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It is known that to encourage people to interact (e.g. sharing) with brands through social media, businesses create content in line with the expectations of their target audience. On these sites, however, such interaction by consumers is visible, contributing to their self-presentation, which can be seen by their wider network; some of whom will find it appropriate, others may not. Currently, little is known about the effects of consumers’ own diverse set of audiences on behavioral intention toward brand interaction and emotional effect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Survey methodology (n=386) was adopted to examine intention to interact with real brand posts.

Results show that the brand interaction is associated with social anxiety when it is felt that visible evidence of such actions is discrepant from the audience expectations. This, then, constrains the behavioral intention to interact with brands online.

For businesses to maximize brand interactions and minimize social anxiety, they must be mindful of not just the expectations of their target but also consider their target’s own network. For site designers, this research urges for greater refining of privacy tools and suggests the addition of a “Secret Like” option.

Encouraging visible brand interaction through social media is paramount for businesses. Managers focus only on their target audience when designing content but neglect to consider the self-presentational implications of interacting with branded content to wider networks. This paper shows that this must be considered to increase success and maintain ethical practice. This is of value for multiple-stakeholders, managers, users, site designers and academics.

Everyday users of professional networks such as LinkedIn are flooded by posts presenting the achievements of their connections (e.g. I got a new job/award). The present research takes a self-discrepancy perspective to examine the mixed-emotional and behavioral consequences of viewing such idealized self-promotional content on professional networks.

The emotional and behavioral consequences following viewership of idealized self-promotional content on LinkedIn are explored through one pilot study (N = 109) and one online experiment (N = 714), which is evaluated using structural equation modeling.

Viewership of idealized self-promotional content on professional social networking sites acts as an emotional double-edged sword for LinkedIn users. Users feel both dejection and symhedonia (i.e. happiness for others), dependent on their reported career-based self-discrepancy. We find the experience of symhedonia to be bound by the relational closeness of the poster (acquaintance vs close friend). Furthermore, we show how resultant emotions drive self-regulatory compensatory IT-use behaviors (i.e. direct resolution, fluid compensation, dissociation, and escapism).

We offer four distinct contributions. Firstly, we disentangle inconsistent findings of mixed emotions by introducing symhedonia to IT literature. Secondly, we investigate the boundary condition of relational closeness. Thirdly, we extend our findings by investigating compensatory-consumption behaviors that stem from mixed-affective outcomes. Finally, we do so in the context of professional networks, which are greatly understudied and are distinctive from personal networks. Practical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the role of social media in negotiating and managing identity for transient migrants relating to the home and host culture during the acculturation process.

Focussing on international students in the UK, this paper reports on findings from a qualitative study involving interviews with 27 transient migrants about their social media use and the negotiation of their identity online.

This paper highlights the multifaceted role that social media plays in the identity negotiations of transient migrants and it offers three theoretical contributions. First, the authors show that social media serves as a medium, consequence and determinant of identity. Second, provide four strategies for identity management are provided: boundary management, access management, online content management and offline content management. Third, contextualised support is provided for a reciprocal relationship between the different identity-related roles played by social media.

The paper highlights the complex role of social media for identity within the acculturation process for transient migrants. Identity contestation may be salient for young student migrants, especially where there is a large cultural distance between the home and host culture. Identity negotiations and struggles may not be salient with older migrants or migrants who have migrated for different reasons or where there is a small cultural distance between the home and host culture.

This paper offers recommendations for social media site designers for enhancing the users experience during acculturation by guiding the navigation with identity management strategies as well as to highlight the possible predicaments of not managing their identity online.

Based on qualitative research with transient migrants using social media during acculturation, the paper provides a theoretical model of the role and reciprocal relationship of social media for identity, serving the role as a medium, consequence and determinant. The paper incorporates four identity management strategies that migrants can use on social media.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of increasing the intensity of sexual or violent content on consumer responses to online video advertisements, with a particular emphasis on sharing intentions.

The paper uses a between-subjects experimental design across two studies using new to the world online video advertisements as stimuli.

Study 1 finds that increasing the intensity of sexual and violent humor improves advertisement effectiveness amongst men but leads to significantly more negative attitudes toward the advertisement and brand amongst women. Study 2 identifies gender and humor type as moderators for sharing intentions in the presence of audience diversity. While men are more likely to publicly share sexual and violent humor advertisements, social anxiety mediates intentions to share sexual humor advertisements in the presence of greater audience diversity.

The paper offers insights to practitioners regarding the use of risqué forms of humor as part of a digital marketing strategy.

Drawing on and extending benign violation theory, the paper introduces and verifies a theoretical model for understanding consumer responses to the use of risqué forms of humor in online advertisements. It identifies how audience diversity affects sharing intentions for sexual and violent humor-based advertisements on social media.

Acquiring “Likes” for a political party or candidate’s Facebook pages is important for political marketers. For consumers, these “Likes” are conspicuous, making their political affiliation visible to their network. This paper aims to examine the roles of the undesired social-self and visibility (conspicuous vs inconspicuous) in predicting consumers’ intention to “Like” political brands. The authors extend knowledge on the undesired social-self and transference of theory from general marketing to a political domain and provide practical advice for political marketers engaging social network sites.

The authors gather data from two surveys run with Facebook using electorates in the run up to the UK 2015 and US 2016 elections (n = 1,205) on their intention to “Like” political brands under different visibility conditions.

Data support the theorized relationship of the undesired social-self with social anxiety intention to “Like” when “Liking” is conspicuous. However, data also indicate that all users – irrespective of proximity to the undesired social-self – prefer to “Like” inconspicuously.

The research is limited by the generalizability of the specific context and the use of self-report measures.

Political marketers should reconsider promoting conspicuous consumption for that which is more inconspicuous.

The authors provide the first examination of the undesired social-self in driving behaviour under different visibility conditions. Furthermore, the authors challenge the extension of existing knowledge of the self-concept within political marketing, based on the “norm” for consumers’ to avoid disclosing political views publically.

Breakout rooms are commonly used by lecturers as a means to achieve collaborative learning in online lessons. Although breakout rooms can be effective at encouraging student engagement, interaction and learning, many students dislike being forced to interact with peers, and for some students, it can lead to feelings of anxiety and stress. Successful collaborative learning depends upon having the “right” individuals working together, so the purpose of this research is to identify specific learner attributes that are associated with purposeful interpersonal interaction in breakout rooms.

An online survey was used to obtain data from 664 higher education students in the USA, which were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Students' technology readiness, social identification and intercultural communication competence are each significantly related to the achievement of purposeful interpersonal interaction, which is strongly related to students' perceived learning.

The findings of this research emphasize the importance of lecturers considering learner attributes when forming breakout room groups.

The breakout room represents a unique and specific context for collaborative learning, where there may be minimal lecturer supervision and where students may choose to disengage by turning off their cameras and microphones or simply listen without participating (known as lurking). The existing literature has given little attention to how lecturers allocate students to online breakout rooms.

Hedonic shopping is a growing phenomenon designed to enhance gamers’ virtual content shopping experience with increasing economic significance, yet limited attention has been dedicated to this area. Our study explores key hedonic motivations of virtual content shopping and how hedonic shopping value builds trust (trust in virtual content and trust in virtual retailers) that enhances the intention to pay for premium.

This research adopts a mixed-methods approach. Study 1 is qualitative; 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted with virtual game retail platform users. Study 2, based on the literature review and qualitative inquiry findings (obtained from Study 1), proposes a research model empirically validated by analyzing survey data administered to 437 online gamers from gaming zones, cybercafés and e-sports centers.

The results show that in-game shopping-related adventure-, gratification-, role- and idea-seeking motivations significantly influence gamers' perceived hedonic shopping value. In turn, perceived shopping value has a significant indirect effect through trust on gamers’ intention to pay for premium.

This research contributes to gaming literature by offering a comprehensive model that elucidates the role of hedonic shopping in increasing gamers’ trust, which explains purchase behavior in the virtual game retail context. The findings deepen the understanding of the game retailing landscape and offer strategies to build gamers’ trust, increase premium usage and retain existing spenders.

Newsjacking (real-time deployment of news stories in communications) is now ubiquitous for brands using social media. Despite its pervasiveness, little analysis of its effectiveness exists. The purpose of this paper is to test if newsjacking positively influences various consumer responses (attitude toward content, brand attitude and purchase intent). Taking an audience perspective supported by the elaboration likelihood model, the research also establishes if a higher level of news involvement, as well as an ability to recognize the story behind the content, enhances the effectiveness of newsjacking content.

An experimental design using taglines (newsjacking vs non-topical content) from a real BMW campaign was tested on a sample of 252 consumers. Three research questions pertaining to the effectiveness of newsjacking were specified and analyzed within a structural equation modeling framework.

The findings support the conclusion that newsjacking is an effective communication tool. More favorable consumer responses were elicited in the newsjacking condition, as compared to content deploying a non-topical tagline. In addition, recipients reporting a higher level of news involvement rated the content more favorably in the newsjacking (vs the non-topical) condition. Deploying news stories that are more recognizable increases the chances of successful newsjacking. Messages received by those with higher product involvement (category level: cars) were more effective regardless of the type of the appeal.

The authors contribute to the communications and social media literatures by investigating the effectiveness of an emerging but popular tactic leveraged by content creators. The work builds upon the limited research that has tested consumer responses to newsjacking. From a practical perspective, the research provides insight into the type of audience and situations most likely to yield a favorable outcome from newsjacking.

Sponsorships involving foreign brands are ubiquitous, but those involving a company from an animosity-evoking country can adversely affect rather than enhance domestic consumers' attitude towards the brand. This paper explains the mechanisms by which brand denigration occurs, introducing and validating a model of the animosity transfer process as well as considering if various framing and timing strategies attenuate or lead to adverse consumer responses.

Study 1 tests the animosity transfer model, utilizing a scenario in which English consumers respond to a German brand sponsoring the England soccer team. Study 2 assesses the generalizability of the model in the context of Indian consumers' responses to sponsorship of their cricket team by a Chinese company, and the extent to which an honest framing of the sponsorship choice through the announcement affects outcomes. Study 3 returns to an England–Germany country dyad, testing whether priming consumers with information about the sponsorship prior to a full announcement, attenuates or intensifies the impact of animosity on the studied outcomes.

The three studies demonstrate that when consumers learn of a sponsorship, it triggers an evaluation process in which the agonistic emotion (anger) they feel plays a pivotal role. More intense emotional appraisals weaken perceptions of sponsor-sponsee congruence, which together act as consecutive process variables mediating the relationship between animosity and sponsorship outcomes. Framing the sponsorship announcement with an honest justification for the partnership can improve outcomes but not amongst those with the highest animosity. Providing consumers with an advanced warning (preannouncement) of the sponsorship also amplifies consumers' unfavorable evaluations showcasing how difficult animosity is to manage in this context.

The animosity transfer model aids understanding of the mechanisms by which animosity affects brand attitude for foreign (out-group) sponsors. It identifies how animosity generates agonistic emotions and in turn weakens perceived fit between the sponsor and sponsee, leading to adverse consumer responses.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how different age groups construct and enact normality within social networking sites (SNS) and consequently extend theory in the area of online interactions.

The chosen research site was Facebook and research design involved focus groups across three different age groups: teenagers, young adults and the middle-aged. In total, there were 78 participants. The focus groups explored the metaphoric images of Facebook interactions. In doing so, participants were asked to draw a picture to represent their metaphor and following this, to position themselves and other characters within the picture. The drawings as well as the facilitators’ records provided the main data set for the study.

Connective and protective encounters were found to be used by different age groups when constructing and enacting normality on SNS. Further, it emerged that the interpretation and enactment of normality across the different age groups significantly varied. The metaphorical images have transpired as being a resourceful way of unpacking these differences.

The study relied on focus groups in order to capture metaphorical images across generations. It did not include interviews with individual participants to elicit the extent to which they agreed with the group metaphor or whether there was anything else they might have presented in the drawings. This could be on the agenda for future research.

The findings of the study suggest that SNS managers and designers should sympathise with the view that users of different ages engage in different ways with SNS and as a result, user interfaces should be customised according to the age of the user.

The study has implications for those interested in cross- and inter-generational research.

This is the first study in which the concept of normality has been adopted as a theoretical lens for understanding the interactions on SNS. Further, this work adds to the limited body of research on SNS use across different generations whilst it expands on the range of methodologies used within the information systems field.