Given the increasingly widespread use of mobile phones in the developing world, the application of this technology for healthcare (also referred to as m-health) has tremendous potential. However, there is a need for more research on factors that influence the sustainable and scalable adoption of m-health in developing countries. To fill this gap, in this study, drawing on the theory of diffusion of innovation, we conducted in-depth interviews with 29 health professionals in Sri Lanka to understand their views on the benefits and barriers to adopting m-health. Participants had mixed views on the adoption of this technology. Reasons for m-health adoption included efficiency and usefulness in emergency situations. Barriers to adoption included risks for miscommunication/misinterpretation and lack of systems/policies for implementing m-health technology. With regard to the innovation-decision process, most participants appear to be in the stages of "persuasion" and "decision"; with regard to degree of innovativeness, interviewees comprise a mix of "early adopters" and "laggards." Assuming mobile health apps afford improvements in health outcomes for developing countries, contextual factors in each national setting should inform design and implementation of m-health interventions.
This study explores whether there is a connection between TV viewing and the intention of young adult women to smoke and their ability to refuse smoking. Young adult women were defined as between 18 and 24 years of age (N = 156). Using Cultivation Theory as a framework, the researchers found that TV viewing positively predicts smoking intentions and negatively predicts the ability to refuse smoking. Accounting for smoking knowledge, current smoking behaviors, and other media use, TV viewing predicts smoking intentions. This suggests that TV viewing may be a powerful predictor of (a) smoking intentions and (b) the inability to refuse a cigarette in a peer pressure/social situation.Famous actresses serve as role models for young women who are developing their self-identities. It is not uncommon for young women to imitate celebrities and their buying behaviors. The advertising industry uses celebrity endorsers to entice fans into copying their favorite celebrities. Importantly, when it comes to fast food, soft
The purpose of this study is to examine how corporations communicate with consumers in social media. For this, Twitter activities of Fortune 500 companies were content-analyzed, focusing on four factors: shared information, the method of communication, tweet contents, and tactics. The findings indicate that corporations tend to disclose their basic information mostly on their Twitter pages and mainly post organic tweets (65.9%) and corporate news (48.7%). In terms of tweeting tactics, corporations apply the “link” function to connect to their websites, blogs, or Facebook pages. Additionally, among three indexes (Fortune 500 rankings, the corporate activity score, and product group categorization) for evaluating the corporate use patterns in Twitter, the product groups categorized by the Foote, Cone, and Belding (FCB) grid model (high/low involvement and thinking/feeling) proved that the model can be applied to examine the different Twitter activities of organizations. The results of this study can help with the development of a tailored measurement tool for managing consumers, depending on the different categories of organizations and designing future plans within a social networking site (SNS).
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