Message Source Research Articles

Engaging audiences on social media: Identifying relationships between message factors and user engagement on the American Cancer Society’s Facebook page

In this study, a content analysis was conducted with posts from American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Facebook page to explore the relationship between message relevance, source characteristics, and message features with the number of likes, comments, and shares received by them. Limited Capacity Model for Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) was used as the theoretical foundation for the study. Findings showed that cancer-related posts received more likes, comments and shares than posts that were not related to cancer. Also, posts by the American Cancer Society received more likes, comments, and shares than other source categories. Findings also indicated that though message features were related to likes, comments, and shares, the nature of relationship and the role of different features varied with each measure. Overall, findings highlight the role of motivational activation through message factors in eliciting user response in social media environments.

The Influence of Patient Identification and Narrative Transportation on Intentions to Participate in Cancer Research.

Cancer decision-making interventions commonly utilize narratives as a persuasive strategy to increase identification with the message source, promote involvement with the topic, and elicit greater willingness to adopt recommended behaviors. However, there is little empirical research examining the mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of this strategy in the context of cancer research participation. Data for the current manuscript were collected as part of a larger study conducted with cancer patients (N= 413) from the USA, UK, and the Republic of Ireland. Participants viewed and evaluated video-recorded vignettes, illustrating different strategies for discussing clinical trials participation with family members. Results showed nationality was a significant predictor of identification with the main character (i.e., patient) in the vignette. Unexpectedly, these cross-national differences in identification disappeared when patients currently undergoing treatment had higher perceived susceptibility of their cancer. Identification with the main character in the vignettes was a significant predictor of intentions to participate in cancer research, but only when the mediating role of narrative transportation was considered. The findings demonstrate the importance of considering how individual and social identities influence identification with characters in cancer narratives and yield practical guidance for developing arts-based interventions to increase cancer research participation.

Who is Saying What on Twitter: An Analysis of Messages with References to HIV and HIV Risk Behavior.

This research aimed to determine the nature of social media discussions about HIV. With the goal of conducting a descriptive analysis, we collected almost 1,000 tweets posted February to September 2015. The sample of tweets included keywords related to HIV or behavioral risk factors (e.g., sex, drug use) and was coded for content (e.g., HIV), behavior change strategies, and message source. Seven percent of tweets concerned HIV/AIDS, which were often referred to as jokes or insults. The majority of tweets coded as behavior change attempts involved attitude change strategies. The majority of the tweets (80%) came from private users (vs. organizations). Different types of sources employed different types of behavior change strategies: For instance, private users, compared to experts or organizations, included more strategies to decrease detrimental attitudes (29% versus 6%, p < .001), and also more strategies to counter myths and misinformation (6% versus 1%, p = .008). In summary, tweets related to HIV/AIDS and associated risk factors frequently use the terms in jokes and insults, come largely from private users, and entail attitudinal and informational strategies. Online health campaigns with clear calls to action and corrections of misinformation may make important contributions to social media conversations about HIV/AIDS.

Reliability of Multicast Under Random Linear Network Coding

We consider a lossy multicast network in which the reliability is provided by means of random linear network coding. Our goal is to characterize the performance of such network in terms of the probability that a source message is delivered to all destination nodes. Previous studies considered coding over large finite fields, small numbers of destination nodes or specific, often impractical, channel conditions. In contrast, we focus on a general problem, considering arbitrary field size and number of destination nodes, and a realistic channel. We propose a lower bound on the probability of successful delivery, which is more accurate than the approximation commonly used in the literature. In addition, we present a novel performance analysis of the systematic version of RLNC. The accuracy of the proposed performance framework is verified via extensive Monte Carlo simulations, where the impact of the network and code parameters are investigated. Specifically, we show that the mean square error of the bound for a ten-user network can be as low as $9 \cdot 10^{-5}$ for non-systematic RLNC.

Achievable Rates for Discrete Memoryless Multicast Networks With and Without Feedback

Discrete memoryless multicast network (DM-MN) is considered in this paper. We analyze the lower bounds of noisy network coding (NNC) and distributed decode-forward (DDF) for DM-MN, and show that both NNC and DDF ignore the channel output observed at the transmitter. Motivated by this observation, new coding schemes are proposed to improve NNC and DDF by exploiting the transmitter’s observation and applying hybrid relaying strategies. We first study a special case when the transmitter’s observation is rate-limited feedback signals, and propose a scheme that strictly improves NNC when feedback rates are sufficiently large. For the relay channel with perfect relay-transmitter feedback, our achievable rate reduces to Gabbai and Bross’s rate, which is strictly larger than NNC, DDF, and all known lower bounds on the achievable rates proposed for the setup without feedback. In our scheme, both relays and receivers compress their received signals like NNC, and the relays decode independent “common” and “private” parts of the source message. The generated compression indices are sent to the transmitter through feedback, from which the transmitter reconstructs the receivers’ and relays’ inputs and can thus cooperate with the receivers and relays. We then extend our idea to DM-MN without feedback. For this case, although the transmitter observes channel output, both NNC and DDF simply ignore it, while our new scheme has the transmitter utilize its channel output to decode a set of relays’ and receivers’ compression indices, which achieves some cooperation levels between the transmitter and the receivers and relays. An enhanced relay channel is introduced to show that our scheme strictly outperforms NNC and DDF.

The Importance of ‘Likes’: The Interplay of Message Framing, Source, and Social Endorsement on Credibility Perceptions of Health Information on Facebook

Online sources not only permeate the information-seeking environment of the younger generation, but also have profound influence in shaping their beliefs and behaviors. In this landscape, examining the factors responsible for credibility perceptions of online information is fundamental, particularly for health-related information. Using a 2 (frames: gain vs. loss) × 2 (source: expert vs. non-expert) × 2 (social endorsement: high vs. low) randomized between-subjects experimental design, this study examines the effect of health message framing and the moderating effects of social endorsement and source type on credibility perceptions of Facebook posts. Testing across two issues––physical activity and alcohol consumption––findings indicate that the gain-framed message was perceived as most credible. Additionally, significant three-way interactions suggest that social endorsement and source type affect the relationship between message framing and credibility perceptions. Specifically, the findings demonstrate that a gain-framed message from an expert source with high number of ‘likes’ is considered the most credible message. These findings have significant implications for information gathering from social media sources, such as the influence of ‘likes’ on health information.

Complaint as a persuasion attempt: Front line employees’ perceptions of complaint legitimacy

Given the rising number of fraudulent returns and illegitimate complaints both in merchandise and service settings, the purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of such behavior by examining employees’ perceptions of complaint legitimacy. Determining complaint authenticity is a crucial step towards detecting fraudulent claims since employees must judge legitimacy of the complaint according to the rationale offered by the customer. This research conceptualizes complaints as an attempt at persuasion by the customer and empirically tests whether persuasion models work in reverse, i.e. where a customer plays no longer a role of a target but rather acts as a message source. The proposed model draws on source, context and receiver factors and findings indicate that the fundamentals of persuasion research are also applicable to complaining episodes. Using survey data collected from the front line hotel employees, customer (customer trustworthiness and attractiveness), situational (severity of service failure), and employee (customer orientation and conflict avoidance) characteristics were found to have an impact on the target's perceptions concerning the cognitive legitimacy of the message itself. In essence, the present study suggests that the employee perception on whether the voiced complaint is legitimate or not go far beyond the actual message itself; rather, employees make their conclusions on complaint legitimacy based on peripheral cues and internal characteristics.

Social-cultural-psychological perspectives on future word-of-mouth research

What causes people to create and share WOM (word of mouth)? Many of the previous studies have tried to find answers from message sources (i.e. friends acquaintances or others), communication channel (media mix and social media), and message traits (i.e. credibility, correctness, and referability), to name a few. In particular, previous studies on WOM in marketing context derive much of its thrust from social communication among people who have previously experienced noteworthy events or activities. Previous researchers have also recognized the critical role of WOM in consumers’ purchase decision or product choices. However, the past literature is relatively scant in areas of individual consumer’s sociocultural and psychological conditions that dictate how consumers collect, create, and disseminate information through WOM. Thus, in this review article, we introduce some of the major findings on four areas: prior experiences, social network, cultural influence, and social capital, and provide some critical insights on future research directions. Finally, this essay provides insights for future research based on recent theoretical developments centering on consumers’ motives as principal drivers of WOM.

Lattice Codes Achieve the Capacity of Common Message Gaussian Broadcast Channels With Coded Side Information

Lattices possess elegant mathematical properties which have been previously used in the literature to show that structured codes can be efficient in a variety of communication scenarios, including coding for the additive white Gaussian noise channel, dirty-paper channel, Wyner–Ziv coding, coding for relay networks, and so forth. We consider the family of single-transmitter multiple-receiver Gaussian channels, where the source transmits a set of common messages to all the receivers (multicast scenario), and each receiver has coded side information , i.e., prior information in the form of linear combinations of the messages. This channel model is motivated by applications to multi-terminal networks, where the nodes may have access to coded versions of the messages from previous signal hops or through orthogonal channels. The capacity of this channel is known and follows from the work of Tuncel (2006), which is based on random coding arguments. In this paper, following the approach of Erez and Zamir, we design lattice codes for this family of channels when the source messages are symbols from a finite field $\mathbb {F}_{p}$ of prime size. Our coding scheme utilizes Construction A lattices designed over the same prime field $\mathbb {F}_{p}$ , and uses algebraic binning at the decoders to expurgate the channel code and obtain good lattice subcodes, for every possible set of linear combinations available as side information. The achievable rate of our coding scheme is a function of the size $p$ of underlying prime field, and approaches the capacity as $p$ tends to infinity.

A Distributed Message Delivery Infrastructure for Connected Vehicle Technology Applications

A complex and vast amount of data will be collected from on-board sensors of operational connected vehicles (CVs), infrastructure data sources such as roadway sensors and traffic signals, mobile data sources such as cell phones, social media sources such as Twitter, and news and weather data services. Unfortunately, these data will create a bottleneck at data centers for processing and retrievals of collected data, and will require the deployment of additional message transfer infrastructure between data producers and consumers to support diverse CV applications. In this paper, we present a strategy for creating an efficient and low-latency distributed message delivery system for CV applications using a distributed message delivery platform. This strategy enables large-scale ingestion, curation, and transformation of unstructured data (roadway traffic-related and roadway non-traffic-related data) into labeled and customized topics for a large number of subscribers or consumers, such as CVs, mobile devices, and data centers. We evaluate the performance of this strategy by developing a prototype infrastructure using Apache Kafka, an open source message delivery system, and compared its performance with the latency requirements of CV applications. We present experimental results of the message delivery infrastructure on two different distributed computing testbeds at Clemson University: the Holocron cluster and the Palmetto cluster. Experiments were performed to measure the latency of the message delivery system for a variety of testing scenarios. These experiments reveal that measured latencies are less than the U.S. Department of Transportation recommended latency requirements for CV applications, which prove the efficacy of the system for CV related data distribution and management tasks.

Evaluation of a population-level strategy to promote tobacco treatment use among insured smokers: a pragmatic, randomized trial

BackgroundMost smokers do not use evidence-based smoking cessation treatment. Increasing utilization of these services is an important public health goal. Health care systems and insurers are well positioned to support this goal within their patient populations. We tested whether a brief, mail-based intervention increased utilization of tobacco cessation services among insured smokers.MethodsAdult smokers were identified via automated health plan data and randomized to one of five treatment arms (n = 4767). Randomization was stratified by gender, age, and type of health plan coverage. Three arms received a letter containing motivational content and treatment referral information. Motivational content emphasized either the financial, health, or values-based benefits of quitting. One arm received a referral letter with no motivational content, and one arm received no letter. Enrollment in the referred tobacco cessation program was monitored for 5 months. Treatment was available to all participants through their insurance.ResultsAcross all four letter conditions, 0.8% of participants enrolled in tobacco treatment compared to 0.9% in the no letter reference group (p = .69). No single letter condition was superior to the others (p = .71), but treatment uptake was greater among participants who received their care and coverage from the health plan versus those with insurance coverage only (1.2% vs. 0.3%, p < .01).ConclusionsA one-time, mailed letter is not a cost-effective strategy for promoting use of covered smoking cessation treatment within large health plan populations, particularly when the message source is an insurance provider only and does not also provide clinical care. Health plans and insurers should consider alternative outreach efforts to promote treatment uptake among smokers.Trial registrationsTRN registered retrospectively with ISRCTN registry (www.isrctn.com). Registered on 11/01/2018. Registration number: ISRCTN32311137.

Factors Influencing Trust in Agencies That Disseminate Tobacco Prevention Information.

Several health-related agencies administer national and targeted public education campaigns to provide health information and change health-related behaviors. The trust the public has in these agencies as the source of the message impacts the effectiveness of their communication campaigns. In this study, we explore the perceived trust of agencies that communicate health messages in the tobacco control field. As part of a larger tobacco regulatory science study, we conducted six 90-min focus groups comprising 41 participants. Five main themes emerged pertinent to the agency: (1) its integrity, (2) its competence, (3) its motives, (4) how it is portrayed in the media, and (5) skepticism and mistrust about it. Given the significant resources spent on health messaging to the public and potential benefits offered by this communication, an understanding of public trust in the agencies as the source of health messages is important. Findings suggest health information may be ignored or discounted when there is mistrust in the agency sending those messages.

Memorable Messages from Family Members About Mental Health: Young Adult Perceptions of Relational Closeness, Message Satisfaction, and Clinical Help-Seeking Attitudes

ABSTRACT This study investigates memorable messages about mental health that young adults (YAs) recall receiving from family members. A memorable messages conceptual framework is adopted to explore message types and their associations with relevant individual and relational outcomes. Findings from a study of 193 memorable messages about mental health revealed three types of messages about mental health transmitted by family members: strategizing, normalizing, and minimizing messages. Statistical analyses indicated that memorable message types were significantly related to YA satisfaction with the message, perceptions of relational closeness between the message source and the YA message recipient, and YA attitudes about mental-health help seeking. Overall, participants who reported minimizing messages about mental health also reported the least favorable outcomes on the set of dependent variables. Implications of these findings and future directions for research are discussed.

Understanding Fear of Zika: Personal, Interpersonal, and Media Influences.

Fear of infectious disease often motivates people to protect themselves. But, it can also produce negative bio-social-psychological effects whose severity is on par with those of the disease. The WHO declaration of Zika as a world health crisis presented an opportunity to study factors that bring about fear. Beginning nine days after the WHO announcement, data were gathered from women aged 18-35 living in the southern United States (N = 719). Respondents reported experiencing fear of Zika at levels akin to those reported following other significant crises/disasters (e.g., the terrorist attacks of 9/11). Fear increased as a function of (1) personal, but not other-relevance, (2) frequency of media exposure, but not media content, and (3) frequency of interpersonal exposure and interpersonal content. It is argued that media and interpersonal message sources may be innately predisposed to amplify, rather than attenuate, risk.

The vicarious and source credibility grid across cultures

AbstractThe manuscript offers an expansion of a traditional view of source credibility based on evaluation of a message source with inclusion of vicarious credibility (evaluation by members of a social network). The move reflects the need to consider differing cultural perspectives on how a message source might become evaluated. Data from 1,149 participants (US, Spanish, Japanese) identify vicarious and source credibility as significantly different. Classification results from discriminant analysis, where vicarious and source become a single function to create new grounds for cross-cultural communication research. The new paradigm requires the examination of both vicarious credibility in conjunction with source credibility that produce a credibility grid.

Code‐Hopping Based Transmission Scheme for Wireless Physical‐Layer Security

Due to the broadcast and time‐varying natures of wireless channels, traditional communication systems that provide data encryption at the application layer suffer many challenges such as error diffusion. In this paper, we propose a code‐hopping based secrecy transmission scheme that uses dynamic nonsystematic low‐density parity‐check (LDPC) codes and automatic repeat‐request (ARQ) mechanism to jointly encode and encrypt source messages at the physical layer. In this scheme, secret keys at the transmitter and the legitimate receiver are generated dynamically upon the source messages that have been transmitted successfully. During the transmission, each source message is jointly encoded and encrypted by a parity‐check matrix, which is dynamically selected from a set of LDPC matrices based on the shared dynamic secret key. As for the eavesdropper (Eve), the uncorrectable decoding errors prevent her from generating the same secret key as the legitimate parties. Thus she cannot select the correct LDPC matrix to recover the source message. We demonstrate that our scheme can be compatible with traditional cryptosystems and enhance the security without sacrificing the error‐correction performance. Numerical results show that the bit error rate (BER) of Eve approaches 0.5 as the number of transmitted source messages increases and the security gap of the system is small.

Real Time Assessment of Young Adults' Attitudes toward Tobacco Messages.

We used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine young adults' attitudes towards pro-tobacco messages encountered in real time and their association with intentions to use tobacco. Young adults (N = 92, ages 18-29) recorded sightings of marketing or social media related to tobacco in real time via mobile app for 28 days. Participants reported message characteristics, their attitudes towards the message, and intentions to use the depicted product for each submission. We used generalized linear mixed models to examine factors related to attitude towards message and intentions to use tobacco. Messages depicting e-cigarettes (p < .001) or hookah (p < .05) were associated with significantly more favorable attitudes compared with traditional cigarettes. Positive attitude towards the message was significantly associated with intention to use the depicted product (p < .001). Messages depicting e-cigarettes and hookah were significantly associated with higher intention to use. Message source was not significantly related to attitudes towards the message or product use intentions. Marketing featuring e-cigarettes and hookah is an important target for future regulation. Given that pro-tobacco and e-cigarette messages are prevalent online, future research should consider the Internet and social media as important venues for counter-marketing and intervention efforts.

Facebook and Governance: Audience Perception, Believability and Use of Its Political Messages in Anambra State

There is no doubt that the new media heralded a dawn of technological advancement which certainly altered the way things were done in the media realm, this change did not only affect the way news and other media products are packaged, but the relationship between media and politics, political campaigns, issues of governance and so on. Interestingly, Facebook, one of the popular platforms of social media has been identified as a tool for political participation. Using a survey of 400 persons drawn from Anambra State as a focal point, the researchers examined the audience perception, believability and the extent of use of political messages on the Facebook. The study came up with the following findings: that the audience in Anambra state relied on the Facebook as a source of political messages, that they did not perceive these political messages from the Facebook as credible, and/or reflection of what they say, but more as propaganda statements. That Facebook users in Anambra State do not believe these political messages and finally that they employed the Facebook particularly as a tool for accessing political information and at other time for political education. The study is significant in that it will serve as a mirror to the political class on the effect of their various political messages on facebook. The study recommended among others that the political class while using facebook for political communication should repackage the contents to look credible and believable like those on the mainstream media.

Locating the Source of Message Diffusion in the Anonymous Network

Locating the source of message diffusion in the anonymous network is vital for the network management and security. Existing works primarily focus on finding the disease propagation source in a normal network, few works have focused on tracing back the messages in an anonymous network. In this paper, we propose a method to enable us to identify the propagation source of the anonymous message. We are the first to use the message propagation model for the Crowds anonymous network. Based on the simulation study, we demonstrate that the effectiveness of our proposed method.

Security Analysis of Subspace Network Coding

This paper analyzed the security of constant dimensional subspace code against wiretap attacks. The security was measured in the probability with which an eavesdropper guessed the source message successfully. With the methods of linear algebra and combinatorics, an analytic solution of the probability was obtained. Performance of subspace code was compared to several secure network coding schemes from the perspective of security, flexibility, complexity, and independence, etc. The comparison showed subspace code did not have perfect security, but it achieved probabilistic security with low complexity. As a result, subspace code was suitable to the applications with limited computation and moderate security requirement.