Abstract

Afforded by new digital technologies, consumer interactions are breaking the boundaries of basic assumptions about interpersonal communication, mass communication, and the concepts arising from the two. By looking into social media influencer–follower relations, this study suggests that the long-held conventional concept of parasocial relation no longer fully encompasses the evolving contemporary human interactions and related relations. The current analysis recommends an updated notion and theorization—a trans-parasocial relation—to capture a collectively reciprocal, (a)synchronously interactive, and co-created relation between influencers and their captive followers. This trans-parasocial relation concept offers a foundation on which new communicative and advertising theories can be developed to explicate new forms of social interactions and consumer behavior. More importantly, in view of this trans-parasocial relation, assumptions of the existing persuasion theory—that is, the persuasion knowledge model—need to be reassessed. The current findings demonstrate that persuasion knowledge does not always negatively affect advertising outcomes. Instead, followers indicate mostly benign attitudes toward influencer-sponsored posts, interpret influencers’ sponsorship disclosures as genuine and transparent, and internalize disclosure actions as inspiring and admirable. This study further identifies and elucidates several psychological mechanisms that account for followers’ overall appreciation of influencer-sponsored posts: positive bias, verification by cross-validation, and inspirational internalization.

摘要

在新的数字技术的支持下，消费者互动正在打破关于人际传播、大众传播以及由两者产生的概念的基本假设的界限。通过研究社交媒体影响者与追随者的关系，本研究表明，长期以来传统的准社会关系概念不再完全涵盖不断发展的当代人类互动和相关关系。目前的分析建议更新概念和理论——一种跨准社会关系——来捕捉集体互惠的、（a）同步交互的和共同创造的影响者与其俘虏追随者之间的关系。这种跨准社会关系概念提供了一个基础，可以在此基础上开发新的传播和广告理论来解释新的社会互动形式和消费者行为。更重要的是，鉴于这种跨社会关系，现有说服理论的假设——即说服知识模型——需要重新评估。目前的研究结果表明，说服知识并不总是对广告结果产生负面影响。相反，追随者对网红赞助的帖子大多表现出温和的态度，将网红的赞助披露解释为真实和透明，并将披露行为内化为鼓舞人心和令人钦佩的。积极的偏见、交叉验证的验​​证和鼓舞人心的内化。