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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.

This study aims to explore how source type can influence organizational assets proposed by source credibility theory (SCT) when paired with matched situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) strategies for accidental, preventable, and victim crises. Crisis communication delivered online provides an invaluable outlet for organizations to disperse information to stakeholders quickly. It has been shown that receivers of this information have motivational assumptions about sources having their own agenda for producing content. Thus, it is important to explore how sources tasked with delivering crisis responses can influence perceptions of the sincerity and credibility of the message.

The researchers conducted a 3 (crisis response: matched accidental, matched preventable, matched victim) × 3 (source type: organization, CEO, The New York Times) online between-subjects experimental design (N = 623).

By identifying how the source disseminating crisis responses influences message perceptions, findings from this study recognize how the crisis response is situated in a greater context. Since perceived sincerity and credibility were found to influence message acceptance and reputation, making intentional decisions that acknowledge both within a crisis communication strategy may benefit both future practice and research applications.

The current study advances understandings afforded by SCCT, along with SCT, by experimentally testing the influence of these variables within crisis responses on outcomes such as account acceptance and organizational reputation.

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.

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

This paper aims to explore the role of source credibility while purchasing environment-friendly products using Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior as underpinning model.

The proposed theoretical model was empirically tested with the data collected from 334 respondents using structural equation modeling.

The results gave empirical support to the addition of source credibility to the original theory of planned. Moreover, consumer attitude was found mediating the effect of corporations’ credibility on purchase intention. Also, attitude and perceived behavioral control were found as the most important predictors of consumer’s intention to purchase environment-friendly products.

This study provides valuable insights for the marketers engaged in sustainable business practices. Amid, ever-increasing carbon emission, promoting the use of environment-friendly products has become the need of the time. Credibility plays a crucial role while promoting and communicating an organization’s sustainable practices among its stakeholders including consumers. Therefore, the marketer should formulate appropriate marketing communication strategy to communicate the consumer about the green practices and environment-friendly products they produce. The results suggest that corporation’s credibility shapes consumer attitude and influences intention to purchase environment-friendly products. Earning trust of the consumer is pivotal to achieve success in the market. Therefore, results may help the marketers to better understand consumer’s response toward their marketing strategies and further convince and persuade them to buy their products.

The findings of this study may be useful for marketers, strategists, policymakers and government while formulating promotional strategies to make consumer aware, educate and persuade them to purchase products which do not cause harm to the environment.

The study is novel in terms of exploring role of source credibility and extending theory of planned behavior in the context of sustainable consumption.

This study aims to address the growing importance of online health information (OHI) and the associated uncertainty. Although previous research has explored factors influencing the credibility of OHI, results have been inconsistent. Therefore, this study aims to identify the essential factors that influence the perceived credibility of OHI by conducting a meta-analysis of articles published from 2010 to 2022. The study also aims to examine the moderating effects of demographic characteristics, study design and the platforms where health information is located.

Based on the Prominence-Interpretation Theory (PIT), a meta-analysis of 25 empirical studies was conducted to explore 12 factors related to information content and source, social interaction, individual and media affordance. Moderators such as age, education level, gender of participants, sample size, platforms and research design were also examined.

Results suggest that all factors, except social support, have significant effects on the credibility of OHI. Among them, argument quality had the strongest correlation with credibility and individual factors were also found to be relevant. Moderating effects indicate that social support was significantly moderated by age and education level. Different sample sizes may lead to variations in the role of social endorsement, while personal involvement was moderated by sample size, platform and study design.

This study enriches the application of PIT in the health domain and provides guidance for scholars to expand the scope of research on factors influencing OHI credibility.

Consumer-perceived review attitude determines consumer overall information adoption and is a core part of consumer’s online-shopping. This study aims to focus on factors that could influence consumer review attitude and can be used by marketers to shape individual information perception.

The study used the questionnaire method to collect data from online shoppers and the modelling of structural equations as an empirical approach to analyse the data.

The findings demonstrate that both systematic and heuristic cues impact the reviewer’s credibility and perceived website attitude differently, which, in turn, influence review attitude. Review characteristics, such as factuality, consistency and relevancy, have a positive relationship with reviewer credibility, while only review consistency and relevancy appears to have a relationship with review attitude. Website characteristics such as reputation, familiarity and social interactivity positively influence the website attitude, which positively influences review attitude. Apart from this, review skepticism has a significant negative relationship with review attitude.

This study could help to foster a positive attitude towards online reviews. Digital marketers need to motivate trusted reviewers to post consistent, fact-based reviews. Further improving the overall website reputation and interactivity could bring a positive attitude towards the reviews. Also, digital marketers must filter and avoid contradictory reviews or reviews that have a bipolar message and reviews expressing numerous emotions to enhance review relevance and consistency.

The current study addresses the need to understand the formation of consumer review attitude through both review and website characteristics using heuristic – systematic model. The paper captures the complex process undergone by the consumer to decipher review attitude and thereby extend the understanding of consumer information processing.

Short-form videos have gradually become important marketing tools for tourist destinations. However, chaotic sources and homogenized content have led to poor user experiences. Taking Kulangsu and Xi'an City Wall in China as examples, this study explored the influence of matching short-form video sources with destination types on user engagement and visit intention.

This study selected three short-form videos from different sources for each destination on TikTok and conducted an empirical research using a 3 × 2 experimental design to examine the proposed research model.

The results showed that the matching effect between short-form video sources and destination types will positively affect user engagement and visit intention. (1) the short-form videos with user-generated content (UGC) or professional user-generated content (PUGC) in hedonic destinations can obtain higher user engagement and visit intention; (2) the short-form videos with professionally generated content (PGC) or PUGC in utilitarian destinations can obtain higher user engagement and visit intention and (3) perceived credibility and perceived usefulness played mediating roles in these interactions.

This study considers short-form video sources as antecedent variables influencing user engagement and visit intention and confirms the matching effect between short-form video sources and tourism destination types. The findings will help researchers and marketers better understand the impact of short-form video on destination marketing.

Large, influential and profitable young adults are being targeted for fast fashion that negatively impacts the environment. The transition from a fast to an environmentally friendly slow fashion is a challenging process and culturally dependent. The process starts with slow fashion idea adoption. Thus, the authors modified an information acceptance model (IACM) to examine information characteristics (idea/information quality, credibility, usefulness, source credibility) and consumer factors (need for idea and attitudes) impacting intentions to adopt the slow fashion idea in Canada, South Africa (individualists) and China (collectivists).

Cross-sectional data were collected from South African (n = 197), Chinese (n = 304) and Canadian (n = 227) young adults (18–35 years old) at universities in metropolitan cities. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The results show that while most information characteristics and consumer factors are vital for slow fashion attitudes and intention formation, information quality and trust in the sources were a problem in individualistic cultures as opposed to the collectivist culture. This finding confirms the greater tendency of collectivists to trust disseminated information on environmental issues. In all cultures, attitudes impacted idea adoption intentions. On testing IACM, the multigroup analyses showed no significant differences between young adults in the individualistic cultures. Attitudes mediated most relationships and were highly explained by IACM (South Africa, 49.6%; China, 74.5%; and Canada, 64.5%).

In emerging and developed markets, this study informs environmentalists and green fashion brands of information characteristics that can create positive attitudes and slow fashion idea adoption intentions among influential young adults.

This study aims to examine the effects of risk disclosure and call to action (i.e. encouraging individuals to consult a health provider before they make any purchase decision) on young adults’ cognitive and behavioral responses to dietary supplement advertising.

A 2 (risk disclosure: absence vs presence) × 2 (call to action: absence vs presence) between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 124 college-attending young adults.

Including risk disclosure in probiotic supplement advertising increased young adults’ perceived message credibility, intentions to ask a medical doctor and sense of confidence in decision-making. The addition of call to action in probiotic supplement advertising improved perceived message credibility, trust in advertised brand, favorable attitude toward brand, intention to ask a medical doctor and purchase intention; however, a significant joint effect was not found between risk disclosure and call to action.

Although risk disclosure and call to action are significant techniques in pharmaceutical and health-care marketing, they have been overlooked by both research and practice of dietary supplement marketing. This study closes this gap by providing empirical evidence to generate a clear idea about the benefits of including risk disclosure and call to action in dietary supplement advertising.