Influence of User-Generated Comments to Online Electronic Cigarette Commercials: Support, Opposition and Warnings About Deception

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Communication and Technology Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

This study examined the influence of online comments accompanying e-cigarette commercials on smokers’ attitude toward trying the product, and explored methods to unobtrusively increase readers’ resistance to positive reviews which are often generated by vendors, hired commercial entities or through spam bots. The overall comment climate was found to sway people’s e-cigarette attitudes as supportive comments elicited more favorable feelings toward trying e-cigarettes than oppositional comments, but supportive comments failed to improve smokers’ e-cigarette attitude over the no comment control condition. Warnings about comment deception in the form of user-to-user replies only raised people’s awareness of online review fraud if the majority of the comments on the board were in support of the product. Once people became aware of the possible deception they started to defensively process all the supportive information including the commercial and thus they eventually had less interest in trying e-cigarettes.

Authors

• Rui Shi, U of Pennsylvania

• Joseph N. Cappella, U of Pennsylvania