Recent Works

Consumers spend increasing amounts of time on social media despite experiencing numerous negative repercussions. Various disciplines have contributed to the examination of this topic; however, scant research has been conducted within the consumer research or marketing disciplines. Therefore, this paper aims to shed light on the need for social media wellness by 1) highlighting issues related to social media consumption, 2) introducing a conceptual definition of social media wellness, 3) exploring consumers’ perceptions and experiences of social media usage through topic analysis, and 4) providing a research agenda for scholars to pursue. Following an exploratory observation of common topics surrounding social media wellness, specific hashtags and their corresponding posts were gathered from Twitter and then examined using the topic modeling method Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Implications and future research are discussed accordingly. To read more about the article co-authored by Breanne Mertz, Kelley Cours Anderson, Louis Zmich, and Timothy Kaskela, click here.

The world always needs a little more kindness. Social media influencers have received significant recognition for their marketing capabilities but are also identified as contributing to several negative societal consequences. This research explores social media influencers’ emergent role and associated practices in the spread of kindness to benefit the larger society. We introduce the concept of kindness contagion and conceptualize social media influencers’ kindness contagion cycle through six authentic kindness practice forms in which influencers are most likely to reinforce their kindness-embedded relationship (e.g., posts of encouragement to be kind and kindness meditations). To read more about the article co-authored by Tiegan Bradley and Kelley Cours Anderson, click here.

Digital contact tracing (DCT) applications have been employed in many countries to help mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus. However, the emergence of DCTs has amplified concerns over privacy issues as consumers are confronted with the ethical dilemma that arises regarding serving public and private interests. In other words, to what extent are consumers willing to negotiate their privacy concerns to gain perceived social benefits? This study investigates the extent to which consumers' perceived social benefits (e.g., reciprocity, trust, and reputation) mediate the relationship between privacy concerns and the intention to use DCT applications. Based on 269 usable responses, the results revealed that government trust was insignificant in mediating the relationship between privacy concerns and intention to use the DCT application. Rather, the expected reciprocal benefits and reputation enhancement were found to have significant mediating effects. Perceived government regulation was also found to moderate the relationship between privacy concerns and government trust. To read more about the article co-authored by Siti Aqilah Jahari, Danielle Hass, and Mathew Joseph, click here.

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