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The current study aims to explore the determinants of user intentions towards fitness YouTube channels, employing the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) and Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) as theoretical frameworks.

Symmetric and asymmetric analyses were employed for data analysis, utilizing partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for symmetric analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) for asymmetric analysis.

The study revealed significant impacts of most UTAUT2 determinants and all UGT determinants on user intentions. Additionally, the fsQCA results supported the concept of equifinality, indicating that various configurations of causal combinations can predict a high level of behavioral intention. These findings underscore the significance of comprehending user motivations and factors related to technology and social media in the context of maintaining or increasing followership and viewership for fitness content providers.

The findings suggest that individuals with high expectations and facilitating conditions, as per UTAUT, and heightened hedonic and socializing motivations, in line with UGT, are more inclined to follow fitness YouTube channels. This study offers valuable insights for fitness content creators and marketers navigating the complexities of the digital age.

Often seen as a vulnerable group, tween girls fashioning themselves after adults have been a topic of significant concern. Public and academic discourse in the West has expressed worry that girls’ adult-like dressing may expose them to a range of physical, psychological and sexual harm. In most discussions on girls’ dressing, Western popular culture is also identified as one of the prevalent ways through which girls learn to how to fashion themselves after adults. It is claimed that Western television programmes, books and magazines encourage young girls to fashion themselves after adults at an earlier age. Recognising the importance of girls’ voices in their experiences of girlhood, this chapter draws exclusively on 12 focus groups, with 29 Singaporean girls aged 8–12. It finds that there are changing mediascapes in tween girls’ lives that have not been acknowledged. No longer predominantly watching television or browsing teen magazines, this chapter highlights how young Singaporean girls are now more likely to spend their time on the popular media platform YouTube. As girls gain mobility through their mobile communication devices, this chapter calls for a closer examination of YouTube in relation to girls’ dressing. Nonetheless, this chapter also acknowledges that while certain popular YouTube videos (re)produce highly narrow ideas of what a female should look or be like, it is not a simple issue of girls learning how to dress from their favourite YouTube stars. YouTubers also represented a lexicon of empowerment for some of the girls in this study.

This study aimed to test some dynamics related to YouTube advertising clutter and viewers' attitudes towards YouTube channels operated by traditional television (TV) companies (These YouTube channels tend to have a greater ad clutter since their videos have embedded ads of programme sponsors in addition to regular YouTube advertisements).

Employing a positivistic, quantitative methodology, the study collected data through an online survey from a sample of 295 YouTube viewers in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using the regression-based PROCESS macro, utilising the SPSS software.

Ad clutter has a negative impact on viewers' attitudes towards the YouTube channel, but only indirectly, through irritation. Skippability of advertisements does not moderate the relationship between ad clutter and ad irritation, but non-skippability increases ad irritation (direct relationship).

YouTube channel owners should pay careful attention to having an optimum level of advertising because clutter resulting in high ad irritation leading to a negative attitude towards the channel could reduce subscriptions. Offering an ad skippability option is unlikely to reduce irritation if there is high clutter.

Although ad clutter is well-researched, its impact on viewer responses to online media channels is uncommon. With YouTube poised to become a top ad revenue-generating medium, this study contributes by examining some dynamics related to ad clutter in a possibly high-clutter context.

Since its launch in 2005, YouTube has provided a unique platform for users worldwide to share and engage with content, leading to a rise in user-generated content (UGC), especially among youth. One of the most prevalent, yet under-explored, subgenres of UGC is the user-generated music video, where users integrate music and images with an element of performance or narrative; the current research deploys longitudinal analysis to describe the trends in youth-created music videos and how these trends have evolved in the early years of YouTube. Using a sample of 100 youth-created user-generated music videos uploaded to YouTube in 2007 and 2013, the authors investigate trends in production strategies, narrative content, and demographics. Compared to videos posted in 2007, youth-created music videos posted in 2013 featured more complicated editing techniques, less linear narratives, younger actors, more women, and were more likely to celebrate the self, mimicking the recent emergence of “selfie culture.” These findings are discussed with respect to YouTube’s role in reducing barriers to entry and providing a virtual space for youth-oriented content communities that thrive on engagement and social networking as strategies of identity development.

The YouTube affordance of auto-generated textual closed captions (CC) is valued by the YouTube algorithm, and therefore spoken words in vlogs can be strategically used to optimize and orient videos and channels for search. In their blog, YouTube suggests that complicity with their desire for rich and accurate CC is rewarded with algorithmic visibility (YouTube, 2017a). CC metadata are therefore an example of the significant degree of pressure for vloggers (video bloggers) on YouTube to optimize their content down to minutia of self-presentations. In this chapter I analyze the practice of highly visible beauty vloggers to conceptualize vlogging practices that contribute to algorithmically readable CC text. I term this labor vlogging parlance. Vlogging parlance includes keyword stuffing, defined as inserting often-searched-for keywords into speech. It also encompasses the strategic verbal expressions, language choice, speech pace, enunciation, and minimization of background noise by vloggers. Vlogging parlance can be thought of as a microcelebrity (Senft, 2008) technique, deployed to attract attention and visibility in an information-saturated online “attention economy,” a system of value in which often “money now flows along with attention” (Goldhaber, 1997). The call to optimize speech ultimately places responsibility onto creators to ensure their videos can become visible, while assisting YouTube in developing search accuracy for their viewers. Furthermore, the Western-centric language affordances of CC, and the high valuation of English on the YouTube platform, are used as examples of how social media platforms can underserve differently abled and non-English speaking audiences.

The body of scholarship on YouTube is an expanding area of scholarly inquiry. Existent research indicates that music videos are one of the most salient features of YouTube. Interactionist research about popular music has provided important insights through interviews with fans and audience members; however, this work has yet to examine audience engagement with music videos on YouTube. Using Qualitative Media Analysis, I illustrate how the researcher of popular music can work with user comments collected from YouTube. Thematic understandings largely consistent with nostalgia that emerged from an analysis of user-generated comments in response to selected music videos on YouTube are explored. I conclude by suggesting some directions for future research.

This study aims to investigate replies to the top 10 comments under Always “Like a Girl” YouTube femvertising video to gauge consumers’ responses regarding femvertising as well as relationships among commenters.

This study adopted a mixed research methods design. A user analysis and a qualitative content analysis were conducted to examine the replies of the top 10 comments with the most replies to reveal not only the topics but also relationships and patterns among those comments and commenters.

The user analysis found that across all the 10 comment-and-reply units, in 8 units, the user of the original primary comment, the conversation starter, was also the user who was targeted most often. The qualitative content analysis revealed four themes from the 10 comment-and-reply units: multilayered emotional responses, a gendered society, complex coexisting relationships and a melting pot.

The findings of this research offer significant extensions to the understanding of public sphere theory within the contemporary digital media landscape. By analyzing the nature of replies to digital advertisements, the study illuminates how various types of user engagement–whether it be inquiry, laudation, debate, or flame–play a critical role in shaping the digital public sphere.

The study underscores the importance for marketers to scrutinize both comments and replies to effectively utilize femvertising on social media, particularly YouTube. By understanding the emotional dynamics of user interactions, marketers can craft strategies that evoke positive responses and mitigate negative ones. Engaging with users who are open to changing their views or mediating discussions can also be beneficial, as can the use of AI tools to maintain focus on the content rather than on individual commenters. Such approaches can enhance the perception of femvertising campaigns and foster a more constructive dialogue within the social media space.

This study contributes to the literature by investigating the replies of comments, interactions, relationships and patterns among YouTube commenters that may generate valuable insights for advertisers and marketers to be aware of the possible issues and monitor the sentiment of commentaries, thus, developing effective strategies to better connect with consumers. This extends the understanding of public sphere theory in the contemporary digital media landscape.

This study investigates two important research questions. First, does YouTube advertising create value for customers to activate their inspired-by state (motivation), or does customer engagement in advertised brands have a mediating role? Second, does the inspired-by state influence customers’ inspired-to state (action) to purchase the advertised brand?

This study employs Ducoffe’s advertising value model to investigate how customers’ engagement mediates perceived advertising value and their inspired-by state. The authors split customer inspiration into two primary states: inspired-by (i.e. the early interest in taking action) and inspired-to (i.e. the intention to act), demonstrating that the latter is positively influenced by the former. The study employs SmartPLS V3.2.9 to analyze survey data from 360 respondents in Pakistan – an emerging market.

This study found that informativeness, entertainment, creativity and incentives exerted a significant positive impact on perceived advertising value. The perceived advertising value of YouTube ads fails to influence customers’ inspired-by state directly; however, customer engagement positively mediates the relationship between the perceived advertising value of YouTube and customers’ inspired-by state. Finally, the customers’ inspired-by state is successfully converted into an inspired-to state.

This study has numerous practical implications for advertisers and marketers seeking to optimize social media advertising and marketing performance.

YouTube ads shape consumer behavior, empowering informed choices; authentic engagement transforms the advertising landscape.

This study is the first to examine the perceived advertising value of YouTube ads for eliciting customers’ inspired-by state, assessing the mediating role of customer engagement as a mechanism. Moreover, the authors examine the role of customers’ inspired-by state as a predictor of the inspired-to state.

The purpose of this study is to compare the communication practices of Chinese and US companies on YouTube and explores the effectiveness of different communication strategies at the topic level.

The author selected 22 Chinese companies and 22 US firms and compared the content of their English language corporate YouTube channels through content analysis, sentiment analysis and cluster analysis.

The results revealed that the three communication strategies (information, response and involvement) in general were not significantly different regarding their engagement rates, but they generated different comment scores when communicating topics of corporate social responsibility. The results also showed that Chinese companies were more likely than American firms to display the speeches of corporate leaders, use collectivistic references and present human interest messages in YouTube videos.

This study sheds light on how national institutional environment shapes corporate communication on YouTube.

This study challenges the infatuation with the involvement strategy and offers some advice for practitioners on topic selection and user comment function management.

This study makes a novel contribution to the literature of corporate communication on YouTube by adopting a cross-national comparative approach. A conceptual framework of major factors influencing stakeholder responses on YouTube was presented.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-02-2023-0061

This study aims to determine the impact of attitude toward content creators, subjective norm and perceived content quality in affecting people’s intention and behavior to watch videos posted on YouTube in Indonesia.

Using questionnaire, data from the total of 112 individuals living in Indonesia were gathered in this study, and these respondents are individuals who have been watching YouTube contents at least 3 h a day for the past eight months. Moreover, all of these data were processed and analyzed using PLS method to determine the impact given by one variable toward the other.

Based on the results of the analysis, the authors concluded that both factors, namely, content credibility and perceived content quality, play significant and positive roles in determining people’s intention to watch – and ultimately behavior to watch – contents or videos published on YouTube, with the former turned out to be the stronger predictor.

The current study attempts to modify and merge both the concept of theory of reasoned action and product quality theory to explain Indonesians’ behavior toward watching contents published on YouTube, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this type of studies is still in rarity.