Adapting from Stephens and Rain's (2011) revised model of complementary ICT use, the current study used a 2 (succession: single modality vs. complementary modalities) x 2 (order: text first vs. video first) x 3 (block repetition) mixed factorial design to examine how different modalities (video and text) used on social media influence individuals' perceived information overload, information effectiveness, attitudes, viral behavioral intention (VBI), and intention to follow suggestions. A total of 399 participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk) and 359 of them (Mage = 42.15) were retained for data analysis. Findings suggested that modality succession did not make any difference on information overload, information effectiveness, attitudes, VBI, nor intentions to follow persuasive message suggestions. Modality order did not influence any outcome variables either. Contrary to Media Richness theory, results suggested that video was not more effective than text in lessening information overload, nor improving information effectiveness, attitude toward message, VBI, or intention to follow suggestions. Information overload negatively predicted attitude toward message and intention to follow suggestions while information effectiveness positively related to attitude. More results, implications, and limitations are discussed in the study.
Read
