Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Wes Wise / Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) contamination has been a long-existing concern for those engaged in cattle production, often causing negative public health and economic consequences. The existence of pre-harvest practices that reduce E. coli contamination creates the opportunity to support human health by focusing on modifying behaviors in cattle production through educational communication. It is vital to consider how the communication can be modified to persuade the audience. This study examined the effects of different sources, such as a veterinarian or a cattle producer, presenting the educational message in a training video. An experimental design was used to examine how the information source used in a video relates to the source’s credibility, as well as testing concepts related to the theory of planned behavior. A link to a video and an online questionnaire were distributed to cattle producers through the weekly news e-mail distributed by several beef industry organizations. The data analysis of 106 complete questionnaires found that no matter how a presenter was described in a training video there was no difference in the perceived credibility of the presenter. Also, no matter how the source was identified there was no difference in the variables related to the theory of planned behavior and possible behavior adoption. In addition to these results, this study found that no matter how the source was labeled, higher perceived credibility correlated with more positive attitudes, perceived norms, perceived behavior control and reported intention to adopt the suggested behaviors. This pattern provides evidence for credibility’s relationship with possible behavior adoption, indicating that credibility of the source is an important consideration when message designers are constructing training videos.

The HPV vaccine represents an important step in the primary prevention of cervical cancer, yet uptake rates for the vaccine remain below what is needed to establish "herd immunity" from the virus. While many studies have examined both psychosocial and communication factors affecting HPV vaccination decisions, this study adopts a unique approach to understand the communication environment within which this health decision happens, such as the many and sometimes conflicting messages about vaccine efficacy and safety guiding young women's decisions. Using the message convergence framework, this project identifies how further study of converging and diverging messages in the communication environment in which young women make their vaccination decision can extend research in considering optimal communication strategies to enhance demand for HPV vaccination. In Study 1, 39 unvaccinated women participated in qualitative interviews and were asked questions in order to understand the important elements of the HPV vaccination communication environment that affected their decision (i.e., common sources and content of messages, how they discussed these messages "interacting" and influencing their decision). Study 2 builds on the findings of Study 1 by employing an experimental design to test different message convergence conditions on women's intent to vaccinate (e.g., what happens when a doctor and a family member give conflicting information and recommendations about HPV vaccination?). Three hundred and nine unvaccinated women were randomly assigned to one of nine experimental message conditions and then assessed on behavioral intentions. Support was found for the message convergence framework. This project represents the first formal testing of the message convergence framework and the first time it has been used in the health context. The findings from these studies are discussed in terms of the implications for future cervical cancer research and prevention campaigns, as well as the utility of the message convergence framework for other health communication research topics in which researchers are seeking to better understand and consider the communication environment when designing health behavior interventions.

Title: Robot or Human? The Marketing Phenomenon of Virtual Influencers: A Case Study About Virtual Influencers’ Parasocial Interaction on Instagram. Purpose: As it is already established that human influencers can create parasocial interaction with their followers, the purpose of this study is to explore parasocial interaction with virtual influencers through their perceived source credibility. Research Questions: How are consumers responding to interaction with virtual influencers on Instagram? What factors in source credibility facilitate parasocial interaction between the actors?  Method: This case study has conducted semi-structured interviews with Swedish consumers along with information collected on two virtual fashion influencers: LilMiquela and Noonoouri. Before the interviews, a pretest in interacting with the virtual influencers on Instagram was conducted. Afterwards, the transcripts have been analyzed in accordance to the presented operationalization and led to subcategories found to be relevant for the facilitation of PSI.  Conclusion: It was shown that consumers responded better to interaction with humanlike virtual influencers regarding their appearance and lifelike activities. Although, consumers also perceive their appearance and behavior as unpleasant and unrealistic when being too close to reality. Their perceived humanness affected the level of attractiveness, similarity and trustworthiness. As such, these are the factors that affect the degree of source credibility and thus facilitate PSI with them. Virtual influencers stand in front of a problem with both authenticity and transparency, as they are created and owned by companies. This has implications for their overall attractiveness, as authenticity is shown to be important for consumers on Instagram. However, lack of authenticity and transparency mostly implicates the trustworthiness of them, as the communicator is unknown. Virtual influencers are perceived to have a superior ability of being available online and personal in interaction. Therefore, it is shown to have a positive effect on the facilitation of PSI as it increases their attractiveness. However, it also indicates that they are controlled by a company which has a negative effect as it decreases the trustworthiness of them. To conclude, consumers’ virtual robot acceptance is proposed to be a precursor for developing PSI with virtual influencers in conjunction with the three factors in source credibility: trustworthiness, attractiveness and similarity.

Problem/Purpose: Internet celebrities have shown huge commercial value by operating their E-commerce in the Chinese market. This article aims to research How Chinese internet celebrity influences consumers’ attitude to purchase on E-commerce. Method: The Primary data is collected by semi-structured interviews with consumers who followed the internet celebrity and bought products from her online stores. Meanwhile, word frequency analysis of posted context and comments on the internet is proceeded to conduct secondary data to support findings. Findings: Our findings show that the traditional source attractiveness, expertise, and involvement of celebrity are important to impact on the consumers’ attitude and drive to purchase behavior. However, source trustworthiness is not essential, and the perceived trustworthiness is limited in specialized fields (e.g. fashion) and is hard extend to other areas (e.g. cosmetics). Furthermore, perceived authenticity will reinforce trustworthiness and intimacy, and perceived interconnectedness will result in frequent and regular buying habit. Implementation: This research can serve to internet celebrities who are running or intend to start their E-commerce in China. Moreover, it is hoped this study of internet celebrity Ecommerce in China can serve for future comparative studies of internet celebrity globally.

This study establishes a link between research done in the field of public relations on source credibility, communicator gender, message strength, and source affiliation. Research has established that source credibility is one of the most important factors influencing the acceptance of a message. For this study, source credibility was measured using three main dimensions: expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness. Similar to many studies focusing on source credibility, this study focuses on the various attributes of the communicator or message source. This study uses an experimental procedure to investigate the relationships between source credibility, message strength, source affiliation, and communicator gender. Based on previous findings, this study hypothesized that higher message strength will be perceived as more credible than lower message strength, sources labeled 'public relations practitioner' will be perceived as less credible than sources that are not, and male communicators will be seen as more credible than females. Findings indicate, however, that message strength has no significant influence on source credibility. Nor does it significantly influence the opinions of the participants on the communicator's gender and their affiliation with the term public relations practitioner, except in the case of their levels of expertise. The results however did indicate that there are statistically significant interactions between the trustworthiness and attractiveness of the source and the attitudes of the participants toward the public relations message, the corporation and their subsequent behavioral intentions.

This study was designed to examine the impact of different levels of reporting frequency (periodic versus continuous) of financial information, both with and without assurance, on individual investors in a stock price prediction task. Reporting was manipulated at two levels: periodic and continuous. Assurance was manipulated at two levels: no assurance and with assurance. In addition, a base level condition was included. The experiment was designed to collect data regarding both the investors' performance and their perceptions. Period one of the experiment consisted of the base level condition for all participants. Independent variable manipulation was implemented in period two, using a 2 X 2 design. The results indicated that the main effect of Assurance was significant with regard to the number of times participants correctly predicted the change in stock price direction (PREDICTION). The results of the analysis also indicated that the interaction of Reporting and Assurance was significant with regard to the number of times participants made stock price change predictions in accordance with an expectation of mean-reverting stock prices (TRACKING). Post hoc analysis on TRACKING indicated that increased levels of reporting frequency and assurance could adversely affect the quality of individual investors' investment decisions. The results indicated that increased levels of reporting and assurance were not significant with regard to individual investors' perception of source credibility, information relevance or information value. Post hoc analysis provided some evidence that increased levels of reporting frequency may lead to an increase in the perceived trustworthiness of the source of the information and investors may be willing to pay more for the stock of a company that provided increased levels of reporting of fundamental financial data.

Goal Orientation (GO), the behavioral tendencies for the goals individuals will adopt in a variety of situations has been thoroughly utilized to understand feedback seeking behaviors. While previous and ongoing research has answered many questions within this area, there remains theoretical inconsistencies involving these relationships. For example, the relationship between prove performance goal orientation (PPGO) and feedback seeking has largely been inconsistent. There are also relationships yet to be tested such as how the GO dimensions are related to different sources of feedback within the workplace. Because of this, the purpose of the present research was to examine the relationships between the three GO dimensions and feedback seeking to different sources (supervisor and colleague). Additionally, the impact of impression management on the relationship between PPGO and feedback seeking behaviors, and the impact of feedback source credibility on the relationship between learning goal orientation (LGO) and feedback seeking behaviors was examined. Based on a sample of 291 working adults in southern California, results indicated that LGO and PPGO positively predicted feedback seeking to a supervisor and a colleague. Additionally, APGO (avoidance performance goal orientation) was unrelated to either feedback source in regression models containing LGO and PPGO, but bivariate correlations revealed a small positive relationship between APGO and a colleague. Impression management did not practically moderate the relationship between PPGO and feedback seeking to a supervisor and feedback source credibility did not impact the relationship between LGO and feedback seeking to a supervisor. This means that individuals with a LGO and PPGO have tendencies for seeking feedback from not just a supervisor, but also colleagues within the workplace, while APGO individuals may lean towards a colleague for feedback. For the two interactions, Impression management may not be an adequate measure for finding the inconsistencies between PPGO and feedback seeking. Finally, feedback source credibility does not seem a factor for LGO individuals in the feedback seeking process. Practical and theoretical implications are provided along with the limitations and suggestions for future research.

The global rise of anti-vaccination movements has led to serious consequences for the public health such as the recent measles outbreak in the United States. The increased promotion of misleading information on vaccinations by social media influencers as well as by media outlets seems to have resulted into a more negative view on vaccinations. The popularity of these social media influencers and the good reputation and authority of the media outlets could have played a substantial role in these developments. The following experimental study will try to explore whether popularity or authority cues can have an impact on the evaluation of the credibility of these two types of sources via an online survey. Furthermore, it aims to examine whether said heuristic cues and resulting conformity effects or the source credibility in general could have an impact on the opinion of recipients on a potential autism-vaccination link. Results have shown that especially authority cues seem to have a positive impact on source credibility evaluations. Furthermore, a high general trust in the media positively influences assessments of source credibility of well-established news outlets. Popularity cues as well as authority cues seem to have a positive effect on the recipients´ opinion. However, authority cues and the resulting effects of informational conformity seem to lead to greater attitude changes. Particularly people with a high need for conformity exhibit considerable attitude changes when exposed to the well-established news outlet as a source. Also, a high perceived source credibility is positively correlated with a desired attitude change. Especially the high perceived credibility of the social media influencer resulted in significant attitude changes. The results underline the importance and positive impact that a perceived authority can have on source credibility assessments and on recipients’ opinions. This highlights the great necessity for self-proclaimed experts on social media platforms and particularly for well-established news outlets to increase their effort to thoroughly and accurately research health-related topics.

<p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2012</p>

Despite recent interest in the role of trust in Information Systems, the potential of IS to foster trust in business relationships remains largely untapped. In order to better realize this potential, this dissertation examines three areas of IS trust research for which research is particularly limited: (1) the IT artifact as a target of trust, (2) IS-based source credibility as an antecedent of trust, and (3) the effect of anonymity on trust in online environments. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the effects of IS on trust in each of these areas. To do so, a multi-paper dissertation format is adopted in which each area examined constitutes a distinct, though complimentary, study. Together, these studies further research on how IS can enhance trust in business relationships.