A study of affective and cognitive dimensions in online reviews

Abstract

User Generated Content is becoming increasingly important in the digital age, with customers and users voicing out their opinions and concerns in various ways ranging from ratings to vlogs. The reach of the service and future trajectory is greatly influenced by the new age content coming from the users. In this aspect, Reviews are written or spoken evaluations of products, services, experiences, or performances. The utility of reviews is manifold. First, reviews can provide valuable feedback for businesses, helping them identify areas where they can improve their products or services. Second, reviews can influence consumer behavior. Research has shown that online reviews can have a significant impact on purchasing decisions. Positive reviews can increase the likelihood that a consumer will purchase a product, while negative reviews can have the opposite effect. By analyzing reviews, businesses can gain insight into consumer preferences, concerns, and expectations, which can help them improve their products and services and better meet the needs of their customers. Third, reviews can be a rich source of data for researchers. By analyzing reviews, researchers can gain insights into consumer behavior, attitudes, and opinions. This information can be used to develop new products, improve existing ones, and inform marketing and advertising strategies. For this project, we have taken up Airbnb reviews to understand how reviews and their responses are being constructed and the importance of tone and sentiment as the gu iding force of the same. The reviews provide an important part of an industry such as sharing economy and thus, our study is focussed on understanding the qualitative tone aspects within each review, as tone can significantly influence the credibility as well as the reputation of such peer-to-peer platforms.