Aggregate bandwagon effect on online videos' viewership: Value uncertainty, popularity cues, and heuristics

Fu, Wayne; Sim, Clarice

doi:10.1002/asi.21641

Cited by 78 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…On the other hand, previous studies have consistently shown that in the participatory Web 2.0 environment, lay people's social endorsement is a powerful factor affecting credibility judgments or source selections (Fu & Sim, 2011;Messing & Westwood, forthcoming;. In a similar vein, students' peer endorsement of Wikipedia is positively correlated with their perceived credibility and their general use of Wikipedia (Lim & Simon, 2011;Lim 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Partner Effects of Compulsive Internet Use

Muusses¹,

Finkenauer²,

Kerkhof³

et al. 2013

Communication Research

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This study explores whether or not formal authority still matters for college students using Wikipedia by examining the variables of individual perceived credibility, peer endorsement and professor endorsement in relation to students' academic use of Wikipedia. A web survey was used to collected data in fall 2011. A total of 142 students participated in the study, of which a total of 123 surveys were useable for this study. The findings show that the more professors approved of Wikipedia, the more students used it for academic purposes. In addition, the more students perceived Wikipedia as credible, the more they used it for academic purposes. The results indicate that formal authority still influences students' use of usergenerated content (UGC) in their formal domain, academic work. The results can be applicable to other UGC, which calls attention to educators' active intervention to appropriate academic use of UGC. Professors' guidelines for UGC would benefit students.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Partner Effects of Compulsive Internet Use

Muusses¹,

Finkenauer²,

Kerkhof³

et al. 2013

Communication Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Images dominate the effect of texts when both modes appear together. These results account for the nonsignificance of textual moderation shown in Fu and Sim's (2011) study, which did not explore the intermodal interaction. Factoring in intermodality significantly improves model fit.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 50%

“…Among UGV contributions to the same site, in a competition for attention, those showing higher view counts should attract a larger share of subsequent views than those showing lower counts by a given time point. As per Fu and Sim (2011), the following hypothesis formalizes the bandwagon effect: H1: Bandwagon Effect of Popularity Cues. If one video has accumulated a higher view count than another over an equal length of time since their debuts, the one with a larger viewership subsequently attracts more views than the other.…”

Section: Content Uncertainty Popularity Cues and The Bandwagon Heurmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting Online Videos from Graphics, Text, and View Counts: The Moderation of Popularity Bandwagons

2012

J Comput-Mediat Comm

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Little is known about the counteracting influences of different recommending information in various presentation modes on Internet users' selection of content. Considering user-contributed video selection, this study examines how content introductions supplied by contributors (as video descriptions), system-aggregated user popularity signals, and a hybrid of system-and user-generated introduction-the thumbnail preview-contribute to or compete with bandwagon effects on video viewing selections. Based on data from a video-sharing site, the analysis detects bandwagon effects from incidental aggregated user responses: When a video displays a high view count, its popularity over others snowballs further. The bandwagon effect is moderated by thumbnail use regardless of textual introductions, and by text when no thumbnail appears.Key words: User-generated videos, Informational modality, Imagery domination, Inter-modal counteraction, Content uncertainty, Popularity cues, Bandwagon effect doi:10.1111/j. 1083-6101.2012.01593.x Visitors to user-generated content (UGC) websites are confronted with extensive uncertainty in selecting what content to consume (e.g., Flanagin & Metzger, 2008). Mass-amateurized content appears in vast quantities and lasts indefinitely, with value and relevance unknown or unpredictable to users. Site visitors, with limited prior knowledge of the offerings available, operate predominantly by finding what interests them through searching and browsing on a site.1 To assist users in finding appealing content, UGC sites customarily exhibit a range of introductory information attached to the various content items on catalogue, search pages, recommendation panes, or on the playback pages where content (such as a video) appear. Such information provides possibly the only knowledge within a user's reach and is vital to his or her searching and choosing videos in the face of an explosion of choices.There are both user-generated, system-generated, and hybrid cues about available content. The former are what a contributor writes to describe what the content contains verbally by such means as titles, keywords, and summaries. On user-generated video (UGV) platforms, introductions to a video can appear in a hybrid mode as well: It may include a thumbnail, which is a still or moving picture as a sample of the video footage. The graphics afford a preview of the video clip which may suggest its relevance and appeal. Both user-generated texts and thumbnails inform the prospective viewer about what to expect from the video before viewing it. Additionally, system-generated signals encompass popularity metrics including incidental aggregated user representations (Walther & Jang, this issue) such as view counts and downloads, and deliberate aggregated user representations such as likes or ratings, as well as user feedback such as recommendations or comments. They convey impressions of value to users intuitively. Web technologies such as filtering algorithms and interface ergonomics lead uncertain visitors toward peer...

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“…People tend to perceive information as credible if others do so (Metzger et al, 2010). Similarly, (Fu & Sim, 2011) found that online video users tend to view videos with a higher number of views than those with a lower number. In other words, social endorsement becomes a factor affecting the credibility judgments and source selections of UGC users.…”

Section: Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 86%

“…On the other hand, previous studies have consistently shown that in the participatory Web 2.0 environment, lay people's social endorsement is a powerful factor affecting credibility judgments or source selections (Fu & Sim, 2011; Messing & Westwood, forthcoming; Metzger & Flanagin, 2011). In a similar vein, students' peer endorsement of Wikipedia is positively correlated with their perceived credibility and their general use of Wikipedia (Lim & Simon, 2011; Lim 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%