Liang Chen

• PhD of Communication Studies
• Professor (Associate) at Tsinghua University

Drawing upon the concepts of vicarious interaction and social support theory, we proposed that online users can derive benefits in recommended health behaviors from observing AI-human conversations. We examined how anthropomorphism influences behavioral intention through social presence and source credibility when delivering different types of soci...

Purpose Applying the parental mediation theory, this study investigates the main effects and interactive effects of three parental social media strategies, ie, active mediation, restrictive mediation, and non-intrusive inspection, on cyberbullying among teenagers. A matched child-parent survey was conducted with 642 secondary-school students aged 1...

In this study, we tested the core premise of the risk perception attitude framework—that perceived risk and perceived efficacy jointly affect intention—and identified consideration of future consequences (CFC) as a boundary condition of the premise in the context of mitigating climate change. Our two-wave survey ( N = 439) revealed that perceived i...

Our study analyzes the intention of Chinese health experts (health professionals and medical students) to correct health misinformation in social media. In an experimental 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design ( n = 415), we manipulated the experts’ perception of the threat that health misinformation poses for online users, their self-efficac...

Health misinformation could distort people's health perceptions and related behaviors. Combating such misinformation has become the common concern of the whole society. Based on the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and narrative theories, the current study recruited 415 health experts in China to participate in a 2 (threat: high vs. low) ×2 (...

Food safety risk (FSR) is becoming a vital issue for public health, and improving public awareness of FSR through social media is necessary. This study aims to explore specific mechanisms of FSR perception; it first categorizes 19 risk characteristics into two variables, dread and efficacy, and then examines how social media use affects perceived F...

We extended the influence of presumed media influence model by taking interpersonal communication into account. Our survey (N = 642) results revealed that individuals’ attention to COVID-19 information on social media and their engagement in interpersonal communication about the disease independently and jointly affected presumed others’ attention....

Public health emergencies pose considerable threats to global health and safety. The control of these emergencies requires the efforts of healthcare professionals and calls for the public to take protective actions. The present study not only puts fear back in the extended parallel process model (EPPM) but also considers another similarly productiv...

Physician–patient conflicts are detrimental to doctor–patient relationship and sustainable healthcare delivery. In China, the status quo of the doctor–patient relationship is in great tension. Based on the uncertainty reduction theory (URT), the present study examined the relationship between patient-centered communication (PCC) and medical conflic...

Although telecommunications fraud has become a threat to the physical and mental health of children and adolescents, only limited studies have examined behavioral responses to telecommunications fraud of parents who are the primary agents of children’s socialization. Based on the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) model, this study aims t...

Purpose Drawing on the third-person effect (TPE) theory and the theory of planned behavior (TPB) as a theoretical framework, the current study aims to explore the cognitive mechanisms behind how third-person perception (TPP) of misinformation about public health emergencies affects intention to engage in corrective actions via attitude, subjective...

Background: Cancer ranks among the most serious public health challenges worldwide. In China—the world’s most populous country—about one-quarter of the population consists of people with cancer. Social media has become an important platform that the Chinese public uses to express opinions. Objective: We investigated cancer-related discussions on t...

Background Women are currently facing a tremendous threat of cervical cancer globally. Social media health campaigns have the potential to shape public health behaviors. This study explores the effects of cervical-cancer-related fear appeal messages with social cues on social media using the extended parallel processing model (EPPM). Method We use...

This study investigated social support exchanges on social media among male homosexuals who are HIV-positive (MHHP) in China and explored how online self-disclosure relates to such activity. Analyses were based on 9,459 Weibo messages posted by 188 targeted users. Results showed that the informational and emotional support messages were prevalent i...

Following the COVID-19’s outbreak in China, wildlife-related issues such as wildlife management and conservation made headlines around the world due to the potential zoonotic nature of the newly discovered coronavirus. In our study, we examined the dynamic interaction of the news agenda and public agenda concerning wildlife-related issues on social...

This study explored strategies to increase Chinese smokers’ cessation intentions, using the extended parallel processing model, or EPPM. A 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment was designed to examine the effects of self-oriented threat (present vs. absent), other-oriented threat (present vs. absent), and efficacy (present vs. absent) on smoking cessation...

Background Cancer ranks among the most serious public health challenges worldwide. In China—the world’s most populous country—about one-quarter of the population consists of people with cancer. Social media has become an important platform that the Chinese public uses to express opinions. Objective We investigated cancer-related discussions on the...

Background: In recent years, influenza has become a severe disease and pandemic threat. There are more than 290,000 to 650,000 influenza-related deaths globally each year. Influenza vaccination is the best way to prevent influenza and potentially serious influenza-related complications. The current study aims to examine the effectiveness of fear-in...

This study extends the theory of planned behavior by taking communication factors into account to examine the determinants of pro-environmental behavioral intention in haze mitigation. Unlike other theory of planned behavior (TPB) extension studies, we shift the focus of inquiry from examining the mediating role of TPB variables to investigating th...

Purpose Social media use carries both opportunities and risks for children and adolescents. In order to reduce the negative impacts of social media on youth, the authors focus our efforts on parental mediation of social media. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to enhance the conceptualization and operationalization of parental mediation of...

By acknowledging that people are cognitive misers, this study proposes that people may rely on the illusion of knowing as cognitive devices for attitudinal or behavioral change, in addition to factual knowledge. Accordingly, this study shifted the focus of inquiry from assessing media effects in increasing factual knowledge to assessing how media c...

This study predicts Japanese public’s risk perception and anxiety regarding nuclear radiation. These affective reactions are assumed to have direct relationships with subjective knowledge and trust in government, which can be influenced by news media coverage in the post-Fukushima era. Data were collected from a sample of 992 Japanese adults. Resul...

Background: With the rise of mobile technology, an increasing number of people use mobile-based social media to access health information. Many scholars have explored the nature of health information on social media; however, the impact of such information on people was understudied. Objective: This study aimed to examine the nature and impact o...

To elucidate the Chinese public's awareness of cancer and its possible prevention, we investigated cancer-prevention messages presented on Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese social media platform, with reference to the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and attribution theory. With a sample of 16,654 cancer-related messages, we analyzed whether the...

UNSTRUCTURED This study aims to examine the nature and impact of health information in mobile social media. Specifically, we investigate how the levels of threat and efficacy of breast cancer prevention information affect individuals’ engagement with the information, such as readings and likes. Breast cancer prevention articles posted on a Chinese...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare haze-related content between traditional and social media in China by applying agenda-setting theory and the extended parallel process model (EPPM). Specifically, this paper examines the correlation between the two forms of media in terms of the ranking of the attributes of haze (i.e. the...

Although critical in practice, as well as prevalent, limited effort has gone into understanding the driving factors behind the diffusion of cancer information on social media. This study seeks to comprehensively examine both the content and sender factors that determine cancer information diffusion. Specifically, a multidimensional measure is propo...

Existing research has highlighted the concept of parental third-person effect, where parents' perceive greater negative media effects on other children versus their own, and act upon those beliefs. Despite this, much of the research has remained rooted in the traditional understanding of the third-person perception, examining how third-person effec...

Background: Over the last two decades, the incidence and mortality rates of gynecologic cancers have increased at a constant rate in China. Gynecologic cancers have become one of the most serious threats to women's health in China. With the widespread use of social media, an increasing number of individuals have employed social media to produce, s...

Background: Although a number of studies have examined social support needs among women with breast cancer, little attention has been paid to the burden and needs for social support among their family caregivers, who often report mental and physical problems associated with caregiving. Objective: This study aims to examine the role of social med...

Background: Due to a double stigma against HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, gay men living with HIV/AIDS (GMLHA) have used social media to exchange social support. The current study aims to examine the influence of perceived threat on seeking social support on social media among Chinese GMLHA. Methods: First, Weibo posts from 133 GMLHA were content a...

The current study aims to examine the influence of fear appeal messages across different media outlets on Chinese women’s intention of breast self-examination using the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM). A two-by-two-by-two factorial experiment is designed to examine the effect of threat and efficacy level of stimulus on different media out...

The present research aims to comprehensively and systematically examine the effectiveness of parental mediation. Specifically, this study examined the magnitude of effects of three main parental mediation strategies on reducing the amount of media use and incidence of media-related risks. A meta-analysis was conducted using 54 empirical studies inv...

Nuclear energy is widely regarded as a controversial technology that polarizes public opinion. Guided by the scientific literacy and cognitive miser models, this study systematically identified and examined the magnitude of the effects of 19 predictors on public perceptions of benefits, risks, and acceptance of nuclear energy. We meta-analysed 34 e...

Cyberbullying has become a critical social issue, which severely threatens children and adolescents’ physical and psychological health. The current research systematically examined the predictors of cyberbullying from the social cognitive and media effects approach. Specifically, this study identified 16 predictors of cyberbullying perpetration and...

This study investigated the driving mechanism of building interaction ties among the people living with HIV/AIDS in one of the largest virtual HIV communities in China using social network analysis. Specifically, we explained the probability of forming interaction ties with homophily and popularity characteristics. The exponential random graph mode...

A network perspective was adopted in this study to identify influential users in an online HIV community in China. Specifically, the indegree centrality, outdegree centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and clustering coefficient of individuals were evaluated to measure the user influence in such a community. Moreover, this stu...

This study aims to investigate individuals’ risk perceptions of food safety by extending the heuristic and systematic information processing model (HSM) to the social media context. Specifically, we examine the predictors of risk perceptions of food safety, including social media attention, social media credibility, as well as systematic and heuris...

Many mainland Chinese students have flocked to universities or colleges in Singapore. Inevitably, these students encounter difficulties adapting to their new lives. An online social support group called Living in Singapore Group (LSg), a subforum of the most popular forum on Chinese international study created in April 2000, provides various types...

In recent years, social media has become an important source of social support. People living with HIV/AIDS in China created an online support group (the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group) on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, in January 2011. The current study examined how social support transmitted in this social media community. First, messages over five...

The Internet has recently become an important source of social support. People living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in China created an online support group (the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group) on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, in January 2011. To investigate social support in the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group, the content of all 7215 messages posted in this Weibo...

In China, the transformation from a planned economy to a market-driven economic system has led to the emergence of Internet-made information, content, products and services as they are increasingly available and affordable to most Chinese consumers who now enjoy a greater disposable income. All of this facilitates China’s creative industry, which i...