10 1108 - Itp 09 2020 0667
10 1108 - Itp 09 2020 0667
10 1108 - Itp 09 2020 0667
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0959-3845.htm
ITP
35,4 Examining the antecedents of
everyday rumor retransmission
Tung-Ching Lin
Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen University,
1326 Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Received 27 September 2020
Shiu-Li Huang
Revised 30 May 2021 Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University, New Taipei City,
Accepted 11 June 2021
Taiwan, and
Wei-Xing Liao
Department of Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen University,
Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose – This study investigates factors that motivate social media users to retransmit rumors. We focus on
everyday rumors rather than catastrophic rumors and develop a model of everyday rumor retransmission
based on the uses and gratification theory, the rumor retransmission model, and the basic law of rumor.
Design/methodology/approach – An Internet survey is conducted to collect data and test the proposed
model. This study’s hypotheses are tested through partial least squares regression analysis.
Findings – The results show that socializing, information seeking and status seeking increase the intention to
retransmit rumors. Perceived rumor credibility has a moderating effect on the impacts of socializing and status
seeking on retransmission intention.
Originality/value – Our research model provides a theoretical foundation for future studies that want to
explore motivations or values that determine rumor-sharing intention on social media. The findings can help
government agencies and businesses to manage rumor retransmission on social media.
Keywords Rumor, Social media, Uses and gratification theory, Basic law of rumor, Rumor
retransmission model
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In recent years, social media have provided many platforms on which to share news and
information with friends. They have facilitated information flow via users’ friend circles,
allowing a wide variety of information to be spread quickly. Some prior studies have focused on
information diffusion and have used the concept of “tie strength” to explain how social bonds
speed up the flow of information (Bakshy et al., 2012; Granovetter, 1973). From the tie strength
perspective, a strong tie refers to a friendship with a person with whom one has a greater time
commitment, and a weak tie refers to a relationship with the friends of one’s friends
(Granovetter, 1973). Strong ties increase the speed at which a rumor spreads within one’s inner
circle, while weak ties cause the information to diffuse more broadly through one’s outer circle.
As a form of social exchange, rumors are often compared with gossip. Gossip is defined as
“the exchange of personal information (positive or negative) in an evaluative way (positive or
negative) about absent third parties” (Foster, 2004). Distinct from gossip, rumors are focused
more on an event than on people who share a common history (Rosnow and Foster, 2005).
Scholars have defined rumors as “distorted, exaggerated, irrational and inauthentic
Information Technology & People
Vol. 35 No. 4, 2022
pp. 1326-1345 This work was financially supported by the Intelligent Electronic Commerce Research Center from the
© Emerald Publishing Limited Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project
0959-3845
DOI 10.1108/ITP-09-2020-0667 by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan.
information” (Miller, 1992). This kind of rumor mainly indicates some sort of social crisis or Antecedents of
disaster and may create chaos and anxiety among people at that time. Another definition everyday rumor
refers to rumor as “a message that is currently unsubstantiated by a message receiver”
(Kapferer, 2013). This last definition is more suitable for this study because we focus on
retransmission
everyday sorts of misinformation rumors that are more widespread on social media than are
those which are about disasters. Despite not knowing whether the information in this kind of
factoid rumor is true, people sometimes choose to spread it anyway.
In general, prior studies have focused on rumors regarding catastrophes (Allport and 1327
Postman, 1947; Oh et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2014; Tanaka et al., 2014) but have rarely investigated the
everyday rumors that are more commonly spread. Wang et al. (2018) conducted a lab experiment
to understand how a user’s rumor transmission behavior and belief in a given rumor are
impacted by arguments among members of an online forum’s user group. They found that
argument volume increases the user’s belief in the rumor and can induce changes in those beliefs,
and argument consistency increases the likelihood that the users’ belief will change. Both the
belief in the rumor and this argument-induced belief change have a positive influence on users’
intentions to spread the rumor. Although prior studies have investigated the factors that
facilitate rumor transmission, they have not explained why people want to spread rumors. We
have little understanding of people’s motivations for retransmitting rumors via social media.
The purpose of this study is to determine what kinds of gratifications affect people’s intention
to retransmit a rumor, and whether the information to be transmitted will, itself, moderate the
relationship between these gratifications and the intention to retransmit. This study adopts three
theories to explain how rumor retransmission intention will be affected. The first is the uses and
gratification theory (U&G theory), which we employ to explore the kinds of gratification people
get when retransmitting the rumor via social media, allowing us to investigate why people
retransmit rumors. Secondly, the rumor retransmission model looks at the actual information
that is being transmitted. This theory examines the rumor characteristics. The final theory on
which we base this study is the basic law of rumor, which focuses on the feelings brought about
by the rumor. We assume that the receiver’s personal involvement will moderate the relationship
between the gratification incentives and retransmission intention.
Figure 1.
Model of everyday
rumor retransmission
retransmission model, and the basic law of rumor to explain how SNS users decide to Antecedents of
retransmit everyday rumors. The need for socializing, entertainment, information seeking, everyday rumor
and status seeking drive SNS users to retransmit rumors. The perceived credibility of the
rumor increases rumor receivers’ motivation to retransmit the rumor for socializing and
retransmission
status-seeking purposes. Personal involvement increases the motivation to retransmit the
rumor for socializing and information-seeking purposes. In addition, our research model
incorporates two control variables: gender and age.
1333
3.1 Measures
The literature review allowed us to define our constructs clearly. To develop the scales for
each construct in our model, we adopted well-developed and valid measures from previously
published studies to suit our research context. Table 1 shows the operational definitions and
items we adopted. This study used the Likert scale, allowing the participants to choose one of
seven levels of agreement with anchors ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree).
After the draft was designed, in order to clarify any ambiguities, we conducted a pilot test
with 50 undergraduate students who had recently seen a rumor posted on social media. Based
on the respondents’ feedback, the questionnaire was revised to improve its readability and
the accuracy of the wording.
Personal involvement A rumor that expresses an event the receiver is 8-item scale adapted from
personally involved in, committed to, or to which the Zaichkowsky (1994)
receiver has some relationship
Argument quality Rumor receiver’s perception of the strength of a 3-item scale adapted from
received rumor Ha and Ahn (2011)
Sender credibility Rumor receiver’s perception of the trustworthiness 4-item scale adapted from
of the rumor sender Kang (2010)
Social media credibility Rumor receiver’s perception of the trustworthiness 4-item scale adapted from
of the social media Kang (2010)
Attractiveness Rumor receiver’s perception of the visual aids such 3-item scale adapted from
as video, pictures, etc., in the rumor message Braddy et al. (2008)
Perceived credibility Rumor receiver’s perception of the believability of 5-item scale adapted from
toward the rumor the rumor Chesney and Su (2010)
Socializing The extent to which rumor retransmitting helps to 4-item scale adapted from
develop and maintain relationships with Lin and Lu (2011)
acquaintances on social media
Entertainment The extent to which retransmitting rumors via SNSs 4-item scale adapted from
serves as a means for entertainment and leisure Lin and Lu (2011)
purposes
Information seeking The extent to which rumors retransmitted via social 4-item scale adapted from
media can provide users with relevant and timely Lin and Lu (2011)
information
Status seeking The extent to which retransmitting rumors via SNSs 4-item scale adapted from
helps one to attain status among peers Lin and Lu (2011)
Intention to retransmit The degree of the rumor recipient’s belief that he/she 3-item scale adapted from Table 1.
rumor will engage in a rumor-sharing act involving the Ha and Ahn (2011) Operational definition
received rumor and item source
ITP On the first page of our questionnaire, we explained the study goal and stated we would
35,4 ensure the respondents’ privacy. The respondents were informed that the questions referred
to the most recent factoid message (a message that the respondent cannot tell whether it is
fake or not) viewed by the respondent on social media. In total, we received 556 responses to
the online questionnaire. After we discarded responses with missing or invalid values, the
total number of the effective sample size was 540. The demographic information is shown in
Table 2. The sample comprised 54.3% male and 45.7% female participants. Seventy-three
1334 percent of the respondents were under 25 years old. Up to 87% of our respondents had a
bachelor’s degree or higher. In addition, 63.9% of respondents received less than five factoid
rumors per day. However, 94.4% of them retransmitted less than three factoid rumors
per day.
Argument quality 1 I think that the statement of this message is well- 0.92 0.83
CR 5 0.95 defined
Cronbach’s α 5 0.92 2 I think that the statement of this message is 0.93 0.85
complete
1336 AVE 5 0.86 3 I think that the statement of this message is 0.93 0.83
accurate
Sender credibility 1 I think that the sender of this message is an expert 0.93 0.88
CR 5 0.97
Cronbach’s α 5 0.95 2 I think that the sender of this message is 0.92 0.87
AVE 5 0.87 knowledgeable
3 I think that the sender of this message is 0.94 0.90
trustworthy
4 I think that the sender of this message is reliable 0.94 0.89
Social media 1 I think that the social medium on which this 0.93 0.88
credibility CR 5 0.97 message was posted has a reputation of expertise
Cronbach’s α 5 0.96 2 I think that the social medium on which this 0.92 0.87
AVE 5 0.89 message was posted is knowledgeable
3 I think that the social medium on which this 0.96 0.92
message was posted is trustworthy
4 I think that the social medium on which this 0.96 0.92
message was posted is reliable
Attractiveness 1 The color of the message website was really 0.90 0.70
CR 5 0.89 appealing
Cronbach’s α 5 0.82 2 The layout of the message website was really 0.92 0.77
AVE 5 0.73 appealing
3 The picture on the message website properly 0.75 0.55
matched the content
Perceived credibility 1 I think this message is believable 0.92 0.87
2 I think this message is accurate 0.94 0.90
CR 5 0.96 3 I think this message is trustworthy 0.95 0.91
Cronbach’s α 5 0.94
AVE 5 0.81 4 I think this message is unbiased 0.83 0.74
5 I think this message is complete 0.88 0.81
Personal involvement 1 This message is relevant 0.71 0.64
2 This message is appealing 0.81 0.74
CR 5 0.94 3 This message is fascinating 0.78 0.70
Cronbach’s α 5 0.92 5 This message means a lot to me 0.86 0.81
AVE 5 0.69 6 This message is valuable 0.87 0.81
7 This message is involving 0.88 0.81
8 This message is needed 0.88 0.83
Socializing 1 Sharing this kind of message helps me interact 0.89 0.81
CR 5 0.94 with people
Cronbach’s α 5 0.92 2 Sharing this kind of message helps me keep in 0.92 0.84
AVE 5 0.81 touch with friends
3 Sharing this kind of message is a culture, and I 0.85 0.74
share like others do
4 Sharing this kind of message helps me enhance 0.93 0.86
interpersonal relationships
Entertainment 1 Sharing this kind of message is good for keeping 0.87 0.81
CR 5 0.95 boredom away
Cronbach’s α 5 0.93 2 I enjoy sharing this kind of message 0.92 0.82
AVE 5 0.82
Table 3.
Factor analysis results (continued )
Factor Item total
Antecedents of
Construct Item loading correlation everyday rumor
retransmission
3 Sharing this kind of message is a good way to 0.94 0.87
relax
4 Sharing this kind of message is a good way to kill 0.87 0.80
time
Information seeking 1 Sharing this kind of message on my social media 0.88 0.74 1337
CR 5 0.93 and interacting with friends can help me
Cronbach’s α 5 0.90 bookmark useful information
AVE 5 0.77 2 Sharing this kind of message on my social media 0.93 0.85
and interacting with friends can help me keep
updated on the latest happenings
3 Sharing this kind of message on my social media 0.92 0.87
and interacting with friends can help me get other
related information
4 Sharing this kind of message on my social media 0.76 0.66
and interacting with friends can help me get other
people’s opinions regarding the information/
event
Status seeking 1 Sharing this kind of message makes me feel 0.90 0.82
CR 5 0.93 influential
Cronbach’s α 5 0.90 2 Sharing this kind of message makes me look good 0.92 0.85
AVE 5 0.78 to others
3 I can express my opinion by sharing this kind of 0.82 0.69
message
4 I want to be the first one among others to share 0.88 0.77
Intention to 1 I intend to share the message in social media in 0.95 0.89
retransmit CR 5 0.97 the future
Cronbach’s α 5 0.95 2 I expect to share the message contributed by 0.95 0.89
AVE 5 0.91 other users
3 I plan to share this message in social media 0.96 0.92
regularly Table 3.
Construct VIF
intention to retransmit the rumor is also not significant (β 5 0.062, p > 0.1). Thus, Hypothesis
10b is not supported. Moreover, the control variables, gender and age, have no impact on the
intention to retransmit the rumor.
5. Discussion
This study enhances our understanding of the factors that drive social media users to
retransmit everyday rumors. Most of the hypotheses are confirmed, which indicates that
the desire to attain certain gratifications (i.e. socializing, information seeking, and status
seeking) can induce users to retransmit a rumor. Argument quality, attractiveness, sender
credibility and social media credibility are salient predictors of perceived rumor credibility
that can moderate the impacts of socializing and status seeking on the intention to
retransmit.
We found that entertainment gratification is not a salient predictor of the intention to
retransmit a rumor. This finding is consistent with Lee and Ma (2012), who also found that
entertainment gratification is not a salient antecedent of the intention to share news on social
media. We agree with their perspective that social media have many features that can offer
funnier and more entertaining experiences, such as games, videos and shopping. Hence,
people tend to use these other features to meet their entertainment needs rather than
Antecedents of
everyday rumor
retransmission
1339
Figure 2.
PLS analysis of
research model
retransmit a rumor. The users retransmit rumors via social media for socializing, information
seeking, and status seeking, but not for fun.
According to the analysis results, personal involvement has no significant effect, which
indicates that personal involvement with the rumor will not affect the relationships between
the gratifications (socializing and information seeking) and the intention to retransmit the
rumor. One possible explanation is that relationship factors (e.g. identification and
commitment) are more influential than involvement in regard to message retransmission
on social media (Park et al., 2016). The recipients’ sense of belonging and relationship stability
with their friends may influence the impacts of the gratifications on rumor retransmission.
Another possible reason is that the impact of personal involvement is determined by altruism.
Prior study has found that the effect of involvement on the willingness to share is low for high
altruists but high for less altruistic persons (Schreiner et al., 2018). The participants might
have a high level of altruism, which mitigated the effect of personal involvement.
The rumor’s perceived credibility has significant moderating impacts on the relationships
between both socializing and status seeking and the intention to retransmit. Figure 3 shows
that if the perceived credibility is low, a greater level of socializing gratification increases the
intention to retransmit to a lesser extent. On the other hand, if the perceived credibility is high,
a greater level of socializing gratification can increase the intention to a greater extent. A
likely explanation is that people do not want to be seen posting a fake message that could risk
harming their relationship with their friends.
Figure 4 shows that when rumor credibility is perceived as low, retransmission intention
is influenced more by the status-seeking gratification than when the rumor credibility is
perceived as high. The possible reason is that when people perceive a factoid message as
credible, they can hardly tell if it is fake or not and will hesitate to forward it to friends for
ITP
35,4
1340
Figure 3.
Slope analysis of
socializing
Figure 4.
Slope analysis of status
seeking
status-seeking purposes. In contrast, when people perceive a factoid message as not credible,
they tend to retransmit it to tell their friends how fake it is in order to increase their reputation.
6. Conclusion
Our study contributes to rumor research in several ways. First, we develop a conceptual
model based on U&G theory to investigate the antecedents of rumor retransmission intention
via social media. U&G theory explains the motivations that drive social media users to
retransmit rumors. Hence, our research model provides a theoretical foundation for future
studies that want to explore motivations or values that determine rumor-sharing intention on
social media.
Second, our model also highlights the importance of perceived rumor credibility based on
Liu et al. (2014) model of rumor retransmission. Perceived credibility can increase the impact
of socializing on retransmission intention but decreases the impact of status seeking on that
intention. Both the argument quality and the peripheral cues (i.e. the attractiveness of the
rumor message, the sender’s credibility, and social media’s credibility) determine the
perceived credibility of the rumor.
Third, we found that personal involvement has nothing to do with the retransmission of Antecedents of
everyday rumors, unlike rumors regarding catastrophes. Social media users forward a rumor everyday rumor
when they consider it helpful for socializing, information seeking or status seeking. Whether
or not the rumor message is valuable to them is not a major determinant or moderator. Future
retransmission
studies may benefit from investigating how factors such as social relationships with friends
and perceived importance to friends impact rumor retransmission.
This study proposes some practical implications for organizations such as government
agencies and businesses who want to control rumor retransmission on social media. 1341
Organizations should provide fact-checking services that allow social media users to quickly
determine if the received rumor message is true or false, which can fulfill their information
seeking needs. Such fact check services should enable rumor receivers to easily share the true
message with their friends on social media to fulfill their socializing and status seeking needs.
Organizations should pay more attention to rumors that are attractive, sent by credible
senders, or appear on credible social media since the rumors are perceived as credible, which
may facilitate rumor retransmission. Social media platforms are supposed to proactively
check rumors and remove false rumors. Their recommendation algorithms should be able to
detect and block rumors. For social media users, we must educate ourselves to stop spreading
a message that we cannot tell whether it is fake or not. We can choose other alternatives to
satisfy our needs for socializing, information seeking, and status seeking; for example,
seeking to verify factual information on fact-checking sites to fulfill the need for information
seeking, and sharing replacement facts to fulfill the socializing and status seeking needs. If
these basic needs for using social media can be fulfilled by desirable alternatives the
undesirable behavior, e.g. rumor retransmission, can be replaced.
There are some limitations to this study. First, the majority of our respondents were under
30 years old from Taiwan. This may reduce the generalizability of our findings. Older adults
are less able to identify rumors and may easily become rumor spreaders (Xiong and Zuo,
2019). Moreover, older adults are less familiar with the use of social media. The gratifications
that induce older adults to retransmit a rumor may be different. Second, we did not consider
rumor categories. Different rumor message topics may have different levels of impact on
retransmission intention. Third, in addition to rumor retransmission, socializing, information
seeking, and status seeking are basic needs for using social media (Huang and Chang, 2020).
They can also explain why users retransmit other types of messages on social media. The
distinct gratifications that motivate users in retransmitting rumors rather than other
messages are worthy of future investigation. Finally, this study considered retransmission
intention rather than actual behavior. High retransmission intention may not lead to
retransmission behavior. Further research is certainly required for a better understanding of
the determinants of rumor retransmission behavior.
References
Allport, C.D. and Pendley, J.A. (2010), “The impact of website design on the perceived credibility of
internet financial reporting”, Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management,
Vol. 17 Nos 3-4, pp. 127-141.
Allport, G.W. and Postman, L. (1947), The Psychology of Rumor, Henry Holt, Oxford.
Bakshy, E., Rosenn, I., Marlow, C. and Adamic, L. (2012), “The role of social networks in information
diffusion”, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on World Wide Web, Lyon,
France: ACM.
Balabanis, G. and Chatzopoulou, E. (2019), “Under the influence of a blogger: the role of information-
seeking goals and issue involvement”, Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 342-353.
ITP Bianchi, C., Andrews, L., Wiese, M. and Fazal-E-Hasan, S. (2017), “Consumer intentions to engage in s-
commerce: a cross-national study”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 33 Nos 5-6,
35,4 pp. 464-494.
Braddy, P.W., Meade, A.W. and Kroustalis, C.M. (2008), “Online recruiting: the effects of
organizational familiarity, website usability, and website attractiveness on viewers’
impressions of organizations”, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 24 No. 6, pp. 2992-3001.
Chatterjee, S. and Price, B. (1991), Regression Diagnostics, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
1342
Chen, J. and Shen, X.-L. (2015), “Consumers’ decisions in social commerce context: an empirical
investigation”, Decision Support Systems, Vol. 79, November, pp. 55-64.
Chen, X., Sin, S.-C.J., Theng, Y.-L. and Lee, C.S. (2015), “Why students share misinformation on social
media: motivation, gender, and study-level differences”, The Journal of Academic Librarianship,
Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 583-592.
Chennamaneni, A., Teng, J.T.C. and Raja, M.K. (2012), “A unified model of knowledge sharing
behaviours: theoretical development and empirical test”, Behaviour and Information
Technology, Vol. 31 No. 11, pp. 1097-1115.
Chesney, T. and Su, D.K. (2010), “The impact of anonymity on weblog credibility”, International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Vol. 68 No. 10, pp. 710-718.
Chih, W.-H., Wang, K.-Y., Hsu, L.-C. and Huang, S.-C. (2013), “Investigating electronic word-of-mouth
effects on online discussion forums: the role of perceived positive electronic word-of-mouth
review credibility”, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Vol. 16 No. 9, pp. 658-668.
Chih, W.-H., Hsu, L.-C. and Ortiz, J. (2020), “The antecedents and consequences of the perceived
positive ewom review credibility”, Industrial Management and Data Systems, Vol. 120 No. 6,
pp. 1217-1243.
Chua, A.Y., Goh, D.H.-L. and Lee, C.S. (2012), “Mobile content contribution and retrieval: an
exploratory study using the uses and gratifications paradigm”, Information Processing and
Management, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 13-22.
Corritore, C.L., Kracher, B. and Wiedenbeck, S. (2003), “On-line trust: concepts, evolving themes, a
model”, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Vol. 58 No. 6, pp. 737-758.
Crowne, D.P. and Marlowe, D. (1960), “A new scale of social desirability independent of
psychopathology”, Journal of Consulting Psychology, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 349-354.
Filieri, R., Acikgoz, F., Ndou, V. and Dwivedi, Y. (2020), “Is tripadvisor still relevant? The influence of
review credibility, review usefulness, and ease of use on consumers’ continuance intention”,
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management Science, Vol. 33 No. 1,
pp. 199-223.
Foster, E.K. (2004), “Research on gossip: taxonomy, methods, and future directions”, Review of General
Psychology, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 78-99.
Granovetter, M.S. (1973), “The strength of weak ties”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78 No. 6,
pp. 1360-1380.
Ha, S. and Ahn, J. (2011), “Why are you sharing others’ tweets?: the impact of argument quality and
source credibility on information sharing behavior”, International Conference on Information
Systems in Shanghai, China, 2011.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C.M. and Sarstedt, M. (2015), “A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity
in variance-based structural equation modeling”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 115-135.
Huang, S.-L. and Chang, C.-Y. (2020), “Understanding how people select social networking services:
media trait, social influences and situational factors”, Information and Management, Vol. 57
No. 6, p. 103323.
Huang, S.-L. and Chen, C.-T. (2018), “How consumers become loyal fans on Facebook”, Computers in
Human Behavior, Vol. 82, May, pp. 124-135.
Johnson, T. and Kaye, B. (2010), “Choosing is believing? How web gratifications and reliance affect Antecedents of
internet credibility among politically interested users”, Atlantic Journal of Communication,
Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 1-21. everyday rumor
Kang, M. (2010), Measuring Social Media Credibility: A Study on a Measure of Blog Credibility, Institute
retransmission
for Public Relations, Gainesville, FL.
Kapferer, J.-N. (2013), Rumors: Uses, Interpretations, and Images, Transaction Publishers, New
Brunswick.
1343
Katz, E., Blumler, J.G. and Gurevitch, M. (1973), “Uses and gratifications research”, Public Opinion
Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 509-523.
Kim, Y., Sohn, D. and Choi, S.M. (2011), “Cultural difference in motivations for using social network
sites: a comparative study of american and Korean college students”, Computers in Human
Behavior, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 365-372.
Lee, C.S. and Ma, L. (2012), “News sharing in social media: the effect of gratifications and prior
experience”, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 331-339.
Leung, L. (2003), “Impacts of net-generation attributes, seductive properties of the internet, and
gratifications-obtained on internet use”, Telematics and Informatics, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 107-129.
Li, R. and Suh, A. (2015), “Factors influencing information credibility on social media platforms:
evidence from Facebook”, Procedia Computer Science, Vol. 72 No. No, pp. 314-328.
Liang, T.-P., Ho, Y.-T., Li, Y.-W. and Turban, E. (2011), “What drives social commerce: the role of
social support and relationship quality”, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 16
No. 2, pp. 69-90.
Lin, K.-Y. and Lu, H.-P. (2011), “Why people use social networking sites: an empirical study
integrating network externalities and motivation theory”, Computers in Human Behavior,
Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 1152-1161.
Lindell, M.K. and Whitney, D.J. (2001), “Accounting for common method variance in cross-sectional
research designs”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 No. 1, pp. 114-121.
Liu, F., Burton-Jones, A. and Xu, D. (2014), “Rumors on social media in disasters: extending
transmission to retransmission”, The Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS)
in Chengdu, China, 2014, p. 49.
Malhotra, N.K., Kim, S.S. and Patil, A. (2006), “Common method variance in is research: a comparison
of alternative approaches and a reanalysis of past research”, Management Science, Vol. 52
No. 12, pp. 1865-1883.
Miller, D.E. (1992), “‘Snakes in the greens’ and rumor in the innercity”, The Social Science Journal,
Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 381-393.
Nardi, B.A., Schiano, D.J., Gumbrecht, M. and Swartz, L. (2004), “Why we blog”, Communications of
the ACM, Vol. 47 No. 12, pp. 41-46.
Oh, O., Agrawal, M. and Rao, H.R. (2013), “Community intelligence and social media services: a rumor
theoretic analysis of tweets during social crises”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 407-426.
Palmer, A. and Bejou, D. (1994), “Buyer-seller relationships: a conceptual model and empirical
investigation”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 10 No. 6, pp. 495-512.
Papacharissi, Z. and Rubin, A.M. (2000), “Predictors of internet use”, Journal of Broadcasting and
Electronic Media, Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 175-196.
Park, S.-Y. and Go, E. (2016), “Health information seeking on the internet: the role of involvement in
searching for and assessing online health information”, Health Marketing Quarterly, Vol. 33
No. 4, pp. 327-341.
Park, N., Kee, K.F. and Valenzuela, S. (2009a), “Being immersed in social networking environment:
Facebook groups, uses and gratifications, and social outcomes”, CyberPsychology and Behavior,
Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 729-733.
ITP Park, N., Kee, K.F. and Valenzuela, S.N. (2009b), “Being immersed in social networking environment:
Facebook groups, uses and gratifications, and social outcomes”, CyberPsychology and Behavior,
35,4 Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 729-733.
Park, J., Chung, T.-L., Hall-Phillips, A. and Anaza, N.A. (2016), “Loyalty to social ventures in social
media: the role of social cause involvement, identification, and commitment”, Journal of
Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 3, pp. 185-208.
Petty, R.E. and Cacioppo, J.T. (1986), “Central and peripheral routes to persuasion: an individual
1344 difference perspective”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 51 No. 5,
pp. 1032-1043.
Podsakoff, P.M., Mackenzie, S.B., Lee, J.-Y. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in
behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal of
Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 879-903.
Pullins, E.B., Mallin, M.L., Buehrer, R.E. and Jones, D.E. (2011), “How salespeople deal with
intergenerational relationship selling”, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, Vol. 26
No. 6, pp. 443-455.
Qiu, L. and Benbasat, I. (2005), “Online consumer trust and live help interfaces: the effects of text-to-
speech voice and three-dimensional avatars”, International Journal of Human-Computer
Interaction, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 75-94.
Rosnow, R.L. (1991), “Inside rumor: a personal journey”, American Psychologist, Vol. 46 No. 5,
pp. 484-496.
Rosnow, R.L. and Foster, E.K. (2005), “Rumor and gossip research”, Psychological Science Agenda,
Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 1-2.
Schreiner, N., Pick, D. and Kenning, P. (2018), “To share or not to share? Explaining willingness to
share in the context of social distance”, Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Vol. 17 No. 4,
pp. 366-378.
Tanaka, Y., Sakamoto, Y. and Honda, H. (2014), “The impact of posting URLs in disaster-related
tweets on rumor spreading behavior”, 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
in, 2014, IEEE, pp. 520-529.
Thomas, M.-J., Wirtz, B.W. and Weyerer, J.C. (2019), “Determinants of online review credibility and its
impact on comsumers’ purchase intention”, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 20
No. 1, pp. 1-20.
Van Der Heijden, H. (2003), “Factors influencing the usage of websites: the case of a generic portal in
The Netherlands”, Information and Management, Vol. 40 No. 6, pp. 541-549.
Wang, Q., Yang, X. and Xi, W. (2018), “Effects of group arguments on rumor belief and transmission
in online communities: an information cascade and group polarization perspective”,
Information and Management, Vol. 55 No. 4, pp. 441-449.
Wasko, M.M. and Faraj, S. (2005), “Why should i share? Examining social capital and knowledge
contribution in electronic networks of practice”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 35-57.
Xiao, L. and Li, Y. (2019), “Examining the effect of positive online reviews on consumers’ decision
making: the valence framework”, Journal of Global Information Management, Vol. 27 No. 3,
pp. 159-181.
Xiong, J. and Zuo, M. (2019), “How does family support work when older adults obtain information
from mobile internet?”, Information Technology and People, Vol. 32 No. 6, pp. 1496-1516.
Xu, C., Ryan, S., Prybutok, V. and Wen, C. (2012), “It is not for fun: an examination of social network
site usage”, Information and Management, Vol. 49 No. 5, pp. 210-217.
Ye, L. and Ki, E.-J. (2018), “Impact of message convergence on organizational reputation: an
examination of organizational crisis communication on Facebook”, Corporate Reputation
Review, Vol. 21 No. 1, pp. 1-8.
Yin, C., Sun, Y. and Lim, Y.F.K. (2018), “Exploring the dual-role of cognitive heuristics and the Antecedents of
moderating effect of gender in microblog information credibility evaluation”, Information
Technology and People, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 741-769. everyday rumor
Zaichkowsky, J.L. (1994), “The personal involvement inventory: reduction, revision, and application to
retransmission
advertising”, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 59-70.
For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: [email protected]