2023 BEA On-Location

A Quantitative Study of Traditional Advertising Influences in TikTok Purchasing Decisions; Mike Sinclair, Regent University
Social media and social media influencers are a driving force in consumers' purchase decisions, directly connecting individuals, brands, organizations, and nations. Social media visual messaging strategies appear modern, innovative, and fresh, yet social media marketing is rooted in the advertising techniques that pre-date television’s rise as the dominant visual medium. Today’s modern visual social media advertising is infused with the methods employed by advertising executives in sponsored films of the 1930s and early 1940s. These techniques shaped perceptions of life by presenting modernity as a beacon of the future powered by electricity emblazoned in the brilliant colors of Kodachrome. Today, these advertising messages mirror our current socially mediated advertising landscape where all-knowing ad men have been supplanted by influencing neighbors who hawk the latest dance craze, fashion, dining, and merchandising trends. This study of 203 respondents determined that the effect of traditional visual advertising techniques of the pre-television era of the 1930s and 1940s, which include a bias toward modernity, personalizing the relational aspects of objects, filling a vacuum of advice, portraying anxieties close to consumers, and promoting modernity to overcome those anxieties affects purchasing decisions of current TikTok users.
Moderator: Vic Costello, Elon University

EFL and ChatGPT; Nathan Crissman, Regent University
As the role of Generative AI increases, a clearer examination of the role that applications
such as ChatGPT have in the classroom is important. Human Machine Communication offers the tools to examine the relationship between ChatGPT and classroom integration. A survey was presented to 207 native and non-native English speakers via Prolific, examining the attitudes, perspectives, and concerns of ChatGPT. Native English speakers were shown to have a more positive experience with ChatGPT, and Native English Speakers had more concerns with using ChatGPT. However, the concerns with ChatGPT were not elevated with less plagiarism training.

Money, Financial Literacy, and the News Media: Linkage Evidence from the Federal Reserve’s Triennial Surveys of Consumer Finances; Lowndes Stephens, University of South Carolina
Today, more than half of Americans own stocks, a substantial component of financial assets which account for most of the net worth of families in the top percentile groups of the SCF conducted by the Fed triennially since 1989. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of GDP and most families need the equity returns like those of the S&P 500 Index to achieve their long-term financial goals. Over the most recent 30-year period that index has returned on an average annualized basis, adjusted for inflation, 7.11%, while median household income since 1991 has increased on an inflation-adjusted basis by an average annualized rate of less than one percent (.063%).
This secondary analysis of longitudinal cross-sectional survey data by the Federal Reserve empirically links information-seeking in traditional media sources about saving and investment decisions, perceived knowledge of personal finances, financial literacy, and net worth.