Interpersonality and Online Persuasion

Computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as email, instant messaging, and online texting, is an important channel for influencing message receivers’ behavior. While most communication media are structurally biased to support either interpersonal or broadcast modes of communication, CMC can support both. Because of this we argue that receivers are likely to comply with a CMC message based on certain characteristics that distinguish interpersonal communication from broadcast communication. Grounded in interdisciplinary theories, we propose a model that predicts receivers’ intention to comply with a CMC message. Results of empirical testing show that our proposed model has strong explanatory power. The results have important theoretical contributions to IS research and also provide practical insights for communicating effectively via CMC.