Informational Influence of Social Network Sites on Consumer Engagement Intention: A Context of Civic Engagement
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Published:
Mar 21, 2019
Keywords:
Social Network Site (SNS), Informational Influence, Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Civic Engagement
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study investigates the informational influence of Thai political social network sites on civic behavioral intention. The dual routes of informational influence – content quality and source credibility – represent two independent variables. Perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of social network sites are two mediators between the independent variables and civic engagement intention. The target population was Thai Facebook users who own a smart phone, tablet, or personal computer, were engaged in Thailand’s mass political event in 2013, and have discussed political viewpoints or issues on their Facebook timelines, friends’ spaces, or groups since then. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed as the statistical analysis tool for 402 respondents. The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) show that all the measurement indicators have both convergent validity and discriminant validity. The results reveal that both content quality and source credibility influence users’ engagement intention. Nevertheless, PEOU and PU mediate the relationships between independent and dependent variables. While content quality is significantly related to PEOU, source credibility has a strong impact on PU.
Article Details
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Research Articles
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References
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Nissen, B. (2010). Political activism as part of a broader civic engagement: the case of SEIU Florida Healthcare Union. Labor Studies Journal, 35, 51-72.
Paek, H., Hove, T., Jung, Y., & Cole, R. T. (2013). Engagement across three social media platforms: an exploratory study of a cause-related PR campaign. Public Relations Review, 39, 526-533.
Petter, S., Straub, D., & Rai, A. (2007). Specifying formative constructs in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 31, 623-656.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123-162.
Roberts, P., & Henderson, R. (2000). Information technology acceptance in a sample of government employees: a test of the technology acceptance model. Interacting With Computers, 12, 427443.
Senbel, M., Ngo, V. D., & Blair, E. (2014). Social mobilization of climate change: university students conserving energy through multiple pathways for peer engagement. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 84-93.
Sussman, S. W., & Siegal, W. S. (2003). Informational influence in organizations: An integrated approach to knowledge adoption. Information Systems Research, 14(1), 47-65.
Teney, C., & Hanquinet, L. (2012). High political participation, high social capital? A relational analysis of youth social capital and political participation. Social Science Research, 41, 1213-1226.
Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: observation from Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 363-379.
Warren, A. M., Sulaiman, A., & Jaafar, N. I. (2014). Social media effects on fostering online civic engagement and building citizen trust in institutions. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 291301.
Williams, R. L., & Cothrel, J. (2000). Four smart ways to run online communities. Sloan Management Review, 41(4), 81-91.
Zhao, L., Lu, Y., Wang, B., Chau, P. Y. K., & Zhang, L. (2012). Cultivating the sense of belonging and motivating user participation in virtual communities: a social capital perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 32, 574-588.
Zheng, Y., Zhao, K., & Stylianou, A. (2013). The impacts of information quality and system quality on users’ continuance intention in information-exchange virtual communities: an empirical investigation. Decision Support Systems, 56, 513-52.
Al-Kandari, A., & Hasanen, M. (2012). The impact of the Internet on Political attitudes in Kuwait and Egypt. Telematics and Informatics, 29, 245-253.
Baek, Y. M. (2015). Political mobilization through social network sites: the mobilizing power of political messages received from SNS friends. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 12-19.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy; towards a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychology Review, 84(2), 191-215.
Bello, J., & Rolfe, M. (2014). Is influence mightier than selection? Forging agreement in political discussion networks during a campaign. Social Networks, 36, 134-146.
Berenson, M. L., & Levine, D. M. (1999). Basic Business Statistics: Concepts and Applications (7th ed.). New York: Pearson Education.
Blankenship, A.B., Breen, G.E., & Dutka, A. (1998). State of the art: Marketing research (2nd ed.). Illinois: NTC Business Books.
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communications, 13(1), www.danah.org/papers/JCMCIntro.pdf .
Cambell, D. T., & Fiske, D. W. (1959). Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitraitmultimethod matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 56, 81-105.
Carlisle, J., & Patton, R. Is social media changing how we understand political engagement? An analysis of Facebook and the 2008 presidential election. Political Research Quarterly, 66(4), 883-895.
Cegarra-Navarro, J., Garcia-Perez, A., & Moreno-Cegarra, J. L. (2014). Technology knowledge and governance: empowering citizen engagement and participation. Government Information Quarterly, 31(4), 660-668.
Chaiken, S., & Maheswaran, D. (1994). Heuristic processing can bias systematic processing: effects of source credibility, argument ambiguity, and task importance on attitude judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(3), 460-473.
Chang, C., Hung, S., Cheng, M., & Wu, C. (2015). Exploring the intention to continue using social networking sites: the case of Facebook. Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 95, 48-56.
Chen, C., & Hung, S. (2010). To give or to receive? Factors influencing members’ knowledge sharing and community promotion in professional virtual communities. Information & Management, 47, 226-236.
Chia, J. (2015). Tweeting protest in Thailand. Harvard Political Review. Retrieved January 11. 2015, from https://harvardpolitics.com/covers/tweeting-protest-thailand/.
Chiu, T. H., Chen, C., Joung, Y., & Chen, S. (2014). A study of blog networks to determine online social network properties from the tie strength perspective. Online Information Review, 38(3), 2014.
Conroy, M., Feezell, J. T., & Guerrero, M. (2012). Facebook and political engagement: a study of online political group membership and offline political engagement. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1535-1546.
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly. 13(3), 319-340.
Eagly, A. H. & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt, Brace & Janovich.
Eisend, M. (2006). Source credibility dimensions in marketing communication – a generalized solution. Journal of Empirical Generalisations in Marketing Science, 10(2), 1-33.
Elliot, S., Li, G., & Choi, C. (2013). Understanding service quality in a virtual travel community environment. Journal of Business Research, 66, 1153-1160.
Erentaite, R., Zukauskiene, R., Beyers, W., & Pilkauskaite-Valickeine, R. (2012). Is news media related to civic engagement? The effects of interest in and discussions about the news media on current and future civic engagement of adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 587-597.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1999). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, 39-50.
Hagel, J., & Armstrong, A. G. (1997). Net gain: expanding markets through virtual communities. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Hair, J., Black, W., Babin, J., Anderson, R., & Tatham, L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Ho, R. (2006). Handbook of univariate and multivariate data analysis and interpretation with SPSS. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
Hsu, M. H., Ju, T. L., Yen, C., & Chang, C. (2007). Knowledge sharing behavior in virtual communities: the relationship between trust, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65, 153-169.
Huckfeldt, R., Pietryka, M. T., & Reilly, J. (2014). Noise, bias, and expertise in political communication networks. Social Network, 36, 110-121.
Johnson, T. J., & Kaye, B. K. (2015). Reasons to believe: influence of credibility on motivations for using social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 50, 544-555.
Kim, M. J., Chung, N., Lee, C., & Preis, M. W. (2015). Dual-route of persuasive communications in mobile tourism shopping. Telematics and Informatics, 33, 293-308.
Lee, M. K. O., Cheung, C. M. K., & Chen, Z. (2005). Acceptance of internet-based learning medium: the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Information & Management, 42, 1095-1104.
Li, C. (2015). The effects of source credibility and argument quality on employees’ responses toward information system usage. Asia Pacific Management Review, 20, 56-64.
Malhotra, N. K. (2007). Marketing research (5th ed). New Jersey: Pearson Prentices Hall.
Mak, B., Schmitt, B. H., & Lyytinen, K. (1997). User participation in knowledge update of expert systems. Information Management, 32(2), 55-63.
Mano, R. S. (2014). Social media, social causes, giving behavior and money contributions. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 287-293.
Men, L. R., & Tsai, W. S. (2013). Beyond liking or following: understanding public engagement on social networking sites in China. Public Relations Review, 39, 13-22.
Moss, S.C., Prosser, H., & Costello, H., Simpson, N., Patel, P., Rowe, S., Turner, S., & Hatton, C. (1998). Reliability and validity of the PAS-ADD Checklist for detecting psychiatric disorders in adults with intellectual disability. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 42, 173-183.
Nam, T. (2012). Dual effects of the internet on political activism: reinforcing and mobilizing. Government Information Quarterly, 29, 91-97.
Nissen, B. (2010). Political activism as part of a broader civic engagement: the case of SEIU Florida Healthcare Union. Labor Studies Journal, 35, 51-72.
Paek, H., Hove, T., Jung, Y., & Cole, R. T. (2013). Engagement across three social media platforms: an exploratory study of a cause-related PR campaign. Public Relations Review, 39, 526-533.
Petter, S., Straub, D., & Rai, A. (2007). Specifying formative constructs in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 31, 623-656.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123-162.
Roberts, P., & Henderson, R. (2000). Information technology acceptance in a sample of government employees: a test of the technology acceptance model. Interacting With Computers, 12, 427443.
Senbel, M., Ngo, V. D., & Blair, E. (2014). Social mobilization of climate change: university students conserving energy through multiple pathways for peer engagement. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 84-93.
Sussman, S. W., & Siegal, W. S. (2003). Informational influence in organizations: An integrated approach to knowledge adoption. Information Systems Research, 14(1), 47-65.
Teney, C., & Hanquinet, L. (2012). High political participation, high social capital? A relational analysis of youth social capital and political participation. Social Science Research, 41, 1213-1226.
Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: observation from Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 363-379.
Warren, A. M., Sulaiman, A., & Jaafar, N. I. (2014). Social media effects on fostering online civic engagement and building citizen trust in institutions. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, 291301.
Williams, R. L., & Cothrel, J. (2000). Four smart ways to run online communities. Sloan Management Review, 41(4), 81-91.
Zhao, L., Lu, Y., Wang, B., Chau, P. Y. K., & Zhang, L. (2012). Cultivating the sense of belonging and motivating user participation in virtual communities: a social capital perspective. International Journal of Information Management, 32, 574-588.
Zheng, Y., Zhao, K., & Stylianou, A. (2013). The impacts of information quality and system quality on users’ continuance intention in information-exchange virtual communities: an empirical investigation. Decision Support Systems, 56, 513-52.