Ruoyu Sun Juan Meng Michael A. Cacciatore Effects of Source Credibility via Social Media on the Risk Perception and Purchase Intention of American Millennials towards Genetically Modified Foods Ruoyu Sun Juan Meng Michael A. Cacciatore

Introduction Public are concerned about food safety GM foods is a topic that concerns consumers, policy regulators, researchers and marketing managers A knowledge gap between scientists and public on the issue of GM foods

Background Social media has become an important information source The communication channel studied in this research is social media --Twitter Millennials spend a considerable amount of time using digital devices The U.S. millennials who have Internet access it for an average of 3.1 hours a day through mobile phone (Kelly, 2015) The populations studied in this research - millennials in the U.S

Background Many researches have been done on GM foods How the public perceives the risks of GM foods (e.g., Phillips & Hallman, 2013) The influence of source credibility on consumers’ acceptance of GM foods (e.g., Zhang, Chen, Hu, Chen, & Zhan, 2016) The relationship between source credibility and general food risk perception (e.g., Frewer, Howard, Hedderley, & Shepherd, 1997). Bridge the research gap No previous research has systematically investigated the effects of source credibility on risk perception and purchase intention

Debate on Labeling GM Foods U.S. leads the world in producing GM crops (James, 2006) Consumers require labeling GM foods to allow informed public food choices Regulations makers are concerned about consumers will see the labels as warnings In 2016, President Barack Obama signed a new bill into law, which demands the labeling of foods containing GM ingredients (Amelinckx, 2016)

Source Credibility An important research area of persuasion Expertise and trustworthiness are the two major factors of the credibility of a communicator (Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 1953) Perceived source credibility is likely to be one of the most important determinants of public reactions to risk information (Frewer, Howard, Hedderley, & Shepherd, 1997)

Risk attitude – risk aversion & risk seeking People’s risk attitude is another antecedent to the formation of risk perception Individuals generally fall into two subgroups of individuals: those who have a tolerance and even a preference for risk and those who are more cautious and would prefer to avoid risk (Goldstein, Johnson, &Sharpe, 2008)

Risk perception & Purchase intention “Dread,” “unknown,” and “number of people exposed to the risk” are three main risk characteristics affecting risk perception (Slovic, 1987) Risk perception can be used as a predictor of purchasing behavior Risk perception is causally related to purchase intention: “the former is an important explanatory variable of the latter” (Yeung & Morries, 2001, p.179)

Examples of hypotheses H1a: Participants exposed to message advocating the benefits of GM foods from a source with higher credibility on social media will have lower risk perception toward GM foods. H1b: Participants exposed to message advocating the benefits of GM foods from a source with higher credibility on social media will have higher purchase intention toward GM foods. H2a: Risk seeking participants will have lower risk perception toward GM foods. H2b: Risk seeking participant will have higher purchase intention toward GM foods. H3: Participants’ risk attitudes and source credibility will have an interactive effect on (a) risk perception toward GM foods and (b) purchase intention toward GM foods.

Method A 2 (risk attitudes: risk aversion vs risk seeking) x 4 (source credibility: government vs food company vs social media influencer vs scientist) between-subjects design Fictional social media posts are designed for Twitter To better approximate real-world exposure to a Tweet, all the messages were designed to look like they appear on each information sources’ respective Twitter desktop version homepage

Stimuli Scientist FDA Social Influencer Monsanto

Procedure Frequency of social media use Level of awareness on a few typical health risk issues Level of perceived credibility of each information source Risk attitudes Exposed participants to stimuli Manipulation check Perceived risks and benefits of GM foods & purchase intention for GM foods Demographic information

Q & A Thank you!

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