ABSTRACT
The advent of user-centric Web technologies and platforms has enabled the efficient creation and distribution of user-generated content. As a result, the landscape of online media has changed dramatically. The proliferation of user-generated content has launched the participation, massive and direct, of consumers in marketing communications. This participation is through electronic word of mouth (hereafter eWOM). Traditional word of mouth (hereafter WOM), based on prior relationships, generally takes place in face-to-face communication settings. eWOM, however, requires no strong ties and occurs mostly in the form of many-to-many communications among remote contacts (Chatterjee 2001; Dellarocas 2003). With the aid of eWOM, consumers have abundant venues (e.g., blogs, virtual brand communities, social networking sites, instant messaging, and discussion forums) to share their own consumption-related experiences. Such forums are unrestricted by time or location (Ha 2004; Hennig-Thurau and Walsh 2003). Therefore, eWOM has provided unprecedented opportunities for consumers to seek out and share product and service information in the interactive media environment (Dwyer 2007).
