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The authors aim to examine how the construal level, either as an individual temporal orientation or temporal distance of promotion, moderates the effects of emojis' emotional intensity on consumers' purchase intentions in social media advertising.

Two experiments are used to test four hypotheses.

The results of two experimental studies show that present-oriented participants reveal greater purchase intentions when low (vs high) emotionally intense emojis are embedded in a social media ad; but future-oriented consumers showed no difference when viewing ads with the two different emojis. In Study 2, participants indicate greater purchase intentions when a social media ad includes a distant-future promocode and high (vs low) emotionally intense emojis and an ad with a near-future promocode and low (vs high) emotionally intense emojis.

The current study advances our understanding how emojis with different emotional intensities can be effectively used in social media ads. This study also provides theoretical implications to construal level theory (CLT) by examining how emojis interact with construal level, either as a chronic tendency or simulated by psychological distance, can influence consumer response.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the source of the content in social media communication and the content distribution intensity on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) dimensions and how the study will eventually impact purchase intention.

A total of 521 samples were collected using an online survey questionnaire. The respondents' validity was verified using purposive sampling techniques, and the responses were analysed using SmartPLS 3.0.

The authors outlined the fundamental mechanisms of what makes social media communication effective and discovered that emotional-based brand equity dimensions (brand association and brand loyalty) remained significant in influencing purchase intention. However, attribution-based brand equity dimensions (perceived quality, brand trust and brand awareness) are found to have no impact.

This study decomposed social media communication into three different dimensions, and the authors' result showed that the dimensions do not impact CBBE to the same extent. The authors concluded that some CBBE dimensions, which appear to be a rigour determinant of purchase intention over time, have a feeble effect during the pandemic. The existing relationship between the CBBE dimensions with purchase intention might not hold in the pandemic context. The authors suggested that anxiety or pandemic fear could alter the normal consumer buying process and make some well-established relationships not hold. As research indicates that pandemics are reoccurring events, the authors' study contributes to the global effort to dampen some of the pandemic-related effects on business and marketing.

This research aims to discover the relationship between social media usage (SMU) and the critical thinking ability (CTA) of university students, and to answer the question that whether social media dependence (SMD) affects the development of CTA, and thus providing a reference for the social media access strategy of academic libraries from the perspective of media information literacy.

The research data were collected via 300 valid questionnaires whose respondents are students from three universities in China. Multistage stratified cluster sampling method was used to select the respondents, which guarantees statistical representativeness. A pre-test was conducted to ensure the validity of the questionnaire.

It is shown that the total score of CTA and the six sub-dimensions are significantly positively correlated with SMU, but strongly negatively correlated with SMD. Based on the mediating effect testing, it is discovered that the degree of SMD can affect the promoting relations between the usage intensity of social media (UISM) and CTA. Clearly, SMU is a double-edged sword. While it narrows the digital gap in terms of accessibility, it widens the digital gap in terms of usage.

The differences in SMU have a significant impact on the development of CTA of university students. This inspires us to consider the ability of “using social media in a balanced way” as an important evaluation and training direction when inquiring media literacy. As social media is becoming a critical channel in cultivating individual's thinking skills, it is highly suggested that the amount of time spent on reading fragmented information on the internet should be controlled.

This study focused on the impact of misinformation on social networking sites. Through theorizing and integrating literature from interdisciplinary fields such as information behavior, communication and relationship management, this study explored how misinformation on Facebook influences users' trust, distrust and intensity of Facebook use.

This study employed quantitative survey research and collected panel data via an online professional survey platform. A total of 661 participants in the USA completed this study, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the theoretical model using Amos 20.

Based on data from an online questionnaire (N = 661) in the USA, results showed that information trustworthiness and elaboration, users' self-efficacy of detecting misinformation and prescriptive expectancy of the social media platform significantly predicted both trust and distrust toward Facebook, which in turn jointly influenced users' intensity of using this information system.

This study contributes to the growing body of literature on information and relationship management and digital communication from several important aspects. First, this study disclosed the underlying cognitive psychological and social processing of online misinformation and addressed the strategies for future system design and behavioral intervention of misinformation. Second, this study systematically examined both trust and distrust as cognitive and affective dimensions of the human mindsets, encompassed the different components of the online information behavior and enriched one’s understanding of how misinformation affected publics' perceptions of the information system where it appeared. Last but not least, this study advanced the relationship management literature and demonstrated that a trustful attitude exerted a stronger influence on the intensity of Facebook use than distrust did.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2020-0130

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive research of the effects of the intensity of use of social media on destination brand equity. The authors use the schema theory and a multidimensional approach of brand equity to analyse how social media communication affects brand awareness, brand image, customer value, brand quality and loyalty.

The authors carried out a quantitative study through a personal survey with structured questionnaire. The study population were international tourists, over 18 years of age, who were visiting the city of Valencia, Spain. Respondents were asked to take the questionnaire upon arrival in Valencia, that is, before they had any direct experience of the tourist destination and when their knowledge of the city came only from the sources of social media information they have used. The final sample size was 249 interviewees.

Findings confirm a positive effect of the intensity of social media use on brand awareness. Results also suggest that brand awareness influences other dimensions of brand equity and highlight the influence of the destination affective image on the intention to make WOM communication.

Its originality lies in a unique approach for data collecting and using the schema theory of cognitive psychology to understand the phenomenon of social media influence on tourist perception of destination brands. The findings contribute to the development of better social media marketing in order to manage destination brands online.

Social media overload and fatigue have become common phenomena that are negatively affecting people's well-being and productivity. It is, therefore, important to understand the causes of social media overload and fatigue. One of the reasons why many people engage with social media is to avoid boredom. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how boredom proneness relates to social media overload and fatigue.

Building on the stress–strain–outcome framework, this paper tests a model hypothesizing the relationships between a social media user's boredom proneness, information and communication overload, and social media fatigue. The study tests the model by collecting data from 286 social media users.

The results suggest a strong association between boredom proneness and both information and communication overload, which, in turn, are strongly associated with social media fatigue. In addition, social media usage was found to amplify the effects of information overload on social media fatigue, but, unexpectedly, attenuates the effects of communication overload.

Prior research has largely overlooked the connection between boredom and problematic social media use. The present study addresses this important gap by developing and testing a research model relating boredom proneness to social media overload and fatigue.

During the past few years, the rise in social media use for information purposes in the absence of adequate control mechanisms has led to growing concerns about the reliability of the information in circulation and increased the presence of fake news. While this topic has recently gained researchers' attention, very little is known about users' fake news identification behavior. Hence, the purpose of this study is to understand the factors that contribute to individuals' identification of fake news on social media.

This study employs a quantitative approach and proposes a behavioral model that explores the factors influencing users' identification of fake news on social media. It relies on data collected from a sample of 211 social media users which is tested using SEM.

The findings show that expertise in social media use and verification behavior have a positive impact on fake news identification, while trust in social media as an information channel decreases this identification behavior. Furthermore, results establish the mediating role of social media information trust and verification behavior.

The present study enhances our understanding of social media users' fake news identification by presenting a behavioral model. It is one of the few that focuses on the individual and argues that by identifying the factors that reinforce users' fake news identification behavior on social media, this type of misinformation can be reduced. It offers several theoretical and practical contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent of voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure by Indonesian firms on their social media and to compare it with the mandatory disclosure on their annual reports.

The authors use publicly listed Indonesian firms that are included in the SRI-KEHATI Index as the sample. Further, by using NVIVO software, the authors qualitatively analyze CSR activities disclosed on firms’ social media and annual reports with an interpretive approach.

The findings indicate that Indonesian firms still exhibit early stages of social media-based voluntary CSR disclosure. Further, issues on training, education and skill building dominate firms’ disclosure. Finally, Indonesian firms disclose less CSR information in their social media than in their annual reports, thus confirming the early stages of social media-based CSR disclosure.

The small sample size limits the generalizability of the results.

This paper provides insights on which CSR issues are commonly disclosed in firms’ social media. This study may also inform regulators the extent of disclosures that could be regulated in social media.

Social media-based CSR disclosure in developing countries is relatively understudied. Thus, this paper empirically shows the topic and intensity of CSR disclosure in social media and the comparison between this type of CSR disclosure with CSR disclosure using other media.

The current study aims to investigate if different measures related to online psychosocial well-being and online behavior correlate with social media fatigue.

To understand the antecedents and consequences of social media fatigue, the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) framework is applied. The study consists of two cross-sectional surveys that were organized with young-adult students. Study A was conducted with 1,398 WhatsApp users (aged 19 to 27 years), while Study B was organized with 472 WhatsApp users (aged 18 to 23 years).

Intensity of social media use was the strongest predictor of social media fatigue. Online social comparison and self-disclosure were also significant predictors of social media fatigue. The findings also suggest that social media fatigue further contributes to a decrease in academic performance.

This study builds upon the limited yet growing body of literature on a theme highly relevant for scholars, practitioners as well as social media users. The current study focuses on examining different causes of social media fatigue induced through the use of a highly popular mobile instant messaging app, WhatsApp. The SSO framework is applied to explore and establish empirical links between stressors and social media fatigue.

The purpose of this study is to examine the specific social media behaviours (SMB) that lead to major depressive disorder (MDD). The study also looks at the moderation effect of pandemic on social media usage among users.

Using a descriptive approach, the required data was collected from a sample of 629 social media users chosen through random sampling technique. An adopted structured online questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data collected was analysed by using univariate and multinomial regression techniques.

The findings of the study revealed that social media intensity, social media addiction (SMA), social media participation, social interaction and SMB had a positive impact on MDD, whereas social comparison had a negative impact. The pandemic situation has also been found to moderate the effect of social media usage on MDD.

This study will be supportive in disclosing behaviours and activities of students that impact their mental health adversely. This will also be helpful in dealing with specific stressors in the programs designed to cope with the depression. By adopting effective strategies to manage social media usage, the study would help to reduce the level of depressive symptoms among college students, significantly promoting healthy environments for students and, thus, contribute to social change.

Since the social media has both favourable and detrimental effects, the key for the users is to develop an awareness about the wise usage and to determine the alterations in the usage patterns that can help to reduce the behaviours associated with negative emotions and psychological distress.