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The purpose of this paper is to explore themes eventuating from the user-generated content posted by users on the Facebook page of an emergency management agency.

An information classification framework was used to classify user-generated content posted by users including all of the content posted during a six month period (January to June 2015). The posts were read and analysed thematically to determine the overarching themes evident across the entire collection of user posts.

The results of the analysis demonstrate that the key themes that eventuate from the user-generated content posted are “Self-preparedness”, “Emergency signalling solutions”, “Unsurpassable companion”, “Aftermath of an emergency”, and “Gratitude towards emergency management staff”. Major user-generated content identified among these themes are status-update, criticism, recommendation, and request.

This study contributes to theory on the development of key themes from user-generated content posted by users on a public social networking site. An analysis of user-generated content identified in this study implies that, Facebook is primarily used for information dissemination, coordination and collaboration, and information seeking in the context of emergency management. Users may gain the benefits of identity construction and social provisions, whereas social conflict is a potential detrimental implication. Other user costs include lack of social support by stakeholders, investment in social infrastructure and additional work force required to alleviate the technological, organisational, and social barriers in communication among stakeholders in emergency management. A collective activity system built upon the Activity Theory was used as a lens to describe users’ activity of posting content on the Facebook page of an emergency management agency.

By analysing the findings, administrators and policy makers of emergency management could identify the extent to which the core principles of disaster recovery are accomplished using public social networking sites. These are achieved in relation to: pre-disaster recovery planning; partnership and inclusiveness; public information messaging; unity of effort; and, psychological recovery to maximise the success of recovery in a disaster. Furthermore, a core principle which evoked a mixed response was timeliness and flexibility.

Previous studies have examined the role of social networking sites in disastrous situations, but to date there has been very little research into determining themes found in user-generated content posted on the Facebook page of an emergency management agency. Hence, this study addresses the gap in literature by conducting a thematic analysis of user-generated content posted on the Facebook page of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The purpose of this paper is to (n=472) examine how negative, user-generated content on Facebook impacts stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization.

At Phase 1, stakeholders’ perceptions about the organization – public relationship, corporate social responsibility, attitude toward the organization, and reputation of the organization were assessed. A week later, at Phase 2, participants were exposed to negative Facebook comments. This study employed the theory of inoculation as a way to bolster stakeholders’ attitudes to protect against attitude shift following exposure to negative, user-generated comments.

Paired sample t-tests indicate stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization – public relationship and corporate social responsibility significantly decrease after stakeholders read negative, user-generated content. The pattern of means supports the idea inoculation can prevent against attitude shift.

Strategic communication professionals should be aware of the impact negative posts can have and develop a strategy to respond to negative comments on Facebook.

There is limited experimental research examining the impact of negative Facebook posts on stakeholders. It extends current literature and provides practitioners with some guidance on the impact of negative, user-generated content.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the type and implications of user-generated content posted by users of an open access institutional repository (DSpace) on Facebook.

The identified user-generated content was organised into three categories: personal; professional; and social information. It encompassed all content from the members of the “DSpace” Facebook group, posted during the seven-year period (2007-2014). The posts were read and analysed to identify and categorise user-generated content posted by users to determine how Facebook is used by open access repository users.

The results of analysis demonstrate the importance of social information posted by users over personal and professional information. Major types of user-generated content posted by users in the social information category were request, greetings, status-update, and announcement. Further, there has been a threefold increase in the number of user postings in the last two years (2013-2014), when posts were analysed over a seven-year period.

This study contributes to the theory on the implications eventuating from user-generated content posted by users of an open access institutional repository. An analysis of user-generated content identified in this study implies that users of DSpace open access repository are primarily using Facebook for information seeking, relationship building, and knowledge dissemination.

By analysing the findings, administrators and policy makers of open access repositories could identify the extent of user support in the form of technical assistance, improved sustainability of supported projects, user community development, marketing and communications required to sustain open access scholarly communication.

Previous studies examined how social networking sites have been used for a different purpose (interaction, collaboration, and discussion), but to date there has been very little research into the use of Facebook, a public social networking site, by open access repository users. Hence, this study addresses this gap in the literature by an interpretive analysis of user-generated content posted by users on the “DSpace” Facebook group.

The purpose of this paper is to advance in research on consumer psychology of hospitality, since it investigates how online search behavior of users (particularly, information search and choice) is influenced by the opinions of other people in a new context characterized by the generalized use of Web 2.0 applications.

Empirical research was carried out in the hotel sector in Iberian Peninsula, where two Web 2.0 applications are especially relevant for users: the review Web sites and the hotel interactive Web sites. A qualitative method (in-depth interviews with hotel managers) and a quantitative technique (personal surveys to a sample of 830 users) were used to conduct this research.

The results indicates that the perceived influence on behavior of the user-generated content on these Web 2.0 applications is determined, in both cases, by the value of the information, the credibility of the sources and the degree of similarity between the user and the creators of content.

Firms should have an active presence in the review Web sites and the hotel interactive Web sites, and use these platforms for market research and communication. Firms should engage users to post content, support their credibility and facilitate the evaluation of the content generators’ similarity.

This paper is the first study in the hospitality literature that develops and empirically tests an integrative model explaining the perceived influence on behavior of user-generated content on Web 2.0 applications.

When a concept is diffusely defined or, as this article argues, “taken for granted”, it becomes very difficult to track such concept on the literature and have some continuity as researchers build on top of previous results. This article proposes a definition for user-generated content, a term that though has lost some saliency, stands in the center or the social media phenomenon, so it should not be disregarded as an object of study.

Celebrating 20 years of the concept, this research performs a multidisciplinary literature review of 61 academic articles on UGC. Through deconstruction of the acronym UGC, it builds on the present converging, conflicting and diverging definitions and/or approaches to UGC on an attempt to consolidate a broader definition that encompasses the complexities of the phenomenon in a context of consolidation of social media, to be applied to social sciences.

Following the present analysis, UGC is defined as any kind of text, data or action performed by online digital systems users, published and disseminated by the same user through independent channels, that incur an expressive or communicative effect either on an individual manner or combined with other contributions from the same or other sources.

This is the first academic effort that aims to create an in-depth dialogue over the different approaches to UGC across disciplines on the social sciences field. It should help reignite interest in the acronym, which got somehow eclipsed by the broader field of social media; whilst without UGC, social media would not exist or would not have the same social impact it does in its current form. Analogously, UGC as a topic of research has been deeply affected by the emergence and consolidation of Social Media. As this debate evolves, this contribution should be helpful as a reference to operationalize UGC on future research.

The peer-review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2020-0258

The proliferation of social commerce websites has allowed consumers to share and exchange information, experiences, advice and opinions. Recently, information provided by users has been considered more trustworthy than the information shared by companies. However, the way in which users interact with technology can vary with age, and generational cohorts show different shopping behaviors, interests and attitudes. Hence, the way users process information (user-generated vs company-generated) can affect trust differently. Drawing on the trust transfer theory and the generational cohort theory, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects on user- and company-generated information in boosting trust of three different cohorts (Generation X, Y and Z).

The data were collected through an online survey. The sample comprised 715 users of social commerce websites, aged between 16 and 55 years old. The study was analyzed using partial least squares with the statistical software Smart PLS 3.

The empirical results show that generational cohorts show different patterns. Generation X transfers trust to social commerce websites mainly from trust in information generated by companies, while Generation Z transfers trust mainly from information generated by users. Finally, Generation Y, in contrast to previous findings about millennials, develops trust based on company-generated information to an even greater extent than does Generation X.

The originality of this study lies in its analysis of generational differences when it comes to trusting one type of information over another. This study contributes to the idea that users cannot be considered as a whole but must be segmented into generational cohorts.

User-generated content and online reviews are highly relevant in purchase decision in the hospitality sector, including restaurants, but there is a lack of knowledge about the effect of sharing pictures in this context. This study aims to focus on the relevance of user-generated photos in online platforms for restaurants’ selection.

A research was conducted with a sample of 319 residents of Porto region, who had at least one meal in a restaurant over the 30 days before the answer of the survey and had searched online to select the restaurant.

The results show that while doing online research about restaurants, it is important for potential consumers to find pictures of food and physical evidences of restaurants generated by other users. Findings also show that consumers find user-generated photos especially at websites of reviews, although the importance of restaurant owned platforms, such as official social media pages and websites.

The research results appeal restaurant managers to understand the importance of user-generated photos in online platforms by promoting photo sharing in their restaurants with appropriate marketing activities for that purpose.

This paper expands the state-of-the-art about the importance of user-generated content, focusing on the importance of photos from restaurants shared by consumers in online platforms.

用户生成内容和在线评论, 与酒店行业, 包括饭店业中的购买决策是密不可分的。但是在这个研究领域里, 对于分享照片的影响力还尚未可知。本论文旨在研究在线平台中的用户生成照片对于饭店选择的影响。

本论文采用问卷采样形式, 问卷样本为在30天之内通过上网搜索选择饭店并且就餐至少一次的葡萄牙波尔图地区居民, 有效样本数量为319份。

人们在上网搜索饭店时, 找到食物图片和其他用户生成的有关饭店评论对于消费者决策有着至关重要的作用。本论文结果还表明, 尽管饭店运营的在线平台比如官方社交媒体网页和网站等很重要, 但是消费者在决策中最考虑的因素是那些评论型网站, 消费者会更倾向于找到用户生成的图片来帮助他们的消费决策。

本论文结果对于饭店管理者理解在线平台的用户生成图片的重要性有着很大的启示。本论文建议其管理者应该使用适当的营销手段来促使自己饭店的相关照片得到用户的分享。

本论文拓展了用户生成内容的现有认识, 研究了饭店照片被消费者分享到在线平台的重要性。

线上口碑效应 e-WOM、在线平台 、在线评论 、照片分享 、饭店管理 、社交媒体 、用户生成内容

研究论文

User‐generated media (UGM) like YouTube, MySpace, and Wikipedia have become tremendously popular over the last few years. The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical framework for explaining the appeal of UGM.

This paper is mainly theoretical due to a relative lack of empirical evidence. After an introduction on the emergence of UGM, this paper investigates in detail how and why people use UGM, and what factors make UGM particularly appealing, through a uses and gratifications perspective. Finally, the key elements of this study are summarized and the future research directions about UGM are discussed.

This paper argues that individuals take with UGM in different ways for different purposes: they consume contents for fulfilling their information, entertainment, and mood management needs; they participate through interacting with the content as well as with other users for enhancing social connections and virtual communities; and they produce their own contents for self‐expression and self‐actualization. These three usages are separate analytically but interdependent in reality. This paper proposes a model to describe such interdependence. Furthermore, it argues that two usability attributes of UGM, “easy to use” and “let users control,” enable people to perform the aforementioned activities efficiently so that people can derive greater gratification from their UGM use.

UGM are an extremely important topic in new media scholarship, and this study represents the first step toward understanding the appeal of UGM in an integrated way.

This study aims to categorize user-generated content (UGC) based on the target audience, namely, brand-oriented content (BOC) and community-oriented content (COC). By using the equity theory, this study investigated how personal factors (motivations and self-construal) and brand/product factors (brand luxury) drive members to generate brand-oriented or COC.

Experimental studies were conducted with online brand community (OBC) participants who had been active in an OBC in the past 30 days.

Both in Studies 1 and 3, participants with an independent self-construal generated more BOC relative to COC, whereas participants with an interdependent self-construal generated more COC relative to BOC. In Study 1, extrinsically motivated participants generated more BOC relative to COC, whereas intrinsically motivated participants generated more COC relative to BOC. However, this finding was not confirmed in Study 3. In Study 2, the participants of luxury brand communities generated more COC relative to BOC, whereas participants of affordable brand communities generated more BOC relative to COC. However, this finding was not confirmed in Study 3.

This research provides marketing practitioners with an opportunity to focus on different motivation types in different contexts. The study also helps marketing departments understand the relationship between brand characteristics and UGC types. Finally, the insights of this study can also be useful in a brand extension context.

This study has constructed a better understanding of content generation in OBCs by categorizing UGC based on their target audience.

Firms increasingly rely on content marketing to trigger user engagement in social media brand communities. The purpose of this paper is to examine how three generic types of marketer-generated content (affiliative, injunctive and utilitarian content) drive user engagement by considering distinct motivational paths and the role of users’ preference for intimate (vs broad) social networks.

The authors conduct a field survey and a scenario experiment among social media users across different brands from three different product categories. They examine the impact of marketer-generated content on user engagement while considering the moderating role of network intimacy (i.e. the mutual confiding within a user’s social network in terms of small social circles) and the mediating role of user motivations (i.e. autonomous vs controlled motivation for community membership).

The findings show that affiliative content (i.e. content that highlights shared values) drives user engagement through autonomous motivation, and utilitarian content (i.e. content that highlights tangible benefits) drives user engagement through controlled motivation. Notably, injunctive content (i.e. content that demands specific user behavior) is not a promising instrument to increase user engagement in social media brand communities when not targeted correctly.

The authors link three generic content types derived from literature on communal systems to user engagement, demonstrate the motivational underpinnings of their translation into engagement behavior and show that network intimacy can explain why the same content type can impact user engagement through two motivational paths.

The authors present three types of content that marketers can craft to trigger users to engage with a brand’s social media community and show when this content is most effective and why. By examining the moderating role of network intimacy, this research aims at providing targeting implications to social media marketers.

This research provides new insights on the effectiveness of marketer-generated content. The authors reveal two motivational paths that compete in explaining the overall effectiveness of different types of marketer-generated content to fuel user engagement. The authors further demonstrate that these relationships depend on the intimacy of a user’s circle of online friends.