Forces affecting perception of product comments on social-WOM: An interactive, relational communication perspective

An attempt is made to explore the predicting factors of the perception of product comments on word-of-mouth through social media (social-WOM). The concept of the Social Information Processing theory is borrowed to develop a 4-stage framework in which 4 determinants drive the 2 perceptions of sWOM product comments through 2 sequential intervening mediators. The field study is conducted in Taiwan. Survey data are collected from a sample of 408 participants. The findings show that, in a social media community, intimacy, dominance, and informality alleviate the perception of environmental uncertainty, which in turn stimulates the involvement of sWOM product comments; eventually, both the outcome variables of trustability and quality of these comments arise. Additionally, task orientation and intimacy and dominance are able to drive community members to perceive the 2 outcome perceptions through the direct pathway of involvement. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty is capable of straightforwardly evoking the quality of comments.