Reducing Resistance: The Impact of Nonfollowers’ and Followers’ Parasocial Relationships with Social Media Influencers on Persuasive Resistance and Advertising Effectiveness

IF 4.4 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Human Communication Research Pub Date : 2021-07-29 DOI:10.1093/hcr/hqab006

Priska Breves, N. Liebers, B. Motschenbacher, Leonie Reus

{"title":"Reducing Resistance: The Impact of Nonfollowers’ and Followers’ Parasocial Relationships with Social Media Influencers on Persuasive Resistance and Advertising Effectiveness","authors":"Priska Breves, N. Liebers, B. Motschenbacher, Leonie Reus","doi":"10.1093/hcr/hqab006","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Although social media influencers have become popular brand endorsers, previous research on this new form of advertising has neglected to analyze how the followers of these influencers are persuaded. Based on a key mechanism proposed by the entertainment overcoming resistance model, long-term parasocial relationships (PSRs) should reduce the amount of persuasive resistance in the forms of reactance and counterarguing. Consequently, the persuasive effects should be enhanced. To empirically test these assumptions, two online studies were conducted. The first experimental study (N = 151) confirmed that followers experienced stronger PSRs than did nonfollowers, which resulted in higher perceived source trustworthiness and reduced levels of both perceived freedom threat and counterarguing after exposure to a sponsored Instagram post. The second study (N = 225) further confirmed the enhanced persuasive impact of PSRs in terms of brand evaluations and behavioral intentions. The theoretical and practical implications for advertisers, consumer advocates, and future research are discussed.","PeriodicalId":51377,"journal":{"name":"Human Communication Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"16","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Human Communication Research","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqab006","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 16

Abstract

Although social media influencers have become popular brand endorsers, previous research on this new form of advertising has neglected to analyze how the followers of these influencers are persuaded. Based on a key mechanism proposed by the entertainment overcoming resistance model, long-term parasocial relationships (PSRs) should reduce the amount of persuasive resistance in the forms of reactance and counterarguing. Consequently, the persuasive effects should be enhanced. To empirically test these assumptions, two online studies were conducted. The first experimental study (N = 151) confirmed that followers experienced stronger PSRs than did nonfollowers, which resulted in higher perceived source trustworthiness and reduced levels of both perceived freedom threat and counterarguing after exposure to a sponsored Instagram post. The second study (N = 225) further confirmed the enhanced persuasive impact of PSRs in terms of brand evaluations and behavioral intentions. The theoretical and practical implications for advertisers, consumer advocates, and future research are discussed.

查看原文本刊更多论文

减少阻力：非追随者和追随者与社交媒体影响者的反社会关系对说服阻力和广告效果的影响

尽管社交媒体影响者已经成为受欢迎的品牌代言人，但之前对这种新广告形式的研究忽略了分析这些影响者的追随者是如何被说服的。基于娱乐克服阻力模型提出的一个关键机制，长期准社会关系（PSRs）应该减少以抗拒和反驳形式出现的说服阻力。因此，应当加强说服作用。为了实证检验这些假设，进行了两项在线研究。第一个实验研究（N = 151）证实，追随者比非追随者经历了更强的PSR，这导致了更高的感知来源可信度，并降低了在接触到赞助的Instagram帖子后感知到的自由威胁和反驳水平。第二项研究（N = 225）进一步证实了PSR在品牌评价和行为意图方面增强的说服力。讨论了对广告商、消费者权益倡导者和未来研究的理论和实践意义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Human Communication Research COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

8.20

自引率

2.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Human Communication Research is one of the official journals of the prestigious International Communication Association and concentrates on presenting the best empirical work in the area of human communication. It is a top-ranked communication studies journal and one of the top ten journals in the field of human communication. Major topic areas for the journal include language and social interaction, nonverbal communication, interpersonal communication, organizational communication and new technologies, mass communication, health communication, intercultural communication, and developmental issues in communication.