درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

With the growing integration of social media into everyday life, Twitter has become a significant platform for representing users’ lived experiences, particularly during cultural and religious occasions. This study aims to analyze the content of highly engaged tweets posted between March 18 and April 7, coinciding with Nowruz and the month of Ramadan. From among Persian-language tweets that received more than 1,000 likes, 225 tweets were purposefully selected and examined using both qualitative and quantitative content analysis methods. The findings reveal that three main themes—family relationships, humor, and cultural events—had the highest frequency. Among the humor styles, self-enhancing and affiliative humor were the most prevalent, and women participated more actively than men in narrating their everyday experiences. The results further indicate that Twitter serves not only as a platform for entertainment but also as a space for emotional expression, social critique, and identity representation in the presence of an imagined audience. This study highlights the role of humor as a psychological and social strategy for coping with challenging situations and contributes to a deeper understanding of cultural dynamics within the digital space.

Background: Social identity theory suggests that individuals define themselves partly through their membership in social groups, and these identities shape attitudes and behaviors, including consumption choices. Brands increasingly function as social symbols, allowing users to express group belonging, self-concept, and shared values through brand affiliation. Consequently, users’ social identities can significantly influence their intention to purchase a brand by strengthening emotional attachment, perceived congruence, and loyalty toward brands that represent their in-group. Aims: Consumers like to associate themselves with different brands to represent their social identity. This study suggests a social identity perspective of customer-brand relationship and integrates brand identity with social media usage, electronic WOM (eWOM) and brand loyalty in predicting brand purchase intention in an online environment. Methodology: Data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of higher education students in a public university in Iran. A sample of 423 respondents was selected through a convenience sampling technique. Data were then analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to provide a prediction-oriented model assessment by LISREL 8.54. Sobel mediation tests were performed to test the mediating effects of social media use, eWOM and brand loyalty on the relationship between social identity and brand purchase intention. Findings: The findings indicated that social identity (affective, cognitive, and evaluative) of users/consumers has a significant impact on: (a) social media use, (b) eWOM about brand, and (c) brand loyalty. Social media use and brand loyalty were found to be the determinants of eWOM about brand. Finally, this research found that all three variables of: (a) social media use, (b) eWOM about brand, and (c) brand loyalty are the main determinants of intention to purchase a certain brand. Conclusion: This research suggests that social identity perspective can be integrated with other perspectives to model the consumer's psychological path to brand purchase intentions. This study confirms the critical role of social identification of users in the reaction towards a given brand and stresses the mediation effects of social media use, brand loyalty and eWOM on the effects of social identity on the path to brand purchase intention.