How Deliberate Content Creation Amplifies Perceived Injustice and Predicts Retaliatory Behavior
(A2026-132432)

AUTHORS

Sheena Sidhu, The University of Sydney; Tom van Laer, University of Sydney; Ellen Garbarino, University of Sydney

ABSTRACT

The rise of digital content has transformed how marketers monitor societal trends. This research investigates whether deliberate, less moderated online content, such as self-published books, can act as a predictive signal for societal discontent. This paper presents two complementary studies. Study 1 experimentally demonstrates that deliberate content creation heightens perceived injustice and increases retaliatory intentions. The second study, based on the linguistic analysis of over fifty-eight million words drawn from 1,620 self-published books, reveals that expressions of perceived injustice forecast downstream retaliatory attitudes (consumer confidence) and retaliatory actions (protest behaviour) up to 9 months in advance. Practically, our findings offer marketers and policymakers new tools to detect early signals of consumer unrest in spaces often ignored by mainstream analytics.