Not So Imaginary Interpersonal Contact With Public Figures on Social Network Sites

Abstract

Two studies investigated (a) how public figures' interaction with their followers on social network sites (SNS) affects individuals' impressions about and attitudes toward them, and (b) how individuals' interpersonal orientation moderates such effects, if any. In Study 1, participants viewed either a famous actor's Twitter page or a news article merely relaying his Tweets. Exposure to the Twitter page (vs. news article) induced stronger feelings of actual conversation (i.e., social presence) among less affiliative individuals, whereas the reverse was true for more socially proactive ones. Social presence, in turn, facilitated parasocial interaction with the target and heightened the participants' willingness to watch his movie, with limited effects on their overall evaluation of the target. Study 2, which employed a lesser known local politician using a different microblogging service, replicated the advantage of SNS communication over the news article for socially reserved individuals, with no corresponding effect for more affiliative ones. Keywordsaffiliative tendency, parasocial interaction, social network sites (SNSs), social presence, TwitterDefined as "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semipublic profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others

When the Medium Is the Message

“…Similarly, while interacting with a computer agent, participants experienced a higher level of the agent's presence when allowed to exercise greater control over message presentation, and increased presence prompted more positive thoughts about the agent (Skalski & Tamborini, 2007). In the aforementioned study, Lee and Jang (2011) also reported that the stronger the perceived presence of the celebrity target after reading his microblog messages, the more intimate the participants felt with him and became more willing to watch his upcoming movie.…”

The Logic of Political Coverage on Twitter: Temporal Dynamics and Content

“…The strategic use of Twitter during political campaigns, however, is less understood. There are studies that document the use of Twitter by political candidates (Jackson & Lilleker, ), measure potential effects the exposure to tweets by politicians might have on individuals (Lee & Jang, ), and examine the interaction networks between political elites (Ausserhofer & Maireder, ; Jürgens, Jungherr, & Schoen, ). The use of Twitter during election campaigns—the political events tweets are referring to and the content of tweets referring to politics—has surprisingly received less attention.…”

How Social Context Cues in Online Support-Seeking Influence Self-Disclosure in Support Provision

“…Social presence is perhaps one of the most influential concepts that have been applied to understanding user experiences in mediated communication (e.g., Lee, 2004;Lee & Jang, 2013). Social presence was originally defined as "the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships" (Short et al, 1976, p. 65).…”

“…Different conceptualizations of the construct of social presence have emerged since the concept was first introduced (Biocca, Harms, & Burgoon, 2003;Heeter, 1992;Kreijns, Kirschner, Jochems, & van Buuren, 2004, Lombard & Ditton, 1997. While the original theory emphasized social presence as a feature attached to a medium (Short et al, 1976), more recent work tends to define social presence as the psychological distance between an individual and his or her interactional counterpart, and emphasizes the sense of copresence within a given communication situation (Biocca et al, 2003;Lee & Jang, 2013;Lee & Nass, 2005).…”