The Social Psychology of Telecommunications.

Dans la phase de conception d'un environnement virtuel (EV), il est necessaire de prendre en compte plusieurs facteurs comme les peripheriques d'entrees/sorties, la metaphore d'interaction ou encore le domaine d'application. En plus de ces considerations, un environnement virtuel collaboratif (EVC) doit prendre en compte l'aspect collaboratif de la metaphore d'interaction. Tout d'abord, la metaphore d'interaction doit pouvoir apporter la performance de la tâche la meilleure possible. Ensuite, l'influence de la metaphore d'interaction sur l'experience des utilisateurs (au sens psychologique et social) constitue une importante question de recherche. Dans ce contexte, deux etudes experimentales ont ete menees : la premiere vise a etudier l'effet de metaphores de navigation sur l'experience de l'utilisateur dans un EVC et la seconde s'interesse a l'effet de metaphores de manipulation sur l'experience de l'utilisateur dans un EVC. Les resultats obtenus dans ce travail de these nous amenent a proposer un ensemble de criteres et de regles de conception des EVCs

This study focuses on people's choices between electronic mail and voice mail. We found that users generally preferred electronic mail over voice mail for most communication purposes. These results do not support a hypothesis derived from media richness theory that voice mail would be preferred to e-mail for ambiguous situations. A more important finding is that other medium features besides richness influence individuals' media choices, specifically, medium features useful for retrieving and preparing messages and for working In group settings. From this and other evidence, we conclude that a complex set of social factors governs organizational media use in ways that neither theory can fully explain. Our findings have some interesting implications for designers of multimedia communication systems and for people like human resources specialists who are concerned with improving the effectiveness of professional work and the quality of working life.

Consumer adoption of mobile-based tourism shopping is an emerging but overlooked area in tourism research. Given the paybacks and potential scope of this new channel, this study attempts to bridge the gap by proposing a multimediation model investigating mobile tourism shopping (MTS) in a developing country, Pakistan. In particular, we applied structural equation modeling through partial-least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on 396 responses collected from mobile respondents who recently purchased tourism products using a mobile device(s). It was discovered that social presence, directly and indirectly, influences tourist intentions towards MTS. The results further show that the tourists’ perception of compatibility and relative advantages of MTS have insignificant influence on their intention to accept a mobile device(s) for tourism shopping. The findings and implications of the study furnish new vistas to research discourse and managerial significance. Economically, this research contributes to knowledge that could increase income and create jobs in the host country.

Background Online health care services effectively supplement traditional medical treatment. The development of online health care services depends on sustained interactions between health care professionals (HCPs) and patients. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the demands and gains of health care stakeholders in HCP-patient online interactions and determine an agenda for future work. Objective This study aims to present a systematic review of the antecedents and consequences of HCP-patient online interactions. It seeks to reach a better understanding of why HCPs and patients are willing to interact with each other online and what the consequences of HCP-patient online interactions are for health care stakeholders. Based on this, we intend to identify the gaps in existing studies and make recommendations for future research. Methods In accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, a systematic retrieval was carried out from the Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus electronic databases. The search results were confined to those papers published in English between January 1, 2000 and June 30, 2018. Selected studies were then evaluated for quality; studies that did not meet quality criteria were excluded from further analysis. Findings of the reviewed studies related to our research questions were extracted and synthesized through inductive thematic analysis. Results A total of 8440 records were found after the initial search, 28 papers of which were selected for analysis. Accessibility to HCPs, self-management, and unmet needs were the main triggers for patients to participate in online interaction. For HCPs, patient education, career needs, and self-promotion were the major reasons why they took the online approach. There were several aspects of the consequences of HCP-patient online interactions on health care stakeholders. Consequences for patients included patient empowerment, health promotion, and acquisition of uncertain answers. Consequences for HCPs included social and economic returns, lack of control over their role, and gaining more appointments. HCP-patient online interactions also improved communication efficiency in offline settings and helped managers of online health care settings get a better understanding of patients’ needs. Health care stakeholders have also encountered ethical and legal issues during online interaction. Conclusions Through a systematic review, we sought out the antecedents and consequences of HCP-patient online interactions to understand the triggers for HCPs and patients to participate and the consequences of participating. Potential future research topics are the influences on the chain of online interaction, specifications and principles of privacy design within online health care settings, and roles that sociodemographic and psychological characteristics play. Longitudinal studies and the adoption of text-mining method are worth encouraging. This paper is expected to contribute to the sustained progress of online health care settings.

Purpose There is growing interest among marketers in advertising and promoting their brands by adopting an online celebrity endorsement strategy. However, how online celebrities build their own brand equity and how online celebrity brand equity impacts fans’ purchase behavior have not been extensively researched in the extant literature. This paper aims to explore the factors that contribute to online celebrity branding and improving fans’ purchase intentions. Design/methodology/approach A survey and an experiment were conducted among consumers from the mainland of China. A total of 12 hypotheses were proposed to exam how self-congruity and virtual interactivity impact online celebrity branding and to explore the moderating role of perceived quality and product type. Findings This paper reveals that customers’ perceived self-congruity with online celebrities’ image and virtual interactivity positively impact the brand equity of online celebrities. Additionally, compared with virtual interactivity, the effect of customer perceived self-congruity on a brand is more significant. The brand equity of online celebrities thereby drives followers’ purchase intentions and the perceived quality of products positively moderates this relationship. Originality/value The research conclusions provide managerial implications for marketing practitioners for how to use human brands on social media platforms in the web 2.0 era and ultimately enhance consumer purchase intentions.

With the rise of live streaming, many internet companies began to carry out the live streaming business, and this system was applied in various fields. Due to the emergence of e-commerce live streaming in recent years, the studies on it are not comprehensive. And for the construction of live streaming of mobile e-commerce, it is rarely considered from the perspective of users' hedonic needs. This study combined with the social presence theory to build a conceptual model explored the impact of this system on users' intention to adopt from the perspective of enjoyment feeling. The results show visual scene positively affects users' perceived enjoyment, visual scene and communication function have positive effect on social presence, social presence has positive effect on perceived enjoyment, and perceived enjoyment positively affects users' adoption intention. Finally, the authors provide practical suggestions and strategies for platform operators and sellers.

Social commerce is a new trend in online shopping, which is different from e-commerce. Nowadays, social commerce is widely used because it complements the benefits of using traditional e-commerce with social interaction. Based on this condition, research on the adoption of social commerce has become the interest of new research increasingly being explored. Research on social commerce is novel and largely fragmented. It is theoretically important to evaluate what has been learned and gain meaningful insights through structured literature reviews. This study conducted a systematic literature review on the adoption of social commerce, analyzed based on the context, theories, and influencing factors. We identified 30 studies most relevant to the application of social commerce. The results of this systematic literature review have mapped the potential and direction of research related to the area of interest. Directions for further research will be discussed at the end of the paper.

Abstract Reusing material products via peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing is one of the circular economy (CE) strategies to fulfil consumer needs with minimised environmental impact and material consumption. However, adopting sharing practices challenges both societal normative behaviours as well as existing business models businesses. Previous studies grounded on stated answers about values, intentions and attitudes of users found several factors that impede the practice of sharing, even though users' needs were said to be satisfied. Nevertheless, few studies have looked at dilemmas that users face while engaging in sharing practices and how these inhibit their participation in CE solutions. This study addresses these discrepancies empirically in the context of P2P product sharing. Using a trust-ownership-need model, we investigated users' reviews (n=415) from an online P2P product sharing platform operating in Sweden and Norway. The data analysis method is a qualitative content analysis of the users' comments (from lessors or lessees). The results reveal the dilemmas that the platform users experience, i.e., information transparency, product pick-up and return arrangements, product quality, security, and user knowledge to operate the product. We argue that missing social presence in the virtual environment, low competence in sharing practice from lessees, and lax platform governance are contributing factors underlying the dilemmas. The research concludes with strategies for promoting user participation in sharing practice and optimising platforms to pursue CE's environmental promises.

The Green Information Systems research stream was initiated by leading information systems researchers to address climate change through information and communications technology. This paper responds to a call for practical research into the design of information systems that support consumers in their decision making in favour of sustainable products. We apply an exploratory approach to improve understanding of regional trust cues in the energy sector and how these could drive the sector’s decentralisation. We explore the still emerging phenomenon of regional text and imagery on digital user interfaces via a multi-method process including quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Our findings suggest that regional energy providers systematically employ regional textual and pictorial trust cues on their websites. We further lay the ground for future experimental work on this matter by defining terms and concepts and systematically capturing design elements. We outline practical implications for designing user interfaces in the energy sector and discuss how this could drive the sector’s platformisation and sustainabilisation. In addition, we discuss implications for consumers who could become the target of regional washing attempts, in other words providers applying regional cues to create a regional company image in the absence of actual regionality.

Virtual humans (VHs)—automated, three-dimensional agents—can serve as realistic embodiments for social interactions with human users. Extant literature suggests that a user’s cognitive and affective responses toward a VH depend on the extent to which the interaction elicits a sense of copresence, or the subjective “sense of being together.” Furthermore, prior research has linked copresence to important social outcomes (e.g., likeability and trust), emphasizing the need to understand which factors contribute to this psychological state. Although there is some understanding of the determinants of copresence in virtual reality (VR) (cf. Oh et al., 2018 ), it is less known what determines copresence in mixed reality (MR), a modality wherein VHs have unique access to social cues in a “real-world” setting. In the current study, we examined the extent to which a VH’s responsiveness to events occurring in the user’s physical environment increased a sense of copresence and heightened affective connections to the VH. Participants ( N = 65) engaged in two collaborative tasks with a (nonspeaking) VH using an MR headset. In the first task, no event in the participant’s physical environment would occur, which served as the control condition. In the second task, an event in the participants’ physical environment occurred, to which the VH either responded or ignored depending on the experimental condition. Copresence and interpersonal evaluations of the VHs were measured after each collaborative task via self-reported measures. Results show that when the VH responded to the physical event, participants experienced a significant stronger sense of copresence than when the VH did not respond. However, responsiveness did not elicit more positive evaluations toward the VH (likeability and emotional connectedness). This study is an integral first step in establishing how and when affective and cognitive components of evaluations during social interactions diverge. Importantly, the findings suggest that feeling copresence with VH in MR is partially determined by the VHs’ response to events in the actual physical environment shared by both interactants.

Digital biomarkers of mental health issues offer many advantages, including timely identification for early intervention, ongoing assessment during treatment, and reducing barriers to assessment stemming from geography, age, fear, or disparities in access to systems of care. Embedding digital biomarkers into games may further increase the reach of digital assessment. In this study, we explore game-based digital biomarkers for social anxiety, based on interaction with a non-player character (NPC). We show that social anxiety affects a player's accuracy and their movement path in a gaming task involving an NPC. Further, we compared first versus third-person camera perspectives and the use of customized versus predefined avatars to explore the influence of common game interface factors on the expression of social anxiety through in-game movements. Our findings provide new insights about how game-based digital biomarkers can be effectively used for social anxiety, affording the benefits of early and ongoing digital assessment.

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of task interdependence on team members’ Moqi in virtual teams in China. The authors also aim to identify virtual collaboration as a mediator and distributive justice climate as a moderator in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from a sample of 87 virtual teams (including 349 individuals) from various Chinese companies through a three-wave survey. Hierarchical regression analysis, path analysis, bootstrapping method and multiple validity tests were used to examine the research model. Findings In virtual teams in China, task interdependence has a significantly positive influence on team members’ Moqi; Virtual collaboration mediates the relationship between task interdependence and team members’ Moqi; The distributive justice climate positively moderates the relationship between task interdependence and virtual collaboration, as well as the indirect effect of virtual collaboration on the relationship between task interdependence and team members’ Moqi. Practical implications In virtual teams, leaders can facilitate team members’ Moqi by designing highly interdependent tasks, encouraging team members to engage in virtual collaboration and cultivating a climate of high attention distributive justice. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to pay to the Moqi among team members rather than supervisor-subordinate relationships and further examine how team members’ Moqi is predicted by task interdependence via the mediation of virtual collaboration with the distributive justice climate playing a moderating role.

In March 2020, the government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19. This led to the shutdown of educational institutes throughout the country, restricting all activities to online mediums. The shift has affected how students engage with each other, where rather than in-person interaction, they meet through a variety of online tools. In this paper, we discuss how the normal everyday routine of ‘hanging out’ with friends has been transformed during a prolonged lockdown of over ten months and counting. We investigate the opportunities and challenges students encounter when socializing online through various online modes including video calls, communal movie watching and social media. We discuss how social interaction; in particular, hanging out with friends has been transformed through these technologies and its implications for facilitating spontaneous interaction, negotiating intimacy, mutual understanding, and accessibility to different social groups. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of how these factors impact the transition from in-person to online modes of casual social interaction.

AbstractTo meet the assessments requirements during the COVID-19 epidemic, many schools adopted the large-scale blended online examination, in which teachers invigilate through online video and students answer questions with pen and paper. Exploring the factors that influence students’ acceptance of the blended online examination will help the exam service understand the characteristics of students’ adoption and provide better support for staffs. It will help teachers and parents to assist students to take the blended examination and maintain the traditional exam atmosphere that will facilitate students’ learning performance and effectiveness. In this study, a questionnaire survey and structural equation method were adopted to explore the influence of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social presence, place presence, and social influence on learners’ acceptance of blended online examination. Data analysis of 760 college students who underwent a blended online examination showed that perceived ease of use had a significant negative direct impact on exam acceptability and overall had a significant negative impact. Perceived usefulness, social presence, and social influence have significant positive effects on exam acceptability and social presence and social influence also have significant positive effects indirectly by influencing perceived usefulness. Finally, the limitations of this study are discussed, and the implications and future direction are put forward.KeywordsBlended online examination acceptanceTechnology acceptance modelSocial presenceSocial influence

The perceived online learning experience varies greatly among individual students, yet empirical investigations of its influencing factors are still lacking in the literature. Based on a national survey of college students’ online learning experience in China during the COVID-19 pandemic (n=12,826), this study has identified a list of potential influencing factors and systematically examined their impact on perceived online learning experience in terms of teaching, social, and cognitive presence. The study results revealed that, among the influencing factors proposed, self-regulated learning has the greatest impact on the three presences, followed by self-efficacy. Besides, the college type has the greatest influence among the demographic variables. The results indicated that students need to pay more attention to the improvement of self-regulation learning skills to obtain better online learning experiences, which differ among varying types of colleges.

Social media are prominent channels to foster the social debate about climate change. This research explores the strategies that institutions supporting scientific consensus on climate change undertake in order to communicate through social media. We conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with community managers and communication directors of organizations of different characteristics in several countries. From the responses we have identified strategies that are based on communicators’ perceptions and experience. We identified strategies that: (a) orientate the communication objectives, (b) help to approach citizens in an effective way, and (c) create interaction with the users. This provides a repertoire of well-grounded strategies that can work as a guide that may help organizations to design their actions to communicate climate change through social media. We conclude that including higher levels of interaction in social media strategies remains a challenge that could lead to a more effective social debate on climate change.

The current study focuses on a novel and recently popular internet phenomenon - celebrity livestreaming marketing. As one of the primary advantages of livestreaming marketing by Internet celebrities, we propose that the timely interactivity of Internet celebrities plays an important role in consumers' purchase intention. Based on stimulus-organism-response theory, this paper further identifies social presence and flow experience as mediators and the consistency of Internet celebrities' image and product image as a moderator and constructs an influence model of Internet celebrities' interactivity on consumers' purchase intention. The responses of a sample of 277 participants were collected by a questionnaire survey. SPSS and Amos were used to analyse the data. The results show that consumers' social presence and flow experience mediate the positive impact of the interactivity of Internet celebrity anchors on influencing consumers' purchase intention. However, there is no significant moderating effect of the consistency of Internet celebrities' image and product image on the relationship between social presence or flow experience and purchase intention. A discussion and implications are offered.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has posed several challenges to the sporting industry, caused by the change in behavior of sporting fans from purchasing event tickets to watching live broadcasts of events on the Internet. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of fan behavior in this “new normal”. It adopts a technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore the effects of social presence (SP) in the context of online viewing of professional sports. For this purpose, the authors conducted an online survey of viewers who watched NBA sports events on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website using the Together Mode feature of Microsoft Teams. We collected 209 valid questionnaires and performed a partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis. The results showed that the SP-TAM structural model has adequate predictive relevance, and SP has a statistically significant positive relationship with both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. The model was thus validated, contributing to the existing body of knowledge on emerging technologies such as the creation of a virtual audience in sports. The study’s findings suggest that technology developers should focus on the effects of SP and emphasize practical functions to increase the use intention of sporting fans. Furthermore, professional sporting leagues should prioritize the use of virtual fan technology to optimize the viewing experience of their fans.

<sec> <title>BACKGROUND</title> Digital technologies were implemented to address long-term care facility residents’ disrupted socialization needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. A literature review regarding this topic is needed to inform public policy, facility’s managers, family caregivers, and nurses/allies health professionals involved in mediating the use of digital devices for resident’s social ties. </sec> <sec> <title>OBJECTIVE</title> Our study outlines key concepts, methodologies, results, issues, and gaps in articles published during pandemic-related visitation restrictions. </sec> <sec> <title>METHODS</title> Following the PRISMA-ScR protocol, we conducted a systematic scoping review of articles published in peer-reviewed journals from early 2020 to end of June 2021, when the most stringent restrictions were in place. Among 763 screened articles, 29 met our selection criteria. </sec> <sec> <title>RESULTS</title> The results address three main aspects: the impact and expectations of digital technologies on health and quality of life, people involved in the exchanges, and limitations preventing significant contact. The findings highlight the plurality of ties to consider, show the need to support both face-to-face and remote contact, evaluate their complementarity, and outline emerging avenues to enable meaningful remote social ties. </sec> <sec> <title>CONCLUSIONS</title> To go beyond the digital solutionism risk, future research and public policies should consider the holistic impact on health regarding the implementation of digital technologies, including the meaning residents give to interpersonal exchanges and the organizational constraints. </sec>