In recognition of the various manifestations of speech acts and rhetoric, we identify the need to theorize about the joint effects of message content and style. Although McQuarrie and Mick (1996) posit that the persuasive impact of rhetoric is independent of message intention (i.e., type of speech act), Schellekens et al. (2013) suggest that the influence of rhetorical figures varies across communication objectives. In other words, there is an ongoing debate about the joint influence of different types of speech acts and rhetoric. Adding to the complexity of this debate, alliteration is commonly conceptualized as unidimensional (Davis, Bagchi, and Block 2016), whereas word repetition can take multiple forms (e.g., antimetabole, antithesis, anaphora; McQuarrie and Mick 1996) or appear as an aggregated parameter (Nunes et al. 2015). Finally, it remains unclear whether the specific constrains of social media platforms (e.g., 280 characters in Twitter) have unique influences on consumer message sharing (Schweidel and Moe 2014). That is, a general consensus indicates that rhetorical figures amplify the persuasive power of speech acts (Liu and Zhu 2011), but there is a general lack of theoretical insights regarding whether amplification occurs independently of (1) the speech act and corresponding message intentions, (2) the type of rhetoric (i.e., alliteration vs. word repetition), and (3) social media platform constraints. In this sense, rather than formally stating a hypothesis, we explore the joint effects of speech acts and rhetoric (alliteration and word repetition) on message sharing by investigating the following research question: RQ1: Does the impact of speech acts and rhetoric on message sharing differ across speech acts (assertive, expressive, directive), figures of speech (alliteration, repetition), or social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook)? Implications of Cross-Message Speech Acts for Consumer Sharing Prior events influence consumers’ evaluations of subsequent events (Ghoshal et al. 2014). In marketing communications, the way messages build on one another can determine
In recognition of the various manifestations of speech acts and rhetoric, we identify the need to theorize about the joint effects of message content and style. Although McQuarrie and Mick (1996) posit that the persuasive impact of rhetoric is independent of message intention (i.e., type of speech act), Schellekens et al. (2013) suggest that the influence of rhetorical figures varies across communication objectives. In other words, there is an ongoing debate about the joint influence of different types of speech acts and rhetoric. Adding to the complexity of this debate, alliteration is commonly conceptualized as unidimensional (Davis, Bagchi, and Block 2016), whereas word repetition can take multiple forms (e.g., antimetabole, antithesis, anaphora; McQuarrie and Mick 1996) or appear as an aggregated parameter (Nunes et al. 2015). Finally, it remains unclear whether the specific constrains of social media platforms (e.g., 280 characters in Twitter) have unique influences on consumer message sharing (Schweidel and Moe 2014). That is, a general consensus indicates that rhetorical figures amplify the persuasive power of speech acts (Liu and Zhu 2011), but there is a general lack of theoretical insights regarding whether amplification occurs independently of (1) the speech act and corresponding message intentions, (2) the type of rhetoric (i.e., alliteration vs. word repetition), and (3) social media platform constraints. In this sense, rather than formally stating a hypothesis, we explore the joint effects of speech acts and rhetoric (alliteration and word repetition) on message sharing by investigating the following research question: RQ1: Does the impact of speech acts and rhetoric on message sharing differ across speech acts (assertive, expressive, directive), figures of speech (alliteration, repetition), or social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook)? Implications of Cross-Message Speech Acts for Consumer Sharing Prior events influence consumers’ evaluations of subsequent events (Ghoshal et al. 2014). In marketing communications, the way messages build on one another can determine