Reducing the rate of college binge drinking is a major public health goal. Social media sites such as Facebook serve as platforms for young adults' online communication, so they could potentially extend the reach of health campaign messages via retransmission. Thus, it is important to identify the factors that predict intentions to share health-related messages on social media. Drawing on the Spiral of Silence framework, the current research examined the effects of opinion climate, message efficacy, and publicness of social media on message retransmission intentions for anti-binge drinking “how-to” messages—messages that include advice and recommendations that target beliefs about efficacy. A 2 × 2 × 2 (efficacy: high vs. low × opinion climate: support vs. oppose × channel: public vs. private) between-subjects experiment was conducted. Data from 245 participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk demonstrated that people were more willing to share when they had an anti- rather than a pro-binge drinking opinion climate, when the messages were more useful, and when they were asked to share via private messaging rather than via public status updates. Theoretical and practical implications for the psychological mechanisms underlying message retransmission on social media are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
TurnerJC, ShuJ. Serious health consequences associated with alcohol use among college students: demographic and clinical characteristics of patients seen in an emergency department. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 2004; 65:179–183.
2.
DunstoneK, BrennanE, SlaterMD, et al.Alcohol harm reduction advertisements: a content analysis of topic, objective, emotional tone, execution and target audience. BMC Public Health, 2017; 17:312.
3.
LeeSJ.Testing the replication and extension of why-quit and how-to-quit antismoking health messages. Journal of Health Communication, 2018; 23:597–605.
4.
FishbeinM, AjzenI. (2011) Predicting and changing behavior: the reasoned action approach. New York: Psychology Press.
5.
HornikRC.Exposure: theory and evidence about all the ways it matters. Social Marketing Quarterly, 2002; 8:31–37.
6.
SouthwellBG. (2013) Social networks and popular understanding of science and health: Sharing disparities. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
7.
SmithA, AndersonM.Social media use in 2018. www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018 (accessed Jul.23, 2018).
8.
Noelle-NeumannE.The spiral of silence a theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 1974; 24:43–51.
9.
CappellaJN, KimHS, AlbarracínD. Selection and transmission processes for information in the emerging media environment: psychological motives and message characteristics. Media Psychology, 2015; 18:396–424.
10.
TreemJW, LeonardiPM. Social media use in organizations: exploring the affordances of visibility, editability, persistence, and association. Annals of the International Communication Association, 2013; 36:143–189.
11.
KimS-H.Testing fear of isolation as a causal mechanism: spiral of silence and genetically modified (GM) foods in South Korea. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 2012; 24:306–324.
12.
NeuwirthK, FrederickE, MayoC. The spiral of silence and fear of isolation. Journal of Communication, 2007; 57:450–468.
13.
NeubaumG, KrämerNC. What do we fear? Expected sanctions for expressing minority opinions in offline and online communication. Communication Research, 2018; 45:139–164.
14.
HayesAF, MatthesJ, EvelandWP. Stimulating the quasi-statistical organ: fear of social isolation motivates the quest for knowledge of the opinion climate. Communication Research, 2013; 40:439–462.
15.
NeubaumG, KrämerNC. Monitoring the opinion of the crowd: psychological mechanisms underlying public opinion perceptions on social media. Media Psychology, 2017; 20:502–531.
16.
ScheufeleDA, ShanahanJ, LeeE. Real talk: manipulating the dependent variable in spiral of silence research. Communication Research, 2001; 28:304–324.
17.
FoxJ, HoltLF. Fear of isolation and perceived affordances: the spiral of silence on social networking sites regarding police discrimination. Mass Communication and Society, 2018; 21:1–22.
18.
BoydDM, EllisonNB. Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007; 13:210–230.
19.
GearhartS, ZhangW. “Was it something I said?” “No, it was something you posted!” A study of the spiral of silence theory in social media contexts. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2015; 18:208–213.
20.
SklanAD.@Socialmedia: speech with a click of a button? #socialsharingbuttons. Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, 2013; 32:377e410.
21.
LiuY, RuiJR, CuiX. Are people willing to share their political opinions on Facebook? Exploring roles of self-presentational concern in spiral of silence. Computers in Human Behavior, 2017; 76:294–302.
22.
MatthesJ, KnollJ, von SikorskiC. The “spiral of silence” revisited: a meta-analysis on the relationship between perceptions of opinion support and political opinion expression. Communication Research, 2018; 45:3–33.
23.
O'KeefeDJ.Message properties, mediating states, and manipulation checks: claims, evidence, and data analysis in experimental persuasive message effects research. Communication Theory, 2003; 13:251–274.
24.
WitteK.Putting the fear back into fear appeals: the extended parallel process model. Communication Monographs, 1992; 59:329–349.
25.
BergerJ, MilkmanKL. What makes online content viral?. Journal of Marketing Research, 2012; 49:192–205.
26.
BergerJ.Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: a review and directions for future research. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2014; 24:586–607.
27.
HoJYC, DempseyM. Viral marketing: motivations to forward online content. Journal of Business Research, 2010; 63:1000–1006.
28.
LearyMR, KowalskiRM. Impression management: a literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, 1990; 107:34–47.
29.
BazarovaNN.Public intimacy: disclosure interpretation and social judgments on Facebook. Journal of Communication, 2012; 62:815–832.
30.
LiuB, KangJ. Publicness and directedness: effects of social media affordances on attributions and social perceptions. Computers in Human Behavior, 2017; 75:70–80.
31.
BazarovaNN, ChoiYH. Self-disclosure in social media: extending the functional approach to disclosure motivations and characteristics on social network sites. Journal of Communication, 2014; 64:635–657.
32.
MarderB, SladeE, HoughtonD, et al.“I like them, but won't ‘like’ them”: an examination of impression management associated with visible political party affiliation on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 2016; 61:280–287.
33.
ChenH-T.Spiral of silence on social media and the moderating role of disagreement and publicness in the network: analyzing expressive and withdrawal behaviors. New Media & Society, 2018; 20:3917–3936.
34.
KimHS, LeeS, CappellaJN, et al.Content characteristics driving the diffusion of antismoking messages: implications for cancer prevention in the emerging public communication environment. JNCI Monographs, 2013; 2013:182–187.
35.
KimHS.Attracting views and going viral: how message features and news-sharing channels affect health news diffusion. Journal of Communication, 2015; 65:512–534.
36.
FournierAK, HallE, RickeP, et al.Alcohol and the social network: online social networking sites and college students' perceived drinking norms. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2013; 2:86.
37.
CialdiniRB, RenoRR, KallgrenCA. A focus theory of normative conduct: recycling the concept of norms to reduce littering in public places. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990; 58:1015–1026.
38.
RealK, RimalRN. Friends talk to friends about drinking: exploring the role of peer communication in the theory of normative social behavior. Health Communication, 2007; 22:169–180.
39.
NeuwirthK, FrederickE. Peer and social influence on opinion expression: combining the theories of planned behavior and the spiral of silence. Communication Research, 2004; 31:669–703.
40.
KontosEZ, EmmonsKM, PuleoE, et al.Determinants and beliefs of health information mavens among a lower-socioeconomic position and minority population. Social Science & Medicine, 2011; 73:22–32.
41.
Hastall MatthiasR, Knobloch-WesterwickS. Severity, efficacy, and evidence type as determinants of health message exposure. Health Communication, 2013; 28:378–388.
42.
HayesAF.Partial, conditional, and moderated moderated mediation: quantification, inference, and interpretation. Communication Monographs, 2018; 85:4–40.
43.
AlhabashS, McAlisterAR, QuilliamET, et al.Alcohol's getting a bit more social: when alcohol marketing messages on Facebook increase young adults' intentions to imbibe. Mass Communication and Society, 2015; 18:350–375.
44.
BrailovskaiaJ, MargrafJ. I present myself and have a lot of Facebook-friends—am I a happy narcissist!?. Personality and Individual Differences, 2019; 148:11–16.
45.
Nathan DeWallC, BuffardiLE, BonserI, et al.Narcissism and implicit attention seeking: evidence from linguistic analyses of social networking and online presentation. Personality and Individual Differences, 2011; 51:57–62.
46.
WuT-Y, AtkinD. Online news discussions: exploring the role of user personality and motivations for posting comments on news. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 2017; 94:61–80.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
