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Employing the cognitive mediation model, the study aims to examine a moderated-mediation mechanism of social media news use contingent upon elaboration on political knowledge through fact-checking – specifically, the interaction effect of social media news with elaboration on fact-checking.

The moderated-mediation model is tested using panel survey data collected during the 2016 USA presidential election (N = 1,624 at Wave 1; N = 637 at Wave 2).

The findings reveal that social media news users are frequent visitors of fact-checking websites. Results also suggest that those with increased social media news use and cognitive elaboration on news content are more likely to visit fact-checking sites, which contributes to increased political knowledge.

The results of the current study, especially in the era of social media environment where various information is overflowing, suggest an important role of individuals' responsibility as democratic citizens given that people's cognitive elaboration and surveillance efforts, which tries to think about important public issues they consume through media, could strengthen a positive pathway toward informed citizens.

This study examined how likeminded Facebook comments with incivility and without supporting evidence influence readers' evaluations of the commenter and online political participation intention. This study also investigated whether the indirect effect of exposure to uncivil comments and comments without evidence on online political participation through evaluations of the commenters is contingent on the strength of partisanship.

The study used a 2 (uncivil comments vs civil comments) × 2 (comments without supporting evidence vs comments with supporting evidence) factorial design with a scenario about reading similar viewpoints about the gun control issue in Facebook comments.

The results showed that compared to exposure to civil agreeing comments, exposure to uncivil likeminded comments resulted in higher levels of negative evaluations of the commenters, which in turn decreased willingness to participate in political activities online. Exposure to comments without evidence led to more negative evaluations of the commenters, but it did not significantly influence online political participation. In addition, the strength of partisanship did not significantly moderate the indirect effect of exposure to uncivil comments and comments without evidence on online political participation through evaluations of the commenters.

Although previous studies have demonstrated the significant effects of incivility and reasoned argument, little is known about whether and how people evaluate ingroup members' comments that are uncivil and lacking reasoned arguments. Most of these studies have examined incivility in political contexts, but few have extended the context to the effect of likeminded comments, especially when the comments are uncivil and lack supporting evidence. The current study aims to fill this gap in the literature.

This study examines the direct and indirect effect mechanisms of how using smartphones for social media is associated with college students' civic engagement via levels of communication network heterogeneity and social capital. In addition, this study tests whether such indirect effects mechanisms are moderated by the need to belong.

The study analyzes data from an online survey (N = 580) conducted at a public university. The PROCESS macro is used to examine the mediation association between mobile social media use, communication network heterogeneity, social capital, and civic engagement and the moderated mediation conditional upon need to belong.

College students who often use smartphones for social media were more likely to communicate with people who have different socio-demographic characteristics and different opinions. There was also a positive mediation mechanism between smartphone use for social media, network heterogeneity, social capital and civic engagement, which means that college students who often use mobile social media are more likely to communicate with heterogeneous others and develop a sense of social capital, which in turn led to greater levels of civic engagement. Importantly, these indirect effects of smartphone use for social media on civic engagement were stronger for those with greater levels of need to belong.

The findings of the current study are significant given that little is known about how young adults' mobile social media use is associated with communication network heterogeneity and civic engagement in their everyday life. The research expands the research agenda by investigating the most popular interactive communication media platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process by which social media news use leads individuals to engage in attempted political persuasion, examining the mediating roles of cognitive elaboration, political knowledge, political efficacy and political interest.

The study relies on a nationally representative two-wave online survey collected before the 2016 US Presidential Election. Serial mediation is tested using the PROCESS macro.

The study finds significant indirect effects of social media news use on political persuasion via cognitive elaboration, political knowledge, political efficacy and political interest.

Causal inferences should be made with caution. While the measurement of cognitive elaboration is based on prior literature, it is a complex mental process that could be measured more directly in future research.

The findings imply that social media news use contributes to a potentially discursive environment in which cross-cutting views may drive argumentation. Thus, the study sheds light on how social media contribute to persuasive political conversation.

The study applies the O-S-R-O-R model to political persuasion and highlights the processes of reflection, understanding and elaboration that convert news use into attempted persuasion.

The purpose of this study is to examine the knowledge gap hypothesis in the context of smartphone use for news to understand whether mobile news consumption could bridge or widen the knowledge gap between people of higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES).

The authors examine how smartphone news consumption is associated with the knowledge gap hypothesis by analyzing a survey dataset from Hong Kong. This study focuses specifically on a moderated mediation model in which the indirect effect of mobile news consumption on political knowledge via discussion network heterogeneity is contingent on level of education.

Smartphone use for news/information was positively associated with level of discussion network heterogeneity. The indirect effect of smartphone news use on political knowledge via discussion network heterogeneity was stronger for those with lower levels of education.

This study advances the understanding of the role of smartphone use in contributing to the functioning of deliberative democracy as this use enhances discussion network heterogeneity and general levels of political knowledge. Moreover, our study contributes to the literature on the knowledge gap by not only examining the relationship between smartphone use, discussion heterogeneity, and political knowledge but also taking into consideration individual levels of education.

Despite the remarkable growth of the luxury industry, a phenomenon referred to as luxury fever, as well as the growing interest in word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing in the industry at hand, little is known about how consumers’ perceived leadership of luxury brands dynamically influences their WOM behavior. This paper aims to examine the moderating role of a type of luxuries (accessible vs inaccessible) in the relationship between the four dimensions of perceived brand leadership – quality, value, innovativeness and popularity – and consumers’ WOM recommendation intention.

The current research is based on survey data gathered from 333 actual customers who attend five golf clubs located in North Florida. An innovative data analysis procedure that combines structural equation modeling with propensity score analysis to estimate the moderating effects, controlling for selection bias, is presented.

Quality was the significant predictor of WOM among consumers of inaccessible luxuries (private club). In contrast, financial value and popularity were key factors in predicting WOM of individuals who chose accessible luxuries (public club).

This paper attempts to shed new light on the field of strategic luxury marketing by addressing differential consumption decision-making processes corresponding to hierarchically constructed luxury services. In addition, an innovative way is suggested to achieve covariates’ balance in the examinations of latent variables and multisampling models for observational research.

Building on the social leverage model (SLM), this study aims to examine the influence of event-related attributes on residents' perceived social impact of a major sport event, as mediated by event involvement. It also investigates the moderating effect of event rights holders' credibility on the relationship between event involvement and perceived social impact.

Using a two-wave, time-lagged survey, data were collected from 220 residents of a Super Bowl host city. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

High celebratory atmosphere, social camaraderie and social responsibility as perceived before the event were associated with residents' perceptions of the social impact of the Super Bowl. Moreover, the association between social camaraderie and perceived social impact was mediated by event involvement. When appraising the rights holder as credible, involved residents reported an increased level of perceived social impact.

This study contributes to research on the SLM by demonstrating its application among indirect participants of major sport events. Additionally, it suggests the imperative role of rights holders' credibility in promoting the perceived social impact among involved residents.

Marketers worldwide consider athlete endorsement a highly effective promotional tool. However, little is known about consumers' responses towards athlete endorsement in global markets - particularly the bi-directional image transfer mechanism. This study examines the image match between athlete endorsers and products using a three-dimensional visual map and comparing image perceptions towards athlete endorsements among respondent groups from Japan, Korea and the United States during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The results show that image perceptions of selected athlete endorsers, endorsed products and their match are significantly different in these markets.

The current study aims to develop a comprehensive hierarchical model of traits and needs to provide a theoretical understanding of personality determinants of luxury-services consumption.

The sample comprised 415 single-event buyers of premium seats in sports stadiums. The causal relationships of hierarchically ordered four traits – elemental, compound, situational and surface – were examined.

Extraversion was found to be an important trait for needs for material resources and status, while conscientiousness and openness were important predictors of need for arousal. Furthermore, needs for material resources, status and uniqueness were found to be important for self-value consciousness. Self-value consciousness was found to be an important predictor of purchase intention.

The study integrates fragmented luxury services research on individual differences. The findings about the personality determinants would provide relatively consistent predictions behind luxury-services consumption potentially applicable to diverse luxury markets.

The purpose of this study was to test whether endorsements that show a low strength of association (bottom-up bias) benefit from increased attention and processing efforts. The current study also tested whether consumer involvement level (top-down bias) dynamically interacts with the bottom-up attention phenomena.

Through a series of pretests, 36 potential celebrity-product matches were identified using real athletes and product brands. Two experiments were conducted: 330 individual responses (110 participants × three conditions) were obtained in a within-subjects lab experiment, and 868 participants were recruited for a between-subjects online experiment. Linear mixed modeling and moderated mediation analysis were performed.

The relationships between the strength of image associations and attention time to endorsements and recall and choice consideration of endorsed brands were U-shaped and curvilinear. Attention largely mediated the relationship between the strength of association and recall/choice. Involvement effects were diluted by the strength of association effects, rejecting top-down attentional control.

Brand managers for both products and celebrities are recommended to search for corresponding not only image-matched partners but also endorsement partners with dissonant pre-existing images.

The majority of the existing endorsement literature has conventionally suggested that congruence between the endorser and the endorsed property, rather than incongruence, induces consumers’ positive endorsement evaluation. This study constructs important theoretical advancements to the existing literature by empirically proving that through an attentional process, an endorsement contract, conventionally perceived as mismatched, can also generate positive outcomes.