This study examines the impacts of news veracity, source credibility, collective social endorsement, and perceptions of Twitter's utility on perceived credibility of and engagement with social media news posts. We conducted a 2 (Veracity: real vs. fake) × 2 (Source Credibility: credible vs. non-credible) x 2 (Collective Social Endorsement: high vs. low) online experiment (N = 271). In processing news posts, news veracity and source credibility influenced users' perceptions of post credibility, in that real news posts from credible sources were perceived as more credible than fake news posts from non-credible sources. Contrary to previous findings, social endorsement cues did not affect users' perceptions of post credibility or news engagement intent. More importantly, users' perceptions of Twitter's helpfulness in staying informed were associated with post credibility and intent to ‘like’ or share. Users with higher perceptions of Twitter's helpfulness were more likely to perceive posts as credible and more likely to engage with posts on social media. The results of this study have important implications for future research on news assessment and spread on social media.

To examine within what kind of social network and with what motivation people tend to share news with their Facebook friends, a 2 (network homophily: high vs. low) x 2 (network size: large vs. small) x 2 (news type: real vs. fake) between-subjects experiment (N = 366) was conducted. The experimental results suggested that network homophily positively influenced news sharing intention, regardless of news type. Furthermore, network size moderated the relationship between network homophily and news sharing intention, but only for real news. Finally, three motivation factors, including socializing, information seeking, and status seeking, were found to be significant mediators to explain this news sharing behavior.

Celebrity endorsements have long been used as a promotional tool in marketing communication. However, literature has documented inconsistent findings on the effects of celebrity endorsements compared to no endorsement or noncelebrity endorsements, suggesting a close examination about the reliability and robustness of celebrity endorsements is needed. This study conducted a p-curve analysis among two sets of published studies based on different comparison groups (celebrity endorsements vs. no celebrity endorsement; celebrity endorsements vs. noncelebrity endorsements) to investigate if both sets of studies contain an evidential value. The significantly right-skewed p curve suggests that both sets of published studies have some integrity. However, the studies that compared celebrity endorsements with no celebrity endorsements showed low statistical power. Theoretical and methodological implications for celebrity endorsement research were discussed.

In recent years, scholars have documented an increase in flaming behavior, which refers to a strong and hostile expression of emotions and feelings online. In order to identify the mechanism and specific circumstances of flaming, this study employed emotional contagion as the main theoretical framework and conducted a 2 (argument presented in a news article: support gun control vs. against gun control) x 2 (volume of negative comments: small vs. large) x 2 (news readers' pre-existing beliefs: support gun control vs. against gun control) between-subjects experiment. Participants were asked to read an online news article about a gun-related topic as well as negative reader comments before they wrote a comment of their own. The experimental results showed that participants were more likely to use swear words in their comments when their viewpoint was diametrically opposed to the argument presented in the news article and when the article was accompanied by a low volume of negative comments. This interaction effect was mediated by negative emotions that participants experienced when reading the article and its associated comments. These findings have theoretical implications for future research pertaining to the identification of online circumstances and causes that could help mitigate the occurrence of flaming.

This study used a 2 (type of news: fake vs. real) × 2 (presence of negative user comments: yes vs. no) × 2 (presence of positive user comments: yes vs. no) between-subjects experimental design to examine the differences in perceived news credibility and sharing intention between fake news and real news on vaccination. Fake news was found to generate a lower level of perceived credibility than real news, which subsequently decreased news sharing intention. Furthermore, negative user comments significantly lowered perceived news credibility, and this was especially true for real news. However, this adverse effect was found to be mitigated by the presence of positive user comments. The experimental results have important theoretical and practical implications for future research on fake news about health and science.

The recent and rapid growth of user engagement on online and social media platforms has attracted increasing attention from communication scholars. Troublingly, little is known about the relationship between "dark" personalities and online communication behavior. There is a distinct need for communication scholars to investigate the impact of anti-social personality traits on computer-mediated communication behavior. To address this, we conducted a survey (N = 147) among undergraduate students living in the US to identify the association between the three Dark Triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) and six computer-mediated communication outcomes (e.g., compulsive Internet behavior, opinion leadership, perceived anonymity, media trust, social media selfpresentation, and psychological reactance). We also examine gender as a potential moderator. These findings show a distinct relationship between Dark Triad personality traits and computer-mediated communication outcomes, highlighting the importance of considering these psychological individual differences in future research in this area.

Given the rapid growth of many Asian economies in recent years, Asian advertising research is attracting increasing attention. However, systematic examinations of how to move this body of research forward from both theoretical and methodological perspectives are lacking. This study discusses a method-related issue in Asian advertising research, specifically focusing on the rating scale length used in measuring consumer attitude and behavioral intention. The experiment examines whether using different rating scale lengths (i.e., 1–3, 1–5, 1–7, and 1–9) will produce inconsistent research results due to the influence of Confucianism on East Asian consumers’ response style. Based on the experimental findings, a theoretical discussion of how to consider the cultural impact on measurement in an East Asian advertising context is provided.