Investigating narrative involvement, parasocial interactions, and impulse buying behaviours within a second screen social commerce context

Abstract Using mobile devices for additional information search before, during and after watching television (either factual news or fictional TV series) - is an increasingly significant information management phenomenon. This activity has been recognised by both TV media executives and academia as ‘second screen’ activity. This paper develops and tests a ‘parasocial interaction-impulse buying’ - model that captures the behaviours of consumers watching a Chinese TV drama series. These audience-consumers were also engaging extensively (most on a daily basis) during the broadcast period with series related influencer social media activities on a second screen. A structural equation model was developed to analyse the data. Findings indicate that TV series audience consumers who are also highly engaged with influencer- consumer ‘second screen’ content are likely to experience positive narrative involvement leading to engagement in parasocial interaction behaviours and ultimately impulse buying behaviour. These findings have implications for managers by providing insights into (1) the effects of influencer second screen content (2) the processes by which consumers’ involvement in a TV show’s narrative leads to impulse buying of products. Thus, influencer related second screen consumer engagement should be considered a significant opportunity for marketers, as such activity makes consumers become more involved in the characters and the narrative of a particular TV show, leading to increased impulse buying.