The Compassion Fade Framework in the Social Media Context: Applying Place Attachment to Advertising Strategies for Monetary Donations

AbstractThis study applies the compassion fade framework to the social media context by considering the moderating role of place attachment. By integrating the compassion fade framework with place attachment theory, this study conducted an online experiment with four conditions and recruited participants in the United States from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The empirical findings revealed that given the place attachment condition, social media users’ monetary donation intention was significantly influenced by empathetic concern and anticipated affect, and social media users’ monetary donation intention was significantly affected only by empathetic concern under the general place condition. The path from anticipated affect to monetary donation intention was statistically different between the general place condition and the place attachment condition. Based on these empirical findings, this study makes several meaningful contributions to the extant literature on donation advertisement and their implications for social media advertising strategies.Keywords: Place attachmentcompassionempathetic concernanticipated affectmonetary donation Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsMinseong KimMinseong Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management & Marketing at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. His research focuses mainly on digital consumer behavior and digital marketing strategy. He has taught principles of management, hospitality management, hospitality human resource management, research methods, and marketing strategy.Jihye KimJihye Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrated Strategic Communication at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include advertising and public relations strategies, digital communication, cause-related marketing, and health communication. She has taught digital strategies, research methods, international advertising, media planning, and health communication campaign.