers positively impact continuance intentions following a service obstacle?

Data are collected to address the research questions via five experiments that explore how assistance provided by a non-human (vs human vs no assistance) service agent contributes to perceptions of psychological support and continuance intentions following a service obstacle while volitionally using SST.

The results show that while users of SST would prefer to do so without an obstacle requiring intervention of a service agent, if assistance is required then the psychological need support elicited from a non-human service agent was vital to an effective recovery. Further, the findings highlight some boundary conditions for this relationship, with the impact of customer perceived need support on continuance intentions found to be sensitive to fit between the task and assistance provided and the complexity of the task being completed.

Much of the prior service recovery literature has emphasized the different types of tactics that can be used (e.g. apologizing, monetary compensation and explaining what happened), failing to appreciate the role of different types of service agents or the underlying psychological process that explain the relative merit of such tactics. The present research shows that for these tactics to influence continuance intentions, they must be provided by a relevant service agent and support a customer's psychological need for autonomy, competence and relatedness. The hypothesized impact of psychological need support on continuance intentions was also observed to be contingent upon the fit between the task and the type of assistance provided, where the level of task complexity attenuated this fit.

This paper analyses the interrelationships between emotions, the cognitive information cues of online reviews and intention to follow the advice obtained from digital platforms, paying special attention to the moderating effect of the sequencing of review valence.

The data were collected from 830 Spanish Tripadvisor users. In a two-step approach, a measurement model was estimated and a structural model analysed to test the proposed hypotheses. SmartPLS 3.0 software was used. The moderating effect of sequencing of reviews is tested.

The data analysis showed a bias effect of review sequence on the impact of online information cues and emotions on intention to follow advice obtained from Tripadvisor. When the online reviews of a restaurant begin with positive commentaries, their perceived persuasiveness is a stronger driver of the pleasure and arousal elicited by online reviews than when they begin with negative reviews. On the other hand, the perceived helpfulness of online reviews only triggers arousal when the user reads negative, followed by positive, comments. The impact of pleasure on intention to follow the advice provided in an online travel community is higher with positive-negative than with negative-positive sequences.

While researchers have demonstrated the benefits of customer reviews on company sales, a largely uninvestigated issue is the interplay between emotions and cognitive information cues in the processing of online reviews. This is one of the first studies to examine the moderating effect of conflicting reviews on the impact of emotions and cognitive information cues on consumer intention to follow the advice obtained from digital services.