This research explores how cues deposited by social partners onto one's online networking profile affect observers' impressions of the profile owner. An experiment tested the relationships between both (a) what one's associates say about a person on a social network site via ''wall postings,'' where friends leave public messages, and (b) the physical attractiveness of one's associates reflected in the photos that accompany their wall postings on the attractiveness and credibility observers attribute to the target profile owner. Results indicated that profile owners' friends' attractiveness affected their own in an assimilative pattern. Favorable or unfavorable statements about the targets interacted with target gender: Negatively valenced messages about certain moral behaviors increased male profile owners' perceived physical attractiveness, although they caused females to be viewed as less attractive.Forming and managing impressions is a fundamental process, and one that has been complicated by new communication technologies. As computer-mediated communication (CMC) has diffused, successive technological variations raise new questions about interpersonal impressions. For example, with people meeting via text-based CMC-e-mail, discussion groups, or chat spaces of various kinds-a variety of questions arose about impression formation and management. These included whether and at what rate impressions are formed online (Walther, 1993), how online impressions may be like or unlike offline impressions (Jacobson, 1999), and how people judge the authenticity of self-presentation online (Donath, 1999). With further developments of Internet-hosted technologies, however, people can garner

Social media are increasingly being used as an information source, including information related to risks and crises. The current study examines how pieces of information available in social mediaNewer communication technologies have increased the possibilities for how people can send and receive information. Social media are one such technology that has seen increased usage as an information source (Pepitone, 2010). For example, social media are being used to seek information about serious topics, such as circulating up-to-the minute information about cholera outbreaks in Haiti and identifying clean water sources during this outbreak (Sutter, 2010). Social media has also seen a great deal of usage by those seeking health information, with 59% of adult Americans (80% of internet users) reporting that they have accessed this type of information online (Fox, 2011). As this Pew Report suggests ''people use online social tools to gather information, share stories, and discuss concerns '' (Fox, 2011, p. 5). Similarly health professions and organizations are seeing the advantages of adopting social media because it is seen as an information equalizer allowing access to health care information to populations who, in the past, would not have this access (McNab, 2009). It provides a sense of privacy for the information seeker in that he/she does not have to disclose personal information in order to obtain health related information.

a b s t r a c tSocial media have gained increased usage rapidly for a variety of reasons. News and information is one such reason. The current study examines how system-generated cues available in social media impact perceptions of a source's credibility. Participants were asked to view one of six mock Twitter.com pages that varied both the number of followers and the ratio between followers and follows on the page and report their perceived source credibility. Data indicate that curvilinear effects for number of followers exist, such that having too many or too few connections results in lower judgments of expertise and trustworthiness. Having a narrow gap between the number of followers and follows also led to increased judgments of competence. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with limitations of the current study and directions for future research.

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