Lee, Sanghyub JohnHwang, EuejungYuk, HyeyeonDe Villiers, Rouxelle2025-12-102025-12-102025-06-08International Journal of Market Research, ISSN: 1470-7853 (Print); 2515-2173 (Online), SAGE Publications, 67(5), 630-653. doi: 10.1177/147078532513505481470-78532515-2173http://hdl.handle.net/10292/20371This study investigates the influence of negativity bias in digital activism (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter, #AllLivesMatter, and Nike’s #TakeAKnee campaigns). Analyzing over 3.5 million tweets across a decade, the research highlights how predominantly negative emotions, such as anger and disgust, shape public perceptions in the context of social justice movements and brand involvement in social issues. The results from a robust methodological framework, using social media analytics and advanced sentiment analysis tools like VADER and the TTL transformer model, showed that negative emotions significantly impact the overall sentiment of African Americans and companies like Nike. Specifically, anger within the #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter discourses negatively related to overall sentiment toward African Americans, while emotions such as sadness in the #TakeAKnee discussions positively related to overall sentiment toward Nike. Also, expressions of disgust within #AllLivesMatter and #TakeAKnee were associated with positive perceptions of African Americans. In contrast, positive emotions such as joy, and the neutral emotion of surprise showed no significant effects. These results underscore the dual impacts of negativity bias in digital activism, indicating the need for strategies to mitigate its effects and enhance the effectiveness of digital campaigns.© The Author(s) 2025. Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services3506 Marketing0806 Information Systems1505 MarketingMarketingJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1177/14707853251350548