Determinants of users’ information dissemination behavior on social networking sites

Abstract

Purpose As a new communication paradigm, social networking sites (SNS) have boosted information diffusion and viral marketing. Prior researchers have identified various factors affecting information dissemination on SNS. However, they often focus on limited factors and there is a lack of an integrated theoretical framework that explains aspects of relevant factors. Besides, the research on the impacts of relationships on individual retweeting behavior is still controversial. The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to systematically investigate the determinants of individual dissemination behavior on SNS based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Moreover, the authors also examine the relative importance of those relevant factors. Design/methodology/approach The authors randomly selected 1,250 members of Twitter and crawled posts published by each member since he/she created the Twitter account using Twitter API. The authors processed the data to create panel data and tested hypotheses with the panel logit model. Findings Factors both on the central route and on the peripheral route of ELM have positive impacts on individual dissemination behavior. Among them, information receiver-related factor and relationships-related factors are the most influential. Contrastingly, source-related factors are the least influential. Furthermore, the authors find that social tie strength mediates almost 50 percent of the effect of value homophily on individual dissemination behavior. Originality/value The authors are the first to directly apply ELM to examine individual dissemination behavior on SNS. By integrating factors into the two information processing routes, They incorporate relevant factors into the model and systematically analyze their impacts on individual retweeting behavior on SNS. The research offers at least one explanation for the contradictory findings about the effect of homophily on individual sharing behavior in previous research. The authors propose new variables that gauge topical relevance and interpersonal value homophily on SNS.

Sharing health risk messages on social media: Effects of fear appeal message and image promotion

“…However, when they intend to share because of the efficacy message, sharing intention is indeed associated with the sharer's intention to follow the message and is moderated by information processing. This result is consistent with Shi et al (2018)'s findings that suggest factors both on the central and peripheral processing route can trigger retweeting decisions. Identifying the influence of information processing on intention to share will help health communicators target a relevant and caring audience on a specific health issue, therefore, future studies should continue to examine the influence of information processing on sharing.…”

Emotion Dynamics of Public Opinions on Twitter

“…Specifically, they look into the social conversational features that lead to transition of emotion states within a discussion chain. [Shi et al 2018] propose a theoretical framework to systematically investigate the determinants of individual dissemination behavior in a Twitter network. They found information related to topical preference and homophily value are most influential on individual dissemination behavior.…”

Consumer satisfaction–based social commerce service quality management

“…Although previous literature used ELM as a theoretical lens to explore consumers’ attitudes in service use, few studies investigated the service quality elements in an s-commerce context. The ELM theoretical framework provides flexibility in exploring and incorporating additional variables to examine information dissemination behavior in information and service systems (Shi et al, 2018). Hence, this study incorporates comprehensive service quality elements that affect consumers’ attitude changes in service usage from an ELM perspective with a quantitative approach for efficiency management.…”