Once again I found another example of wise-paper rolling on the market floor.
This super long titled paper ("The Differential Effects of Online Word-of-Mouth and Critics' Reviews on Pre-release Movie Evaluation" by Chakravarty, Liu and Mazumdar) explains how people's comments affect other people's willingness to go watch a new film.
Even though in the beginning I found it interesting, it turns out to be another exploitation of mental effort and resources. Here's what these people found:
we find that the persuasive effect of online word-of-mouth is stronger on infrequent than on frequent moviegoers, especially when it is negative (Study 1). The effect of negative word-of-mouth on infrequent moviegoers is enduring even in the presence of positive reviews by movie critics (Study 2).
In plain English, people who don't go often to the movies DON'T pay attention to favorable reviews by critics; instead they listen to other people's comments on a film, especially if they slam it!
The relative influence of word-of-mouth and critical reviews are asymmetric with infrequent moviegoers more influenced by word-of-mouth, while frequent moviegoers more influenced by the reviews (Study 3).
Aaaaand people who go often to the movies DO care about critics' views. Ok well, you had to spend your academic salary here, resources and intellect and make complicated tables and figures in order to prove something easily grasped by common sense.
It's absolutely natural for people who go movie-watching from time to time to trust others' comments instead of restlessly searching for reviews. Why would they bother? They just want to watch a film that their friends like and to feel a bit safe it's not crap. And of course real movie-fans follow critics' reviews regularly! It's more than a hobby and they naturally feel the need to find an "expert" to identify with...
Surely these researchers are not idiots and probably they knew what they'd find in the first place. But as many others, they just seem to prefer producing usable data for a movie company rather explaining how movie making affects us.
Pfff, marketing.
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