Unveiling Factors Impacting Social Media Reshare in Racism Discourse

Social media is increasingly used for interaction and information sharing. However, the rapid dissemination of harmful content poses significant societal risks, including misinformation and polarization. This study examines resharing mechanisms on social media to mitigate these negative consequences, thereby contributing to safer online environments. Specifically, this research extends the model of sympathy and empathy to attitude (SEA), which posits that sources (i.e., heuristic cues), sympathy, and empathy operate as process routes, to develop a research model for understanding social media users’ resharing of hate-filled content. Using perceived emotion and perceived popularity as independent variables, we develop and empirically validate a theoretical model through laboratory experiments. Our results suggest that heuristic cues such as perceived emotion in racism-related posts and popularity positively affect social media users’ sympathy. Likewise, sympathy positively affects their empathy, which influences users’ intention to reshare. Furthermore, users’ responsibility to reshare is found to partially mediate the relationship between their reshare assessment and intention to reshare. This study contributes to both theory and practice by demonstrating that resharing is a multifaceted behavior shaped by emotion, cognitive assessment, and ethical considerations.