The Effects of Personal Media and Influencer Attributes on User`s Trust, Viewing Commitment, and Purchase Intention

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to verify the effects of attributes of personal media content and influencers on the cognitive and emotional trust of platform users. In addition, the structural relationships among cognitive trust, emotional trust, viewing commitment, and purchase intention were examined. Design/methodology/approach - For the empirical analysis of the study, a survey was conducted on 192 consumers who have recently experienced using personal media content. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and the Structure Equation Model (SEM) were hired in order to analyze the survey data. Findings - Findings of this study are 1) informativeness and expertise had a significant effect on cognitive and emotional trust. However, entertainment had no significant effect on both cognitive and emotional trust; 2) interactivity had a significant effect on emotional trust, but not on cognitive trust; 3) cognitive and emotional trust had a positive effect on the viewing commitment of the content; 4)content users' viewing commitment had a positive effect on their intention to purchase recommended products. Research implications or Originality - The theoretical and practical implications were discussed through the above empirical research results, and the limitations of the study and the direction of follow-up studies were presented.