Reviews

My previous post (the post added earlier today) made me think of the first signature assignment I prepared at NCU, which was on online reviews. While preparing that signature assignment, I learned that a consumer review is considered more believable if it is balanced or neutral. One-sided reviews are not as believable. The analysis provided additional information on why a review may be one-sided. A review may be one-sided or biased because of the reviewer's field of specialization, beliefs, or background/experiences. The motivation for some of the reviews seemed to be to contribute to the discussion or add their "two cents." The intent was not always clear. It is interesting that the concept map I prepared as a step towards the signature assignment - based on selected papers in the literature - did not provide much information on intent. (Link to concept map: https://fahmeenaodetta.blogspot.com/2022/06/signature-assignment-on-online-reviews.html)

I found an article (research) on the PhD experience. I did not know there was research on this.

elifesciences.org magazine

Credibility

Today, I am thinking of how and why others may view someone as believable or credible. In my research on online reviews for a PhD course (my first signature assignment), I looked at what would lead others to believe the information in an online review. The literature indicated that argument quality, whether the review was one-sided or two-sided (probably the perceived motivation for the review), review consistency, expertise of the reviewer, and so on impacted the credibility of a review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at expertise -- 

It makes sense that the expertise of the reviewer determines how credible a review is viewed. If a person speaks intelligently about a topic, that person would be viewed as knowledgeable and therefore authentic and credible.  Everyone wants to be the expert of a particular topic or present a unique idea.

In social media, experts of a topic are generally influencers. These influencers are all about expertise or knowledge of a topic. There are other types of influencers - celebrities, musicians, athletes, and the like  - who are not experts in an academic field, but still drive action and influence consumers to purchase products.

I found an interesting journal article (Arora, Bansal et al, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969698919300128) that developed an Influencer Index for social media. The use of the word 'index' caught my attention. It made me think of indices in finance such as the Dow Jones or S&P 500. The influencer index discovers influencers on social media networks. Will this lead to something?

I guess social media is growing in importance.

Truth

I've been thinking about truth. Truth is complicated. Sometimes, the intent is to deceive so there is little or no truth provided. Sometimes, the truth is withheld to protect the innocent. Sometimes, it is not clear what the truth is. The person may not have all the information or may be in the dark about certain details because of short-sightedness.

My research/papers touched on truth. My paper on online reviews showed that reviewers or raters of products/businesses may choose to be anonymous or may use a phony persona, which frees them from telling the truth. The reviewer may or may not have used the product. (Model at: http://fmooreconceptmap1.blogspot.com/2016/06/concept-map-domain-model-created-for.html)

Making comments/reviews online may be more dangerous than comments given face-to-face. Faces show emotion. Also, it takes a certain type of person to hurl hurtful words to others face-to-face. When online, it is a lot easier to make negative, hurtful comments.