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theses

Social media is a very quick, economical, and efficient way to spread food safety and nutrition education messages. It contributes to the “democratization of information” (Wallace & Fleet, 2005), permitting anyone to become an author online, providing the opportunity to get personal opinions heard and spread throughout the Internet. However, with a variety of information sources available online, nutrition educators and policy makers have to compete for the attention of consumers with the food and beverage industries, individual companies, consumer organizations, and with individual bloggers. The question facing nutrition educators and policy makers is how to take advantage of social media to ensure that accurate and science-based food safety and nutrition education information is widely disseminated and reaches targeted consumers? During the previous iteration of the Internet (the age of Web 1.0), consumers would seek information from a variety of websites with official content published or reported by news and media professionals. However, the emergence of social media has shifted the pattern of communication of information from that of professionally produced mass media such as TV, newspapers, and aggregator websites to individualized social media websites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, where users employ technology and mobile devices to create their own Internet content and to interact with each other. These Social Networking Sites enable individuals to combine and critique information from multiple sources and to provide points-of-view and commentary of their own, enabling social media users to put themselves in the center of the online virtual world. People across demographic categories have quickly adopted social media, seamlessly incorporating into their modern lives. Online communication via Social Networking Sites has become an increasingly significant way to exchange information with others, get the most up-to-date news feeds, and to connect with friends regardless of physical distances. The power of social media to influence, and to motivate behavior is also becoming increasingly clear. For example, Facebook has been widely acknowledged as a primary platform for consumers’ news reading (Somaiya, 2014). The popularity of social media has also led to a desire on the part of both individuals and organizations, including corporations, governments, academics, and non-profits to understand why some efforts to influence the public using social media are successful while others are not. To make message sharing more efficient, the first question to ask is, “why do individuals choose to “share” some content on social media but not others?” Focusing on information “sharing” behavior on Facebook, this study investigates the information transmission process through social media, motivations underlying online users’ information sharing behavior, and psychosocial factors influencing the flow of messages through Social Networking Sites (SNS). The study uses Social Identity Signaling Theory and the notion that “You are what you share” to identify factors that motivate people’s information communication processes. The study hypothesizes that reference social group and group norms will strongly influence online users’ news “sharing” behavior on Facebook. To explore this, different reference groups were created and associated with a healthy eating behavior (eating vegetarian meals) in a news article; group norms were also manipulated as either descriptive norms (what the group is actually doing) or injunctive norms (what the group ought to do, but is not currently doing). This dissertation is composed of three studies. All three studies use randomized controlled incomplete factorial (2 by 2 plus a control group) experimental designs. Study I manipulated reference group as in-group or out-group condition in the news article; Study II manipulated reference group as either a socially proximate group or a socially distant group in the news article; Study III manipulated reference group as either an aspirational group or non-aspirational group in the message. In addition, all three studies manipulated group norms as either descriptive or injunctive norms in the news article. Six outcome variables were measured on a 7-point Likert Scale (1 indicating “Not at all likely” and 7 indicating “Very likely”). These were: 1) “How likely would you be to share this news article on your Facebook page?” 2) “How likely would you be to share this news article, especially with your close friend(s) on Facebook?” 3) “How likely would you be to recommend the article to your family and friends when you meet them in person?” 4) “How likely would you be to share a popular vegetarian recipe on Facebook if you read one online?” 5) “How likely would you be to order a vegetarian dish for your next lunch/ dinner?” and 6) “How likely would you be to take a photo of your next vegetarian meal and post it on Facebook?” Eight covariates including age, gender, ethnicity, vegetarian consumption behavior, and attitudes towards vegetarian dishes and vegetarian people, self-monitoring, and susceptibility to normative influence were controlled in the models. In Study I and Study II where results showed that reference groups were not a significant predictive factor of participants’ news article sharing behavior or intended vegetarian consumption behavior. However, consumers who read a news article describing a reference group’s behavior in terms of injunctive group norms (should do) were more likely to share a vegetarian recipe on their Facebook than consumers who read a similar news article describing a reference group’s behavior in terms of descriptive group norms (currently doing). In addition, there was an interaction between group norms and reference group, which influences consumers’ news sharing behavior on Facebook and in-person in both studies: In Study I, participants who read the news article describing an in-group is consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week were more likely to say they would recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an in-group should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week. In comparison, participants who read the news article describing that an out-group thinks they should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week (which implied they were not currently doing so) were more likely to say they would recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an out-group is currently consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week. In Study II, participants who read the news article describing an socially proximate group that is consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week were more likely to share the news article on Facebook, share the news article on Facebook especially with family and close friends, and to recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an socially proximate group should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week. In contrast, participants who read the news article describing a socially distant group that thinks they should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week (which implied they were not currently doing so) were more likely to share the news article on Facebook, share the news article on Facebook especially with family and close friends, and recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an socially distant group are currently consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week. Study III showed that participants reading the news article associating the healthy eating behavior with an aspirational group (scientists) were significantly more likely to “share” the news article on Facebook, recommend the news article to family and friends when meeting with them in person, and to order a vegetarian meal for their next lunch or dinner than the similar news article associating the healthy eating behavior with a non-aspirational group (politicians). The research bridges Social Identity Signaling Theory with Group Norms and applies both theories to demystify the process of inter-group information communication. The findings highlight the importance of social factors in motivating information sharing across different social groups on Social Networking Sites, inform social group selection in marketing campaigns, and suggest management implications concerning how to leverage Social Networking Sites as a tool to promote innovative products.

ETD_7506

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Mingyue Zhang

doi:10.7282/T35X2D31

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.