Social Media Communication

4 Social Media, Judgment, and Decision Making

LEARNING GOALS

This chapter will help you understand:

• How do scholars study judgment and decision making?
• What is selective exposure?
• How do people process social media information?
• Does social media information affect judgment and decision making?

KEY CONCEPTS

Selective exposure

Information processing

Crescendo effect

Online healthcare support

THEORY HIGHLIGHT

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Overview

A global trend is emerging which shows that people are consuming more and more information through social media. People get on social media to communicate with others, send messages, update statuses, post “likes,” tweet or retweet, make comments, review products, obtain or share news, photos, and video, etc. All of the online behaviors show that social media have increasingly become platforms for users to exhibit their daily lives. On social media, what is shared, in essence, is information, which can be in textual, audio, or video form.

British sociologist Anthony Giddens (1999) said, “Globalization isn’t only about what is ‘out there,’ remote and far away from the individual. It is an ‘in here’ phenomenon too, influencing intimate and personal aspects of our lives.” Similarly, it is problematic to view the information on social media as only affecting something “out there,” like interpersonal or group communication. The information also has an “in here” impact on social media users, including evaluation of interpersonal relationships, ...