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September 2007 - February 2016
Publications
Publications (85)
The growth of wearable technology has enabled the collection of even more personalized information on individuals. New health-related devices marketed to consumers collect health information that might not fall under the traditional category of Protected Health Information, and thus, HIPAA protections do not fully apply. Meaning, commercial wearabl...
Within the context of virtual human influencers, the current study adds to the growing literature examining the impact of a social media–based mix of reality and virtuality on perceived anthropomorphism and authenticity, in addition to the subsequent effects on advertising perceptions and implicit behavior. Through an experimental design with 242 p...
The number of social media influencers has been increasing, and their presence as brand endorsers has become familiar to consumers. However, among these social media influencers are computer-generated virtual humans with millions of followers. Known as “virtual influencers,” these virtual humans exist purely in the digital world where consumers can...
Based on the computers are social actors theory and social presence theory, the current study investigates the psychological mechanism by which the use of friendly language by a personalized product recommendation chatbot influences product attitudes. Results indicated that the effect of the friendly chatbot on more positive product attitudes was s...
Purpose
AI-driven product recommendation chatbots have markedly reduced operating costs and increased sales for marketers. However, previous literature has paid little attention to the effects of the personality of e-commerce chatbots. This study aimed to examine the ways that the interplay between the chatbot's and the user's personality can incre...
Despite the ubiquity of social media influencers (SMIs) and the clear value they hold for marketers, little is understood about the sociopsychological motives that drive consumers to follow them. The current research identified unique consumer motivations for following SMIs on Instagram and examined its association with important consumer behaviour...
Purpose
Public perceptions of the authenticity of social media influencers (SMIs) are a key driver of the latter's persuasiveness as brand endorsers. Despite its importance, no measurement scale currently exists for perceived authenticity of social media influencers (PASMIs). This prevents practitioners from effectively assessing consumers' percept...
Mounting research shows negative psychological effects for social media and recognizes fear of missing out (FoMO) as a key driver of social media use. This article focuses on social media influencers (SMIs) and investigates potentially positive forms of usage on psychological well-being (i.e., happiness), including how FoMO impacts consumer respons...
Attitude towards advertisements has been considered a standard measure of advertisement effectiveness as it influences how likely a consumer is to consider a brand, commit to a brand, and purchase a brand's product or service. Theoretical models such as the elaboration likelihood model have been proposed to illuminate attitude formation, suggesting...
It is important to understand users’ relationship with technology, particularly considering the large data breaches and privacy concerns that have been plaguing users in the recent years. The CASA paradigm examines individuals’ social responses to technology which are triggered by cues in the interface. Emerging technology like voice assistants or...
In an examination of influencer success, the current research draws from brand personality literature and identified social media influencers (SMIs) as human brands. Specifically, this research examines how an influencer’s perceived sincerity trait and consumer envy influences consumers’ evaluations toward the influencer as well as brand endorsemen...
In-game advertising (IGA) is a unique opportunity for advertisers to creatively interact with highly engaged consumers. With the tremendous growth of the gaming industry, research aimed to elaborate on the nuances of gameplay on brand outcomes provide valuable insight into effective IGA strategies. The current research contends that inducing player...
As consumers increasingly integrate quantified self (QS) health and fitness tracking devices into their lives, the data they amass not only offer to help users live healthier lives, but also present opportunities for advertisers to target them with personalized messages based on their health-related behaviors. This survey-based study, utilizing a t...
Fueled by advancing technologies that continually expand Web data tracking and aggregating capabilities, online advertising has become increasingly personalized and pervasive. This trend is largely responsible for a growing number of consumers (over 615 million worldwide) choosing to install ad-blocking software on their computers and mobile device...
As today’s e-commerce environment becomes increasingly competitive, there is an inevitable trend for marketers to employ strategies of providing better online shopping experiences to consumers. One of the strategies is to embed live customer service platforms into e-commerce websites. Live help service is distinguished from other online consumer su...
Wearable fitness technologies (WFT) track physical activity, such as steps taken, calories burned and workout intensity, through a device that is typically worn at all times. While the market for WFT devices continues to grow, current theoretical understanding of adoption is lacking. Thus, in an attempt to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TA...
ecent studies suggest the expanding collection and use of big data by advertisers to target messages to consumers based on their location, demographics and online behaviors is escalating information privacy concerns and negatively impacting campaign outcomes. For communication scholars and practitioners, this recent attitudinal shift indicates a cr...
Contextual advertising is growing in digital marketing communication. Previous research on traditional media has shown that the surrounding context affects advertising effectiveness. Similarly, the context in a game may influence a player’s processing of brands advertised in that game. To examine the effects of contextual advertising in games, the...
A second screen is defined as a second electronic device used by audience members while watching a television program. While second screen use during sport programming is on the rise, current understanding of second screen use and engagement is lacking. Thus, in an attempt to extend Niche Theory, the current study employs a structural equation mode...
As long as scholars have studied media, issues of access have been of great concern. Recent advancements in digital technology have framed disparities in access within the digital divide research and knowledge gap frameworks. While early digital divide research looked at access, more recent research has focused on how media are used differently acr...
This study seeks to extend the emerging body and scope of research on consumers' attitudinal and behavioral responses to online consumer reviews by examining the role of message content characteristics. From this perceptive, this research broadens the understanding and importance of message characteristics to the persuasiveness of online consumer r...
Video games are now a venue for branded messages. Hence, game players may be exposed to brands in and outside game environments. This study focuses on the latter, that is, external brand placement. Drawing upon the literature on involvement and on the limited capacity model (LCM) of information processing, this study explores the mechanism by which...
The Planned Risk Information Seeking Model (PRISM) was employed to explain people's information-seeking intentions in the context of hydraulic fracturing. Stages from the Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) were included in the analysis as a moderator. The PRISM fit the data well. Moreover, results showed overall model differences among people...
Sports often go beyond simple games to something that individuals identify and relate to throughout their lives. Furthermore, passive and active sports consumption (i.e., video games) allows individuals to further create a sense of fanship and identification with their favorite teams. The following study manipulates player saliency to team, salienc...
It has long been understood that consumers are motivated to media differently. However, given the lack of comparative model analysis, this assumption is without empirical validation, and thus, the orientation of segmentation from a media management perspective is without motivational grounds. Thus, evolving the literature on media consumption, the...
Consumers today have more control over media consumption than ever before, with interactive media helping to transform the industry away from a traditional publisher-centric focus towards a new dynamic user-centric model. Examples of prominent Web 2.0 media environments that support the creation, distribution and consumption of user-generated conte...
This study approached cultivation from a feminist, ecological perspective that recognized television at the macrosystem level as a purveyor of cultural norms embedded in a culture of violence towards women. The results suggest that general television consumption is related significantly to first- and second-order rape myth beliefs among men and wom...
Over the past 10 years, online shopping among U.S. consumers has been on the rise. While researchers have begun to understand how and why consumers shop online, much information, including trait- and state-based antecedents to purchasing, is still needed. Thus, this study proposed and tested the effect of hedonic shopping motivation on consumer onl...
The current study explores the impact of in-store video advertising, which has been developing quickly but has been little researched. The study consists of three field studies that examine the effectiveness of this medium. Study 1 utilized a head- mounted mini-camera to identify the extent to which in-store video advertising appeared in consumers’...
Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising has been asserted to impact the patient-provider relationship, but most research has focused on physicians; this study was an initial examination of the perspective of advanced practice nurses (APNs). Results indicated that APNs were more likely to claim a harmful, rather than helpful, effect on the...
Immediately following the debut of Nintendo in 1995, researchers questioned what effects games like Super Mario Brothers had on those who played them (→ Computer Games and Child Development). Early → video games consisted primarily of objects or unidentifiable characters such as Pac‐Man . Now, through several technological advancements, game play i...
It is argued here that the potential connections video game advertisers can build with consumers makes this new medium a strong force in the digital media world. A meaning-based model is introduced to explain the fluctuation of meaning over time, which is caused by the individual and social interpretation and integration of signs and symbols. The h...
The advent of Web 2.0 technologies has enabled the efficient creation and distribution of user-generated content (UGC), resulting in vast changes in the online media landscape. For instance, the proliferation of UGC has made a strong impact on consumers, media suppliers, and marketing professionals while necessitating research in order to understan...
El Suspenso de los Espectadores de Deportes: El Afecto y la Inseguridad en el Entretenimiento de los Deportes Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick1, Prabu David1, Matt Eastin2,Ronald Tamborini3, & Dara Greenwood4ResumenPara explicar la atracci??n a los deportes en los medios, la teor??a de suspenso es extendida para predecir el suspenso durante la exposici??...
The current study examines the impact of racial representation on character identification and postgame play hostility. Examining data from Black and White participants, results suggest that cueing racial attributes influences identification and elicits stereotyping and hostile outcomes. Specifically, White players displayed more hostile thoughts w...
This article situates the general aggression model within the social structure of gameplay. Testing a mediated model of play, group gaming is examined in order to demonstrate how certain gameplay situations can promote hostile expectation bias or the tendency to predict how others would think, feel and act aggressively during social conflict. Demon...
The advent of Web 2.0 technologies has enabled the efficient creation and distribution of user-generated content (UGC), resulting in vast changes in the online media landscape. For instance, the proliferation of UGC has made a strong impact on consumers, media suppliers, and marketing professionals while necessitating research in order to understan...
As the Internet expands to include individual applications such as banking, shopping, information gathering, and so on, brand managers and marketers have turned to the Internet to utilize it as an effective branding vehicle. Consequently, understanding how the Internet could be used effectively in e-branding becomes imperative. One barrier to a suc...
As the Internet expands to include individual applications such as banking, shopping, information gathering, and so on, brand managers and marketers have turned to the Internet to utilize it as an effective branding vehicle. Consequently, understanding how the Internet could be used effectively in e-branding becomes imperative. One barrier to a suc...
Most research on violent video game play suggests a positive relationship with aggression-related outcomes. Expanding this research, the current study examines the impact group size, game motivation, in-game behavior, and verbal aggression have on postgame play hostility. Consistent with previous research, group size and verbal aggression both disp...
It is generally understood that employees in organizations misuse technology in specific ways--by sending and receiving personal email, frequenting chat rooms, and using the Web for non-work-related reasons. However, little research has focused on what motivates this type of use. The present study extends existing communication technology and organ...
Investigating male game players, this study explores how game interface (virtual reality [VR] and standard console), game content (fighting, shooting, and driving), and game context (human and computer competition) influence levels of presence and hostile expectation bias—the expectation others will think, feel, speak, and act aggressively during s...
Although online health information-seeking has been widely studied and findings suggest a variety of motivations behind an individual's health information-seeking behavior, little is known about how this information influences health utilization behaviors. Thus, the current study investigates the relationship between online health information seeki...
Telephone surveys of single and married mothers of teenagers in public schools, mothers of teenagers in religious schools, and mothers of homeschooled teenagers examined the influence that parenting styles and level of Internet access in the home have on parenting mediation of online content and time spent on the Internet (N =520). Specifically, ho...
Adding depth and breadth to the general aggression model, this paper presents three experiments that test the relationships among user and opponent gender representation, opponent type, presence, and aggressive thoughts from violent video game play. Studies 1 and 2 suggest that females experience greater presence and more aggressive thoughts from g...
During a typical online search, users are faced with literally thousands of information sources as well as unsolicited information such as advertising. Judging the legitimacy of information presented and focusing on needed content can be difficult for children. Thus, the current study examines how children evaluate information online. Manipulating...
Styles brings together leading authorities from both academia and the marketing industry to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the rapidly changing world of marketing communication in the 21st Century. Containing a broad tableau of perspectives, the book reflects the insights and experiences of academics and practitioners from both si...
While there is mounting evidence that people use the Internet to expand their social networks and receive social support, little is known about how they do so and with what effect the Internet has on overall levels of social support. Based on a survey of 213 online support seekers, this study explored social cognitive mechanism such as self-efficac...
Researchers from a wide array of disciplines have conducted engaging and informative studies in recent years concerning the use of the Internet for cancer-related services. Typically, these publications provide key data related to utilization statistics, how online information can be used, what users want or expect from the Internet, outcomes or im...
Considerable debate exists over the accuracy of self‐reported media use measures. This report compares two methodologies for studying Internet and traditional media use: online surveys and diaries. A study was conducted with undergraduate students from two universities. Participants were asked to (a) complete a survey and (b) keep a diary over the...
In order to provide Internet researchers with a better understanding of how and why individuals adopt some online behaviors and not others, this study targets teenage Internet users to examine the relationships among social influence and self-regulatory models as mechanisms to the behavior of Internet use. Information, entertainment, and social onl...
As we enter the 21st century many firms implementing Customer Relationship Management strategies have turned to the Internet as a primary means for collecting consumer data. Consequently, understanding when consumers are willing to comply with data requests has become increasingly important to e-marketers. However, current research has failed to ex...
Recent research explaining Internet usage has both extended and challenged the uses and gratifications approach to understanding media attendance by discovering "new" gratifications and introducing powerful new explanatory variables. The present research integrates these developments into a theory of media attendance within the framework of Bandura...
A violent virtual-reality (VR) video game's short-term impact on telepresence and hostility was studied. Five weeks before a lab experiment, participants completed a questionnaire measuring prior violent video game use and trait aggression. Participants were randomly assigned to play a VR violent video game, play a standard violent video game, obse...
Internet addiction has been identified as a pathological behavior, but its symptoms may be found in normal populations, placing it within the scope of conventional theories of media attendance. The present study drew upon fresh conceptualizations of gratifications specific to the Internet to uncover seven gratification factors: Virtual Community, I...
This study examined the distribution and individual characteristics of body types on prime-time television.
Five episodes of each of the 10 top-rated prime-time fictional programs on 6 broadcast networks during the 1999-2000 season were quantitatively analyzed.
Of 1018 major television characters, 14% of females and 24% of males were overweight or...
Recent reports of problematic forms of Internet usage bring new currency to the problem of "media addictions" that have long been the subject of both popular and scholarly writings. The research in this article reconsidered such behavior as deficient self-regulation within the framework of A. Bandura's (1991) theory of self-regulation. In this fram...
Preliminary evidence suggests that forms of unregulated consumer behavior, including impulsive, compulsive, and addictive buying, are present on the Internet. This study reconceptualized unregulated buying behaviors as the result of deficient self-regulation using mechanisms proposed in social cognitive theory. As a result, deficient self-regulatio...
The Internet has the ability to function as a business medium. Over one-third of US residents use the Internet, and nearly 40% use it as a medium of business (electronic-commerce). As this percentage continues to grow, so does the need to understand why and how users choose to adopt. This information will afford researchers and e-commerce providers...
The present study has been designed in an attempt to replicate and expand the parameters of D. Zillmann and J. Bryant's selective exposure approach to use of the Internet. In applying this theoretical framework to the Internet, it was expected that persons experiencing unpleasant levels of excitation would arrange their Internet environment in orde...
Several studies have applied uses and gratifications to explain Internet usage. Like Bandura’s social-cognitive theory, the uses and gratifications framework explains media use in terms of expected positive outcomes, or gratifications. However, previous uses and gratifications research accounted for little variance in Internet behavior, although th...
Millions of Americans use the Internet as a resource for information, with a large proportion seeking health information. Research indicates that medical professionals do not author an extensive amount of health information available on the Internet. This creates a possibility for false information, thereby potentially leading ill people away from...
A telemedicine network has operated in the Upper Peninsula (UP) region of Michigan since 1995. The Marquette General Health System (MGHS) is the tertiary hospital that provides telemedicine services to 14 surrounding rural health facilities and another seven clinics. In order to assess the state of telemedicine in the UP region and its potential fo...
Internet self-efficacy, or the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute courses of Internet actions required to produce given attainments, is a potentially important factor in efforts to close the digital divide that separates experienced Internet users from novices. Prior research on Internet self-efficacy has been limited to examining...
Prior research on instructional media effects suggested that an audiographic approach to World Wide Web based courses would optimize educational effectiveness along with cost effectiveness, although with a possible loss of teacher immediacy that could adversely affect student attitudes. An introductory telecommunication course was converted to an a...
Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nebraska--Lincoln, 1997. Includes bibliographical references.
This study examines brand customization in advergames and its effects on brand memory, game enjoyment, and attitudes gamers form toward the embedded brand. This study also tests for interactions between individuals’ locus of control and brand customization on the measured variables. A 2(customization) x 2(locus of control) experimental design was u...
Social games have become popular on social media such as Facebook and MySpace. While there are plenty of market reports regarding social media, the related academic research is limited. This study applies Homans’ cost‐reward structure from Social Exchange Theory to investigate how social games change people’s social behavior on social media. The co...
