Incidental and Deliberate Cues, Credibility, and Impression Formation on YouTube

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Communication and Technology Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Modern web pages, particularly social network sites (SNS) continue to prominently display user-data. Research in the fields of communication technology and interpersonal communication have explored effects of numerous system-generated cues (e.g., Facebook friends, Amazon star ratings, YouTube view counts). However, despite the prevalence of system-displayed, aggregate-user representation cues, there is little research that differentiates and compares their effects. This study utilized YouTube's behavioral and evaluative system-generated cue sets and found support for bandwagon effects and heuristic processing (MAIN Model). The 4 [view count] x 4 [thumbs up proportion] factorial experiment showed that message credibility, website credibility, and a target's trustworthiness, competence, and task attractiveness increased as the thumbs up proportions increased. No effect was found for manipulations of view count. These results suggest that system-generated cues may only affect judgments via the direct signal of the information, and that more complex inferences may not be used in interpreting cues online.

Authors

• Andrew James Gambino, The Pennsylvania State University

• Adam S. Kahn, Western Michigan U

• Autumn Payge Edwards, Western Michigan University