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Billions of people around the world are experiencing new ways of interacting with people using the social networking sites (SNS). With the heavy traffic and technological capabilities, SNS offers remarkable gratifications to its users, but there is a lack of knowledge about how gratifications play a role in usage intention and whether there are other factors that influence this relationship. Therefore, this study aims to fulfill these research gaps.

To explore these issues in depth, this study conceptualizes a comprehensive framework based on the theory of uses and gratification (UGT), habit and the subjective norm. Structural equation model is used to analyze the survey data.

The results of the study reveal that UGT has a significant direct effect on usage intention. Furthermore, user habit and subjective norm play an important mediating role in the relationship between UGT and usage intention.

The proposed framework would extensively contribute to the SNS literature and managerial insights by integrating personal and social factors in determining the user acceptance of the media.

This paper aims to operationalise and juxtapose variables related to identity, strategy and communications, and then examine the impact of such integration on organisational stakeholders’ trust, loyalty and commitment by using commitment/trust theory.

This research design utilises explanatory research at the preliminary stage, as informed by the literature and conceptual framework. The subsequent model was examined via a positivist survey carried out among stakeholders in high-end retail stores in London. Structural equation modelling (SEM) via AMOS was conducted to gain insight into the various relevant influences and relationships.

The results indicate that identity and strategy are key drivers of integrated corporate communication, and they serve to build stakeholder trust, loyalty and commitment.

The paper shows that while practitioners have indicated that integrated marketing communication is important for organisations, there are a few other areas of concern with regard to consequences related to trust, loyalty and commitment, especially in a retail context. This paper empirically examined relationships between these constructs by validating a conceptual model by using SEM.

(1) A concern often expressed in relation to cryptocurrencies is the environmental impact associated with increasing energy consumption and mining pollution. Controversy remains regarding how environmental attention and public concerns adversely affect cryptocurrency prices. Therefore, the paper aims to introduce the index of cryptocurrency environmental attention (ICEA), which aims to capture the relative extent of media discussions surrounding the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. (2) The impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on long-term macro-financial markets and economic development remain part of undeveloped research fields. Based on these factors, the paper will further examine the effects of the ICEA on financial markets or economic developments.

(1) The paper introduces a new index to capture cryptocurrency environmental attention in terms of the cryptocurrency response to major related events through gathering a large amount of news stories around cryptocurrency environmental concerns – i.e. >778.2 million news items from the LexisNexis News & Business database, which can be considered as Big Data – and analysing that rich dataset using variety of quantitative techniques. (2) The vector error correction model (VECM) and structural VECM (SVECM) [impulse response function (IRF), forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) and historical decomposition (HD)] are useful for characterising the dynamic relationships between ICEA and aggregate economic activities.

(1) The paper has developed a new measure of attention to sustainability concerns of cryptocurrency markets' growth, ICEA. (2) ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the UCRY indices, volatility index (VIX), Brent crude oil (BCO) and Bitcoin. (3) ICEA has a significantly negative relationship with the global economic policy uncertainty (GlobalEPU) and global temperature uncertainty (GTU). Moreover, ICEA has a significantly positive relationship with the industrial production (IP) in the short term, whilst having a significantly negative relationship in the long term. (4) The HD of the ICEA displays higher linkages between environmental attention, Bitcoin and UCRY indices around key events that significantly change the prices of digital assets.

The ICEA is significant in the analysis of whether cryptocurrency markets are sustainable regarding energy consumption requirements and negative contributions to climate change. Understanding of the broader impacts of cryptocurrency environmental concerns on cryptocurrency market volatility, uncertainty and environmental sustainability should be considered and developed. Moreover, the paper aims to point out future research and policy legislation directions. Notably, the paper poses the question of how cryptocurrency can be made more sustainable and environmentally friendly and how governments' cryptocurrency policies can address the cryptocurrency markets.

(1) The paper develops a cryptocurrency environmental attention index based on news coverage that captures the extent to which environmental sustainability concerns are discussed in conjunction with cryptocurrencies. (2) The paper empirically investigates the impacts of cryptocurrency environmental attention on other financial or economic variables [cryptocurrency uncertainty (UCRY) indices, Bitcoin, VIX, GlobalEPU, BCO, GTU index and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development IP index]. (3) The paper provides insights into making the most effective use of online databases in the development of new indices for financial research.

Whilst blockchain technology has a number of useful implications and has great potential to transform several industries, issues of high-energy consumption and CO2 pollution regarding cryptocurrency have become some of the main areas of criticism, raising questions about the sustainability of cryptocurrencies. These results are essential for both policy-makers and for academics, since the results highlight an urgent need for research addressing the key issues, such as the growth of carbon produced in the creation of this new digital currency. The results also are important for investors concerned with the ethical implications and environmental impacts of their investment choices.

(1) The paper provides an efficient new proxy for cryptocurrency and robust empirical evidence for future research concerning the impact of environmental issues on cryptocurrency markets. (2) The study successfully links cryptocurrency environmental attention to the financial markets, economic developments and other volatility and uncertainty measures, which has certain novel implications for the cryptocurrency literature. (3) The empirical findings of the paper offer useful and up-to-date insights for investors, guiding policy-makers, regulators and media, enabling the ICEA to evolve into a barometer in the cryptocurrency era and play a role in, for example, environmental policy development and investment portfolio optimisation.

This study aims to examine the relationship of information quality of social media, social media reputation, social media political marketing activities, trust and political involvement of millennials.

The empirical analysis was conducted using a sample of 309 millennials. This study used online survey for the data collection. After passing reliability and validity tests, the data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results show that information quality of social media has positive and significant direct influence on reputation and trust. Information quality of social media also has a significant indirect influence on trust through social media reputation. However, there is no significant relationship between information quality and political involvement. Social media political marketing activities also have a direct and indirect significant effect on political involvement through trust. Finally, trust also has a positive and significant impact on political involvement.

This research may contribute to the political marketing experts and politicians in increasing the quality and credibility of advertisements on social media, which will affect trust and political involvement of millennial generation. Moreover, politicians and political marketing experts who have an online-based community should optimize their marketing activities in social media to encourage positive behavior and trust from social media users.

This study has shown a more comprehensive model of the relationship between information quality of social media and political involvement. This study also reveals the significant indirect effect of the trust on the relationship between information quality on social media, social media political marketing activities and political involvement.

Este estudio examina la relación de la calidad de la información, su reputación y las actividades de marketing político desarrolladas en las redes sociales, la confianza y la participación política de los millennials.

El análisis empírico incluye una muestra de 309 millennials encuestados online. Tras superar las pruebas de fiabilidad y validez, los datos se analizaron con (PLS-SEM).

Los resultados muestran que la calidad de la información de las redes sociales tiene una influencia directa positiva y significativa en la reputación y la confianza. La calidad de la información de las redes sociales también tiene una influencia indirecta significativa en la confianza a través de la reputación de las redes sociales. Sin embargo, no existe una relación significativa entre la calidad de la información y la participación política. Las actividades de marketing político de las redes sociales también tienen un efecto significativo directo e indirecto en la participación política a través de la confianza. Por último, la confianza también tiene un impacto positivo y significativo en la participación política.

Esta investigación puede contribuir a que los expertos en marketing político y los políticos aumenten la calidad y la credibilidad de los anuncios en los medios sociales, lo que afectará a la confianza y a la implicación política de la generación millennial. Además, los políticos y los expertos en marketing político que tienen una comunidad en línea deberían optimizar sus actividades de marketing en los medios sociales para fomentar un comportamiento positivo y la confianza de los usuarios de los medios sociales.

Este estudio muestra un modelo más completo de la relación entre la calidad de la información de los medios sociales y la implicación política. También revela el significativo efecto indirecto de la confianza en la relación entre la calidad de la información en los medios sociales, las actividades de marketing político en los medios sociales y la implicación política.

本研究旨在检验千禧一代的政治参与和社会媒体的信息质量、社会媒体声誉、社会媒体政治营销活动、信任度之间的关系。

本文的实证研究采用在线调查的方式, 收集了309名千禧一代样本的数据。经过信度和效度检验后, 采用偏最小二乘法结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）对数据进行分析。

结果表明, 社交媒体的信息质量对声誉和信任有着积极且显著的直接影响, 与此同时, 社交媒体的信息质量也通过社交媒体声誉对信任产生显著的间接影响。然而, 信息质量与千禧一代的政治参与之间并没有显著关系。而社会媒体的政治营销活动通过信任对政治参与产生直接和间接的显著影响。最后, 信任对政治参与也有积极而显著的影响。

这项研究有助于政治营销专家和政治家通过提高社交媒体广告的质量和可信度来影响千禧一代的信任和政治参与。此外, 政治家和政治营销专家应当优化社交媒体上在线社群的营销活动, 以鼓励社交媒体用户的积极行为和信任。

这项研究展示了一个比较全面的社交媒体信息质量与政治参与之间关系的模型。本研究还揭示了信任对社交媒体信息质量、社交媒体政治营销活动和政治参与之间关系的显著间接影响。

Social media are increasingly being used in teaching and learning in higher education. This paper aims to explore multiple case studies to better understand how instructors decide to incorporate social media into learning.

This qualitative case study used the technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore five instructors' use of social media for teaching and learning, particularly the pedagogical reasons and goals driving their use of social media. Participant interviews, course documentation and social media observation data were collected to answer the research questions.

Findings suggest that an instructor's social media knowledge and awareness of instructional goals are important for the use of social media in learning. Three pedagogical objectives of the use of social media were found across five participants: collaborative learning, dialog and discussion, and authentic learning.

Previous studies have explored potential pedagogical uses of social media tools, however studies that attempt to understand how and why instructors decide to use particular social media tools are underreported.

Background: The ideas-informed society represents a desired situation in which: (1) citizens see value in staying up to date, and; (2) citizens regularly keep themselves up to date by actively, openly and critically engaging with new ideas, developments and claims to truth. As a result, it is hoped citizens become increasingly knowledgeable, better able to make good decisions, and better positioned to support new progressive norms and beliefs. Yet despite these potential benefits, a substantive proportion of the population do not value staying up to date, nor attempt to do so.

Methods: With this research project we seek to identify whether the theoretical lens of anomie can account for why “ideas refusers” do not engage with ideas, as well as provide clues as to how they might be encouraged to do so. To explore the possible impacts of anomie on ideas-engagement we conducted four online focus groups, interviewing a purposive sample of ten individuals who previously indicated they were ideas refusers.

Results: Our findings identify eleven themes which seemingly account for why ideas refusers do not currently engage with ideas. Of these, ten are related to anomie, including themes which encapsulate feelings of frustration, anxiety, confusion and powerlessness regarding the complexities of modern society.

Conclusions: We also identify three areas of future focus that might help the ongoing development of the ideas-informed society. These are: (1) the more positive and relevant reporting of ideas; (2) supporting “healthy” face-to-face engagement with ideas; and (3) supporting effective ideas engagement through social media.

Digital technologies, and the affordances they provide, can shape institutional processes in significant ways. In the last decade, social media and other digital platforms have redefined civic engagement by enabling new ways of connecting, collaborating, and mobilizing. In this article, we examine how technological affordances can both enable and hinder institutional processes through visibilization – which we define as the enactment of technological features to foreground and give voice to particular perspectives and discourses while silencing others. We study such dynamics by examining #SchauHin, an activist campaign initiated in Germany to shine a spotlight on experiences of daily racism. Our findings show how actors and counter-actors differentially leveraged the technological features of two digital platforms to shape the campaign. Our study has implications for understanding the role of digital technologies in institutional processes as well as the interplay between affordances and visibility in efforts to deinstitutionalize discriminatory practices and institutions.

This paper employs the theoretical foundations for subjective well-being to examine the impacts of two underlying dimensions of subjective well-being (psychological well-being and social well-being) on pro-environmental consumption behaviors (PECBs). In this research, the moderating role of exposure to positive environmental messages on media in the relationship between subjective well-being and PECBs is also examined.

This research uses a quantitative research method with data collected from an online survey questionnaire posted in Facebook groups related to PECBs in Vietnam.

Psychological well-being and social well-being are found to be separate significant predictors of PECBs. More importantly, exposure to positive environmental messages on media was found to reinforce the impacts of psychological well-being on PECB but not moderate the relationship between social well-being and PECB.

This research offers a new insight for encouraging PECB from the perspective of subjective well-being. Different from the extant perspectives, which usually examine subjective well-being as a unidimensional antecedent of PECB, the authors highlight that subjective well-being can influence PECB in two separate dimensions. Moreover, this research extends existing literature by accentuating the role of exposure to environmental messages in the association between different types of social well-being and PECB.

The purpose of this study is to deepen understanding of the effects of using social media technologies to acquire technological knowledge and organizational learning competences, of technological knowledge competences on organizational learning and finally of organizational learning on organizational performance.

The study was performed by analyzing data from a sample of 197 technology firms located in Spain. The hypotheses were tested using a structural equations model with the program LISREL 8.80.

This study’s conceptual framework is grounded in complexity theory – along with dynamic capabilities theory, which complements the resource-based view. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a model that reflects empirically how business ecosystems that use social media technologies enable the development of interorganizational and social collaboration networks that encourage learning and development of technological knowledge competences.

It would be interesting for future studies to consider other elements to conceptualize and measure social media technologies, including (among others) significance of the various tools used and strategic integration. The model might also analyze other sectors and another combination of variables.

The results of this study have several managerial implications: developing social media technologies and interorganizational social collaboration networks not only enables the organizational learning process but also encourages technological knowledge competences. Through innovation processes, use of social media technologies also contributes to strengthening companies’ strategic positioning, which ultimately helps to improve firms’ organizational performance.

Since social media technologies drive information systems in contemporary society (because they enable interaction with numerous agents), the authors highlight the use of complexity theory to develop a conceptual framework.

The study also deepens understanding of the connections by which new experiential learning contributes to the generation of coevolutionary adaptive business ecosystems and digital strategies that enable development of interorganizational and social collaborative networks through technological knowledge competences. Only after examining the impact of social media technologies on organizational performance in prior literature, did the authors underscore that both quantity and frequency of social media technology use are positively related to improvement in knowledge processes that lead to employees’ creation and acquisition of new metaknowledge.