Social cues and implications for designing expert and competent artificial agents: A systematic review

Artificial agents such as embodied virtual agents, chatbots, voice user interface agents, and robots simulate human roles for dispensing information to people. According to the computers-are-social-actors paradigm, people respond to these technological artifacts with the same social rules originated from human-to-human social routines despite recognizing the artificiality of the entities’ intents, motivations, or emotions. Among the various applications of social rules in human-agent interactions, this study focuses on the social cues signaling expertise or competence (i.e., expertise cues) that can evoke social, affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses toward the artificial agents through activation of social stereotypes or heuristics. Based on a systematic review of experimental studies featuring artificial agents with expertise cues published between 2005 and July 2021 (n = 63), this study proposed a classification model categorizing expertise cues into Demographics, Appearance, Social prestige, Specialization, Communication style, and Information quality (DASSCI). The DASSCI model can guide designers to logically devise and infuse relevant expertise cues into the designs of artificial agents. As per the computers-are-social-actors paradigm, this study also outlined the social and communication theories underpinning the implementations and effects of artificial agents’ expertise cues. The implications and recommendations for future directions regarding artificial agents with expertise cues across diverse application domains are discussed in this paper.     

Reinforcement of the Political Self Through Selective Exposure to Political Messages

The idea that recipients prefer messages that reinforce preexisting attitudes and self‐perceptions has pervaded much communication research, but effects of selective exposure are rarely examined. This 2‐session experiment (n = 157) investigates such effects. The first session presented computerized questions on 12 political issue attitudes and political self‐concept. Accessibility data were collected based on response times. In the second session, participants browsed through an online magazine including 4 of the 12 issues, each issue being covered by 2 articles featuring opposing viewpoints. Selective exposure was logged and categorized as attitude‐consistent or counterattitudinal. Finally, a questionnaire repeated measures for attitudes and self‐concept. The results show that participants preferred attitude‐consistent over counterattitudinal messages, which strengthened the political self‐concept through increased accessibility.     

Snapping and chatting away: Consumer motivations for and outcomes of interacting with Snapchat AR ad lens

Snapchat AR ad lens is one of the highly engaging and interactive ads among the plethora of social media advertising formats. Applying the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and social media advertising engagement (SMAE) framework, two survey studies were conducted to enhance our understanding of consumers’ motivations for interacting with this unique Snapchat ad format and its subsequent effects. With the use of exploratory research, Study 1 uncovered consumers’ motivations to interact with the Snapchat AR ad lens: entertainment, aesthetics, uniqueness, curiosity, brand fan, and social interaction. Furthermore, Study 2 cemented consumers’ disclosed motivations as antecedents of attitudinal perceptions of the Snapchat AR ad lens and examined its resultant outcomes: ad engagement and purchase motivation. The results revealed that the majority of motivations had a positive effect on Snapchatters’ attitude toward the AR ad lens, which directly affected continuous ad engagement and indirectly affected purchase motivation through ad engagement. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed for scholars and practitioners.     

Media as Educator,Media as Disruptor: Conceptualizing the Role of Social Context in Media Effects

We document how social contexts serve to refract media effects. We theorized the relationship between media use and individual‐level knowledge (and attitude) would be stronger when community‐level knowledge (and attitude) was low than when it was high. Data come from a national survey (N = 12,608 women and 1,237 men) conducted in Nepal. Knowledge and stigma toward people living with HIV were the 2 dependent variables. Hypotheses were tested 12 times: across the use of 3 media (newspaper, radio, television) × 2 study outcomes (knowledge and attitudes) × 2 genders. Predicted interactions were supported in 9 of the 12 tests. Findings point to the need to take into account the role of community factors in theorizing about media effects.     

To Your Health: Self‐Regulation of Health Behavior Through Selective Exposure to Online Health Messages

Reaching target audiences is of crucial importance for the success of health communication campaigns, but individuals may avoid health messages if they challenge their beliefs or behaviors. A lab study (N = 419) examined effects of messages' consistency with participants' behavior and source credibility on selective exposure for 4 health lifestyle topics. Drawing on self‐regulation theory and dissonance theory, 3 motivations were examined: self‐bolstering, self‐motivating, and self‐defending. Prior behavior predicted selective exposure across topics, reflecting self‐bolstering. Standard‐behavior discrepancies also affected selective exposure, consistent with self‐motivating rather than self‐defending. Selective exposure to high‐credibility sources advocating for organic food, fruits and vegetable consumption, exercise, and limiting coffee all fostered accessibility of related standards, whereas messages from low‐credibility sources showed no such impact.     

Turn a Blind Eye If You Care: Impacts of Attitude Consistency,Importance, and Credibility on Seeking of Political Information and Implications for Attitudes

Abundant media outlets allow for much diversity of political messages and selective use among citizens. A 2‐session online field study examined impacts of attitude consistency, attitude importance, and source credibility on selective exposure to political messages and subsequent attitude accessibility. The first session assessed attitudes and their accessibility. In the second session, participants browsed online search results that featured attitude‐consistent and attitude‐discrepant messages associated with sources of either high or low credibility; selective reading was tracked. Then attitude accessibility was measured again. Participants spent less time with attitude‐discrepant messages compared to attitude‐consistent messages; this pattern was particularly pronounced among participants with higher attitude importance. Low importance fostered exposure to high‐credibility messages. Exposure to attitude‐discrepant, high‐credibility messages reduced attitude accessibility.     

Moderating Effect of Group Cue While Processing News on Immigration: Is the Framing Effect a Heuristic Process?

This paper presents a study on the sociocognitive effects of news frames on immigration. One hundred and eighty‐six individuals were exposed to a newspaper story on increased immigration to Spain. The newspaper highlighted (a) the positive (economic contribution frame) versus negative (crime growth frame) consequences and (b) the group cue—Latinos versus Moroccans. In contrast with economic contribution frame, crime growth frame stimulated more negative cognitive responses toward immigration, increased the salience of immigration as a problem, generated a negative attitude toward immigration, and induced greater disagreement with positive beliefs about the consequences of immigration for the country. We conceptualized the framing effect as a heuristic process in which peripheral cues in the news story guided information processing.     

The Effects of Verbal Versus Photographic Self‐Presentation on Impression Formation in Facebook

Scholars of computer‐mediated communication have long been interested in the way in which interpersonal impressions form among computer users. Early Internet research explored how people used text‐based social information to form impressions of others. However, sociotechnological systems now allow users to present themselves in a variety of forms. The first study found that when textual and photographic cues were presented alone, the principle of textual primacy predicted results; however, Study 2 found when cues were presented together in the context of a Facebook profile, the data were consistent with a visual primacy—negativity perspective such that photographs more strongly influenced judgments of social orientation, and textual cues influenced social orientation judgments when accompanied by an introverted photograph.     

Exploring social and psychological factors that influence the gathering of political information online

Qualitative analysis of college students who searched online during the 2008 US presidential election contributes to three research areas: uses and gratifications, media credibility, and selective exposure. The findings identified new social factors that trigger motivations and psychological factors that affect patterns of media use for political information gathering. Word-of-mouth communication from strong, weak, and nonexistent social ties triggered social utility and information seeking motivations. Offline media contributed to online information seeking. Moderate credibility perceptions of media and weak party loyalty limited ideological selective exposure. Results add to research that links social and psychological factors to motivations and media use.     

Language,modality, and mobile media use experiences: Social responses to smartphone cues in a task-oriented context

With people’s growing use of virtual agents and voice assistants on smartphones, researchers have pointed out that mobile phones are not only acting as intermediaries that connect users from different places, but also communication terminals that present different combinations of social cues. This study applies the Computers are Social Actors paradigm in human-phone interaction and postulates that compared to non-anthropomorphic language and text cues, anthropomorphic language and vocal cues will have more effects on users’ social responses to smartphones. This study also explores the role of individual differences in users’ social responses to smartphones. Based on a lab experiment using a between-subjects factorial design, the study suggests that although anthropomorphic language and voice-based information did not have main effects on users’ social responses, people’s mobile media usage and intensive phone use interacted with these cues in their social responses to the smartphones. In addition, this study implies that it is the combination of social cues, individual differences, and communication contexts that contributes to people’s social reactions to the smartphones. The findings of the study can inform user interface design and precipitate further discussion about the ethical issues in human-phone interaction.     

Would you change your mind? An empirical study of social impact theory on Facebook

The purpose of this research is to investigate how attitude change happens on social media and explore the factors key to persuasion. We apply social impact theory to investigate the effects of persuader immediacy or relationship closeness, message persuasiveness, and perceived supportiveness on attitude change on Facebook. Using 2016 Taiwan President election as the backdrop, 313 Taiwan President election voters were invited to participate in the survey. Results show that persuader immediacy is not significantly related to attitude change or attitude maintenance, while message persuasiveness and supportiveness are significantly related to both attitude change and maintenance, which in turn, predict one’s intentions to vote for the opposite political camp.     

Traces of mobility: Examining location disclosure on social networks with mobile location tagging

The prevailing adoption of mobile devices has facilitated individuals’ engagement with location tagging; thus, location-based information sharing, which allows geolocation specificity and interaction on the Internet platforms, has become a popular activity in the space of social media. This spatiotemporal information provides a great potential opportunity for marketers as photos or videos shared among friends on social networking sites can be viewed as a type of word-of-mouth that may increase brand awareness and attract more users. Thus, understanding the underlying factors driving location tagging intentions provides significant value for practitioners. However, despite its importance, our understanding of this topic is limited. This research draws from social exchange theory and the theory of impression management to exemplify the underlying factors driving individuals to engage in photo or video sharing with location tagging on social media. Using an online survey, we recruited 402 users. We find that location tagging intention is driven by a facilitating route involving social benefits and functional benefits and an impeding route involving perceived risk related to privacy concerns. Our findings provide important academic and managerial implications.     

What Is Second Screening? Exploring Motivations of Second Screen Use and Its Effect on Online Political Participation

This study focuses on second screening for news, a hybrid media process that combines watching news on television and a second, web‐connected screen (i.e., smart‐phone, laptop). Based on U.S.‐national, 2‐wave panel data, the paper (a) examines people's motivations to engage in second screen use, and then (b) advances the relationship between second screening and online political behaviors. Discussing and pursuing further information are both central motivations for second screen use. Furthermore, results suggest second screening for news is a significant predictor of online political participation and a key link between TV news and political engagement as this relationship is fully mediated. The study advances theoretically and empirically ways in which an informed public opinion may partake of a more engaged democracy.     

Examining the roles of social media and alternative media in social movement participation: A study of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

During the recent wave of pro-democracy movement across the world, new media technologies play a vital role in mobilizing participants. Much scholarly attention has been paid to the role of social media in empowering grassroots movements, but the rise of alternative media was somehow ignored. This study examines the impacts of social media and alternative media on social movement participation. The data came from a survey of 769 students from eight public universities in Hong Kong at the height of the Umbrella Movement. The findings revealed that acquisition of political information from social media and alternative media is associated with social movement participation through different mechanisms. Specifically, social media serve as an echo chamber where people are motivated to participate by perceiving a homogeneous opinion climate and forming a pro-protest attitude. In contrast, alternative media serve as an attitude intensifier to facilitate social movement participation.     

What drives live-stream usage intention? The perspectives of flow,entertainment, social interaction,and endorsement

Live-stream is the real-time audio and video transmission of an event over the Internet. Since a live-stream can also be interactive, it has some of the characteristics of a small community. People often become addicted to television, movies, or video blogs for the sake of entertainment. They can also become blind and obsessive about worshiping popular idols. Moreover, their willingness to use media is affected by their own perception of the media or their expectation of the benefits. This study therefore proposes four key factors: flow, entertainment, social interaction, and endorsement. We use path analysis to test their relationships with attitude, perceived value and watching intention to understand the influential factors and channels that induce audiences to watch live-streaming events.Analysis of 313 valid responses to a survey questionnaire indicate that approximately 65% of Taiwanese people watch live-streams via social network sites. In general, they watched live-streams simply because they liked to do so. The main reason behind their favorable impression of live-streaming was that live-streams made people happy and relieved stress. Secondly, people were attracted by the charm of the streamers, but the attraction differs slightly by gender. Females developed a more favorable impression of a live-stream when they admired the streamer. Males, on the other hand, developed a more favorable impression of a live-stream when they interacted with the streamer or other audience members. Young people tended to like live-streaming because it gave them a sense of flow, while older people were not affected by flow. This study contributes to the development of live-stream services and future studies on live-streaming.     

User-orientated perspective of social media used by campaigns

Campaigns have increasingly resorted to Facebook because it has the highest number of users among social media platforms. The question as to whether Facebook is a more favorable choice of social media than a blog for political purposes must be addressed. In this comparative study, cross-sectional data collected in the 2009 and 2014 Taiwan local elections were used for exploring the differences among voter motivations, perceived credibility, and dependency between the use of political blogs and Facebook. In addition, the impact factors regarding the relationship between blogs and Facebook dependency were analyzed. The findings indicate that voter motivations, perceived credibility, and dependency were higher for political blogs than they were for Facebook, suggesting that in a political context, people prefer blogs to Facebook. The results of regression analyses indicate that the motivation for debating political topics was a significant predictor of the dependency on blogs, whereas motivations for general information and entertainment were related to Facebook use. The perceived credibility was not related to blog use; however, accuracy and information depth were significant factors for the use of Facebook. The reasons for the differences between peoples’ use of political blogs and Facebook are discussed in this paper. This study advances our understanding on the variations in people’s use of different social media platforms in a political context, and few studies have investigated this topic from a user-oriented perspective.     

Social acceptance of location-based mobile government services for emergency management

Location-based services deployed by governments can be used to assist people manage emergencies via their mobile handsets. Research delineating the acceptance of public services in the domain of emergency management has been scantly investigated in information systems. The main aim of this study is to assess the viability of location-based mobile emergency services by: (i) exploring the issues related to location-based services and their nationwide utilisation for emergency management; (ii) investigating the attitudinal and behavioural implications of the services; and (iii) examining the social acceptance or rejection of the services and identify the determinants of this acceptance or rejection. The results reveal that both attitude and perceived usefulness demonstrate a good prediction power of behavioural intention. Although perceived ease of use was found not to be a predictor of attitude, the results affirm its influence on perceived usefulness. The results also demonstrate the role of trust as the most influential determinant of individual perception of the usefulness of the services. Further, the results indicate that only the collection of personal location information, as a perceived privacy concern, had a significant negative impact on trust. Implications and future research are also discussed.     

Measuring consumer perception of social media marketing activities in e-commerce industry: Scale development & validation

The internet has changed the nature of shopping in the past two decades, which has supported the proliferation of e-commerce sites and thus shopping has shifted to e-shopping. Also, customers use social media to gain information on preferred products with the best price options, as social media provides shoppers a voice, and facilitate them to interact and share their opinion worldwide. Moreover, social media is extensively adopted platform for e-commerce. Although, social media marketing has achieved wide acceptance in business, especially in e-commerce, there is no scale in the extant literature to measure perceived social media marketing activities (SMMA) in an e-commerce context. Therefore, this study develops and validates a 15-item, five-dimensional scale for measuring perceived SMMA of e-commerce based on extant literature on e-commerce and social media marketing and five different studies conducted in this research. The scale revealed comprehensive psychometric characteristics as per the results from the diverse reliability and validity checks. It was revealed that perceived SMMA positively influenced purchase intention and brand equity; which endorses the nomological validity of the developed scale. The new scale provides both theoretical as well as managerial implications along with the avenues for forthcoming research.     

Selective Exposure and Reinforcement of Attitudes and Partisanship Before a Presidential Election

Right before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this 2‐session online field study examined consequences of selective exposure to political messages on accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the first session, participants indicated attitudes toward political issues and their partisanship, which allowed measuring accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the second session, participants browsed articles. Four issues were covered by 8 articles, with 2 articles featuring opposing perspectives. Selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Finally, participants completed measures for attitudes and partisanship again. Selective exposure to attitude‐consistent articles was linked to greater attitude accessibility. The indirect impact of selective exposure on partisanship accessibility through attitude accessibility was significant.