(Dis)content: How deliberate, less moderated expressions of perceived injustice signal shifts in consumer confidence and protest participation

The exponential growth of digital content has transformed how organizations interpret consumer sentiment and anticipate societal trends. Among these trends, perceived injustice, a subjective experience of unfair treatment, poses significant implications for social dynamics and economic stability. While previous research on digital content emphasizes real-time, impulsive, and moderated formats such as social media reactions, this article explores the overlooked signaling potential of deliberate, less moderated content. A linguistic time series analysis of over 58 million words across 1,620 self-published e-books published over the course of 15 years reveals that expressions of perceived injustice embedded in deliberate content is correlated with consumer confidence and protest participation up to twelve months later. These findings extend current interactive marketing scholarship by integrating linguistics with time series analysis, offering both conceptual insights and practical implications for organizations seeking to anticipate disruptive consumer attitudes and actions.