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Project

The power of platforms: How design choices influence writers of online reviews and their readers

My dissertation project is about the impact of different personal and situational characteristics in the online consumer review process on people’s level of mental construal (Trope & Liberman, 2010) which determines the language abstraction in reviews. When reviews are written concretely, they will be perceived as more helpful (Chua & Banerjee, 2016) as they contain more details to make a better informed purchase decision.

Consumers see online reviews as an important source of information. This e-WOM (electronic word-of-mouth) has effects on consumer attitudes and intentions (e.g. King, Racherla, & Bush, 2014). However, very little research has dealt with the writing of these reviews, which this project approaches through that concept of mental construal.

My project will have two empirical (quantitative) lines of research. First, a content analysis was performed on a large and representative sample of reviews and review websites. Second, experiments will single out the causality of these individual and combined effects of personal and situational. Firms and organizations who wish to help consumers make better decisions can apply the findings of our research. Next, it is also relevant for and serves a fundamental interest in the dynamics of human communication and its underlying psychological processes.

Date:24 Sep 2015 →  13 May 2019
Keywords:online consumer reviews, word of mouth, review website design
Disciplines:Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications
Project type:PhD project