The impact of regulatory focus on adolescents’ evaluation of targeted advertising on social networking sites

This article examines whether individual differences in chronic regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion focus) among adolescents influences the way they evaluate targeted advertising on social networking sites. Study 1 (survey) reveals that adolescents with a promotion focus (who are oriented toward achieving positive outcomes) have a more positive attitude and a higher purchase intention toward targeted advertising, as compared to prevention-focused adolescents (who are dispositioned toward avoiding negative outcomes). Study 2 (experiment) investigates how adolescents' chronic regulatory focus can alter their attitude and purchase intention on a mock social networking site that includes a targeted advertisement. Results show that a low personalized targeted ad is better evaluated (in terms of a more positive attitude and higher purchase intention) among prevention-focused adolescents, whereas a high personalized targeted ad results in better advertising outcomes among promotion-focused adolescents. Contributions to theory and implications for advertising practice are discussed

Odd Wheels in Graphs

AbstractFor k⩾1 the odd wheel of 2k+1 spokes, denoted by W2k+1, is the graph obtained from a cycle of length 2k+1 by adding a new vertex and joining it to all vertices of the cycle. In this paper it is shown that if a graph G of order n with minimum degree greater than 7n/12 is at least 4-chromatic then G contains an odd wheel with at most 5 spokes

“Everything under control?”: Privacy control salience influences both critical processing and perceived persuasiveness of targeted advertising among adolescents

Given that adolescents continuously interact with the user interface of a social networking site, it might be a strategic place to address privacy-related issues. This study investigates whether and how privacy control features embedded in Facebook’s user interface could serve as a cue to influence adolescents in their critical processing and perceived persuasiveness of targeted advertisements. To test this, an experimental study among 178 adolescents aged 14-16 years was conducted. Results reveal that increasing privacy control salience by means of user interface elements leads to more critical processing of targeted advertising; at the same time, when adolescents perceive a higher privacy control, they also evaluate a targeted ad as more effective, convincing and reliable (i.e., increase in perceived persuasiveness). The study further identifies two underlying mechanisms by which these effects operate: perceived control and self-efficacy. Based on these findings, theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed to optimize advertising campaigns on social networking sites in a responsible and privacy-protective way

Frequencies, Drivers, and Solutions to News Non-Attendance: Investigating Differences Between Low News Usage and News (Topic) Avoidance with Conversational Agents

Low levels of news seeking can be problematic for an informed citizenry. Previous research has discussed different types of news non-attendance but conceptual ambiguities between low news usage, general news avoidance, and news topic avoidance still exist. By using a longitudinal design conducted with a chatbot survey among Dutch users (n = 189), this study provides first empirical evidence that helps clarify conceptual differences. First, it estimates the prevalence of these different types of news non-attendance. Second, it tests to what extend cognitive restrictions, quality assessments, and personal relevance are relevant predictors in explaining engagement in three types of non-attendance to news. Third, the study investigates how news usage behaviors (e.g., news curation, news snacking, and verification engagement) may serve as potential user-driven counter strategies against news avoidance. We find evidence for the conceptual differences. Only small shares of news non-attendance are explained by avoidance motivations. Especially news curation and verification engagement can mitigate common drivers of news avoidance, while news snacking reinforces them

Children's processing of new advertising formats: how to improve children's dispositional and situational advertising literacy?

Compared to traditional advertising formats, contemporary advertising is characterized by a more subtle, less intrusive commercial nature. Commercial messages are now frequently integrated in or merged with highly entertaining and fun media content, which distract the users from systematically and critically processing the content. This makes it difficult for consumers, especially young consumers with limited advertising literacy, to evaluate the persuasion attempt critically. Not only do children have a limited general knowledge of advertising (i.e dispositional advertising literacy), they also have difficulty to actually apply this knowledge when confronted with advertising (i.e. situational advertising literacy). To be able to activate their advertising literacy when confronted with (new forms of) advertising, children need certain coping skills, as well as a number of cognitive, emotion regulation and moral capacities. As studies focusing on strategies to improve the situational advertising literacy of children remain scarce, the current presentation will focus on the interrelationships between dispositional and situational advertising literacy to investigate how children can be assisted in their recognition and critical processing of (new) advertising formats. We hereby refer to Friestad and Wright’s (1994) ‘if-then’ procedure (i.e. “if people are made aware of a persuasion attempt, they then have to figure out how to effectively manage their response to this attempt”) in order to reflect on how we can help children to 1) realize that they are confronted with advertising in order to 2) be able to process it in a critical manner. However, for children, this second step may not follow automatically from the first step when confronted with new advertising formats. Research shows that recognition of advertising does not automatically lead to a critical evaluation. Therefore, we reflect on how these two steps can be linked successfully and automatically. A suggestion proposed by this paper is the use of automatic and implicit tactics such as persuasive intent priming and implementation intentions to improve children’s associative network and learn them to cope with advertising. Besides reflecting on specific strategies that can be used to improve children’s dispositional and situational advertising literacy, this presentation will also reflect on children’s processing of advertising formats and the challenges for their advertising literacy in the contemporary advertising environment

Considering advertising literacy from a methodological point of view: past practices and future recommendations

The concern that minors do not comprehend commercial messages in the same way as do more mature audiences, and hence, are highly susceptible to advertising influence has led to a substantial body of research focusing on minors’ development of advertising literacy and their susceptibility to persuasion attempts. Yet, the results of these studies yield mixed results and are far from univocal. These inconsistencies lie in the fact that the majority of these studies have used different operational definitions of advertising literacy. Put differently, the literature is not entirely straightforward in what instruments provide the most valid and reliable measurement of advertising literacy. Based on this line of reasoning, the first key purpose of this article is to give an overview of the various quantitative measurement methods used in previous research and discuss their applicability and validity. In past advertising literacy research, many studies used a variety of quantitate measures to assess advertising literacy among children. These measurements require children to express their understanding in their own words, or by choosing from a set of answer options (e.g. semantic differential or Likert scales, set of pictures, etc.) presented verbally, visually or in written form. In the context of this manuscript, four principal quantitative methods will be reviewed: the (structured) interview, verbal self-report, visual self-report and game-play. In addition, a clear distinction will be made between situational and dispositional advertising literacy measures, a distinction barely addressed in past research. However, disentangling the abovementioned inconsistency in measurement methods cannot be accomplished by simply reviewing past studies and classifying them according to measurement technique. Instead, the research community investigating the topic of advertising literacy has to look forward towards future research with more systematic unity in the employment of quantitative measurement tools. Therefore, the second key purpose of this manuscript is to formulate helpful recommendations for practitioners and scholars in terms of what methods are, according to us, most appropriate to use for measuring advertising literacy, offering them useful guidance in their quest for an suitable instrument. These recommendations will be approached by a (cognitive) developmental perspective since research methods that involve children as respondents depend primarily on age. The latter will be achieved by defining certain age groups and discuss the most effective or suitable method for each group

Overcoming polarization with chatbot news? Investigating the impact of news content containing opposing views on agreement and credibility

Chatbots are a burgeoning opportunity for news media outlets to disseminate their content in a conversational way, and create an engaging experience around it. Since chatbots are social and interactive technologies, they might be effective tools to lower the threshold of engaging with news content containing opposing views. In an experiment, we test this idea by investigating whether people are more likely to accept a news article containing conflicting views when it is delivered by a chatbot, as compared with the same article on a news website. The results indicated that people agreed more to a counter-attitudinal news article when it was delivered by a news chatbot (compared with the website article). In addition, users also perceived this chatbot article as more credible. The underlying process for this effect was that people attributed human-like characteristics to the chatbot on an implicit level (i.e., perceived mindless anthropomorphism). These results are discussed in the light of their potential contribution to an informed public discourse and a decrease in polarization in our society