Wilson, E. V., Djamasbi, S. "Interpersonality and Online Persuasion," in Proceedings of JAIS Theory Development Workshop. Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 12(23), http://sprouts.aisnet.org/12-23, December 2012, pp.1-2. 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. We observe that, while most communication media are structurally biased to support either interpersonal or broadcast modes of communication CMC can support both. We argue in this paper that people respond to this ambiguity by categorizing CMC messages based on certain characteristics that distinguish interpersonal communication from broadcast communication, and they tend to comply to a greater extent with those messages they perceive as interpersonal in origin. Based on these propositions we propose a new research model which exhibits strong explanatory power in an initial empirical test. The results have important theoretical contributions for CMC research and also provide practical insights for communicating effectively via CMC.