Title: Determinants of online review helpfulness: a metadiscourse perspective

Authors: Yinghao Li; Yi Wei; Jinshui Zuo

Addresses: Department of Marketing, School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, China ' Department of Marketing, School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, China ' Department of Marketing, School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, China

Abstract: The concept of online review helpfulness has garnered significant attention from both the business and academic communities. However, there is still a gap in our understanding of how the textual properties of online reviews contribute to their perceived helpfulness. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the influence of interactional metadiscourse on the perceived helpfulness of online reviews. Through a rigorous analysis of 3,744 reviews collected from Amazon, we employed negative binomial regression to examine the relationship. Our findings reveal that the presence of interactional metadiscourse, including hedges, attitude markers, self-mention, and engagement markers, significantly enhances the perceived helpfulness of reviews. These results emphasise the crucial role of metadiscourse in shaping the perceived value of online reviews, which holds important implications for both consumers and e-commerce retailers.

Keywords: review helpfulness; metadiscourse; interactional metadiscourse.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCULTM.2024.138915

International Journal of Cultural Management, 2024 Vol.1 No.4, pp.367 - 383

Received: 07 Oct 2023
Accepted: 03 Dec 2023
Published online: 03 Jun 2024 *

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