• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.889-899
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• 2021

This paper proposes a reliable data sharing scheme on the internet of vehicles (IoV) by utilizing blockchain technology for constructing a decentralized system approach. In our model, to maintain the credibility of the information messages sent by the vehicles to the system, we propose a reputation rating mechanism, in which neighboring vehicles validate every received information message. Furthermore, we incorporate an incentive mechanism based on smart contracts, so that vehicles will get certain rewards from the system when they share correct traffic information messages. We simulated the IoV network using a discrete event simulator to analyze network performance, whereas the incentive model is designed by leveraging the smart contract available in the Ethereum platform.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.179-204
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• 2021

Purpose The purpose of this study is to suggest a research model that shows how Youtube influencers affect consumers' Youtube information adoption and purchase intention. Generally, a communicator's character has a significant effect on the persuasiveness of the message. This study segments influencer characteristics into five dimensions and explores the effect of five characteristics on perceived usefulness of information, perceived enjoyment, information adoption, and purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach This study suggests a structural equation model that explains the casual relationship between the five dimensions of Youtuber characteristics and perceived usefulness of information, perceived enjoyment, information adoption, and purchase intention. Findings There are little research on what and how the characteristics of a Youtube influencer can affect consumers' information adoption and purchase intention of the product. This study is significant in that it provides a research model that examines the effect of Youtuber characteristics on consumers' information adoption and purchase intention. This research discovered that the dimensions of trustworthiness and attractiveness of influencer affect information adoption and purchase intention through the mediate variables.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.93-112
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• 2011

For the success of an online retail market, it is important to allow consumers to get more helpful reviews by figuring out the factors determining the helpfulness of online reviews. On the basis of elaboration likelihood model, this study analyzes which factors determine the helpfulness of reviews and how the factors affecting the helpfulness of an online consumer review differ for product price. For this study, 75,226 online consumer reviews were collected from Amazon.com. Furthermore, additional information on review messages was also gathered by carrying out a content analysis on the review messages. This study shows that both of peripheral cues such as review rating and reviewer's credibility and central cues such as word count of review message and the proportion of negative words influence the helpfulness of review. In addition, the result of this study reveals that each consumer focuses on different information sources of reviews depending on the product price.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.91-129
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• 2023

This paper reports the findings of a multimodal study conducted on 10 travel blog posts about Vietnam by seven British professional travel bloggers. The study takes a sociolinguistic view to tourism by seeing travel blogs as a source for linguistic and other semiotic materials while considering language as situated practice for the social construction of fundamental categories such as "human," "society," and "nation." It borrows concepts from Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics for interpersonal metafunction to develop an analytical framework to study how the co-occurrence of text and still images in these travel blog posts formulated the portrayal of Vietnam as a tourism destination and indicated the main sociolinguistic features of the blogs. The analysis of appreciation values and interactive qualities encoded in evaluative adjectives and still images show that Vietnam is generally portrayed as a country of identity and diversity. It provides tourists with positive experiences in terms of places of interest, food and local lifestyles and is cost-competitive. Strangerhood and authenticity are two outstanding sociolinguistic features exhibited in these travel blog posts. The findings of this study also underline the co-contribution of the linguistic sign, in this case evaluative adjectives, and the visual sign, in this case still images, as interpersonal meaning-making resources. To portray Vietnam, still images served as integral elements to evidence the credibility of verbal narrations. To unveil sociolinguistic characteristics of travel blogs, still images supported the linguistic realizations of authenticity and strangerhood on the posts, and in some case delivered an even stronger message than words. Not only does the study present a source of feedback from international travelers to tourism practice in Vietnam, but it also provides insights into multimodal analysis of tourism discourse which remains an under-researched area in Vietnam.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.65-96
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• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.47
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• pp.163-190
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• 2017

This paper studies the recent surge in the number of faith-based films in Hollywood, with the aim to explore the context and implications of this new trend. By using the theoretical framework of the study of the Tilich and Van der Leeuw, who have explored the relationship between religion, culture and art, this article discusses the meaning of the spiritual theme in the film. A couple of common points can be found among the faith-based films that have been produced since the 2010s. While these films attempt a universal approach to the fundamental theme of spirituality through popular narratives familiar to the audience, they also stress 'historical truthfulness and credibility' by representing the reality, such as a featuring real person or a true story in the film. The main characters are depicted as "victorious losers" that are distinguished from the typical Hollywood superhero and the films repeatedly show the human being constantly 'asking' questions to God. By analyzing these characteristics, the paper demonstrates that recent Hollywood faith-based films have successfully differentiated themselves from existing religious films while symbolizing the universal beliefs and values beyond the religious message so as to attract more audiences to this field. The paper also suggests that despite the advances in modern science and knowledge, the public will always yearn for a spiritual recovery and salvation through the film medium, serving as a potential source that provides an outlet for spiritual experience.