How online comments on marriage topics on Weibo influence marriage intentions of unmarried women in China

The study aimed to use a combination of Information Adoption Model and Theory of Reasoned Action to explain the underlying mechanisms by which online comments on marriage topics in Weibo influence unmarried women’s marital intentions. Argument quality and source credibility were identified as content features of online comments on marriage topics in Weibo. Perceived information usefulness, and marital attitudes were identified as the internal processes by which content features of online comments influence marital intention. The study collected data from 422 un-married women through a questionnaire on the Weibo platform. PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 4.0 was utilized to test the structural model. The results showed that the content characteristics (argument quality and source credibility) of online comments on marriage topics had a positive effect on perceived information usefulness and a negative effect on marriage intention. In addition, the perceived information usefulness of online comments had a negative effect on marital attitudes. Positive marital attitudes had a positive effect on marital intentions. Perceived information usefulness and marital attitudes acted as serial mediators between the content characteristics of online comments on marital topics and marital intentions. This study extends the literature on online commenting research by examining the effects of content features of online comments on marriage topics on marital intentions, fills a theoretical gap in the scope of related re-search, and provides valuable theoretical and practical implications.

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