Examining the role of narratives in civic crowdfunding: linguistic style and message substance

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how linguistic style and message substance influence persuasion in civic crowdfunding marketplaces in which written narrative pitch become a vital communication to attract private contributions to public goods and services. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), the authors operationalize the linguistic style of the narrative pitch as language power and message substance as issue-relevant argument quality. In this paper, the authors examine how characteristics of both style and message are related to the outcome of civic crowdfunded projects. Design/methodology/approach The data on civic crowdfunding projects were retrieved from Spacehive, the platform that dedicated mainly to civic projects ranging from community programs, social-oriented enterprises, to infrastructure or facility development. Each of the narrative samples is analyzed using a computerized text analysis package called the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to extract the features of the linguistic style and message substance in the narratives. The logistic regression models are estimated to assess the impact of both linguistic style and message substance on crowdfunding decisions. Findings The results show that funding outcomes can be improved with psychological language dimensions (i.e. positive affective and perceptual language). However, extensive use of social language does not help project creators to increase their chance of funding performance; but instead, such language reduces the likelihood of project success. Additionally, message substance or issue-relevant information such as money and risk language influences funding outcome. Originality/value Very few empirical studies investigated the differential effects of language style and message substance on funding performance of crowdfunding campaigns. The authors draw upon the dual process of persuasion as a theoretical base to identify a comprehensive set of linguistic style and message substance and to examine the role of such features in an emerging civic crowdfunding market. This study advances the application of the dual process in ELM by identifying and examining distinct persuasive cues originating from linguistics styles and message contents.

Civic crowdfunding: A new opportunity for local governments

“…These results do not concur with the studies of Pitschner and Pitschner-Finn (2014) and Allison et al (2015), who found that non-profit projects have a higher probability of success and receive higher average contributions compared to for-profit projects. It should also be noted that this study considers the nature of the project a critical condition, since previous academic research on civic crowdfunding had not given much to this (Lee et al, 2019;Brent & Lorah 2019), focusing on the study of other drivers that can influence campaign success (among others, Brent & Lorah, 2019;Doan & Toledano, 2018;Hassna et al, 2018).…”

“…The projects collecting funds through civic fundraising must result in an improvement in the lives of the community members and represent a 'shift to a more participatory form of urban planning' (Brent & Lorah, 2019, p. 122). The projects can have a profit or a not-forprofit nature, since civic crowdfunding is used also by social entrepreneurs to fund their social enterprises (Calic & Schevchenko, 2020;Lee et al, 2019). Social entrepreneurs often have limited access to traditional capital providers and this problem seems to sharpen 'when social ventures need capital to invest in commercial activities that generate earned income' (Calic & Mosakowski, 2016, p. 739).…”

“…They also concluded that the backers' social networks are critical for backers 'that live far away from the project site but have strong ties to the projects' community and/or campaign leader' (p. 129). Lee et al (2019) explored how linguistic style and message substance influence persuasion in civic crowdfunding. They concluded that extensive use of social language does not influence funding performance; indeed, such language reduces the likelihood of project success.…”

“…Civic crowdfunding has changed the landscape of fundraising for charitable purposes since it is 'a unique type of crowdfunding that garners funds for civic causes, such as urban renewal, neighbourhood green space, and community events' (Brent & Chan, 2019, p. 2143. By analogy with studies on other types of crowdfunding models, previous academic research on civic crowdfunding has mainly focused on different drivers that can influence the success of civic crowdfunding campaigns (see among others, Brent & Lorah, 2019;Doan & Toledano, 2018;Hassna et al, 2018), while only less attention has been devoted to the nature of civic project searching for funds (Brent & Lorah, 2019;Lee et al, 2019). Notwithstanding, the delimitation and comprehension of this phenomenon is far from well-defined.…”

Civic Crowdfunding: Four Perspectives on the Definition of Civic Crowdfunding

“…Civic crowdfunding campaigns can also be found on reward-based crowdfunding CFPs, with both tangible and non-tangible rewards, such as the campaign to bail out the Greek people during the debt crisis (Indiegogo 2015). Table 19.1 Overview and typology of civic crowdfunding platforms (selection) Donation-and rewardbased CFPs narrative for the self-framing of civCF campaigns, which in turn informs their choice of a platform (Lee et al 2019). There is anecdotal evidence that all-purpose CFPs dedicated to creative industries introduced civCF campaigns categories because of repeated requests to host civCF campaigns, sometimes by project initiators which used the CFP for projects such as funding games, movies, and music albums, and then aiming to use their existing community on the platform to initiate projects with a civic purpose.…”