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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Going Viral: Sharing of Misinformation by Social Media Influencers
Australasian Marketing Journal, Vol.33(3), pp.296-309
2025
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
This paper tackles the issue of health and well-being misinformation, the dissemination of false or misleading information related to medical treatments, diseases, mental health, nutrition, exercise or general well-being, propagated by social media influencers. It investigates the virality of misinformation posts by TikTok and Instagram influencers exploring users' appraisals and their sharing tendencies. Grounded in social influence and cognitive appraisal theories (CAT), three online experimental studies dissect the dynamics of virality, user comments and their effects on perceived deception, parasocial interaction and sharing intent. The results of Study 1 demonstrate heightened post virality reduces perceived deception, fostering stronger parasocial connections and sharing intentions. Conversely, lower virality levels heighten deception perceptions. In Study 2, critical comments are shown to enhance deception in high virality posts. Whereas supportive comments are shown to enhance the indirect effect of low virality posts on sharing intentions, via deception and parasocial interaction. The study contributes by demonstrating how social influence theory and CAT together explain how social media influencer misinformation posts based on their virality and user responses are likely to be shared and what consumer appraisals explain this effect. It provides directions of how marketers can tackle this issue.
Details
- Title
- Going Viral: Sharing of Misinformation by Social Media Influencers
- Authors
- Rory Mulcahy (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesRenee Barnes (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesRetha de Villiers Scheepers (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesSamantha Kay (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative IndustriesEleanor List (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
- Publication details
- Australasian Marketing Journal, Vol.33(3), pp.296-309
- Publisher
- Sage Publications Ltd.
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1177/14413582241273987
- ISSN
- 1839-3349; 1441-3582
- Copyright note
- © 2024 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
- Grants
- Youth Engagement in Sustainability (YES) Research Initiative, 0980027715, Queensland Department of Environment and Science (Australia, Brisbane)
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991062952902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Business