A study of the relationship between online movie reviews and the intention to watch the movie

Abstract Aim/purpose – This study explores how the content feature and source of eWOM affect people’s intentions and further analyses the effectiveness of eWOM on people’s intention to watch movies. Design/methodology/approach – The study considers two dimensions of movie reviews, including the source (anonymous or acquaintance) and the content feature (concrete or abstract), adopts a 2x2 between-subject design, and then analyzes online questionnaires (N = 313) via statistics analysis methods. Findings – The findings showed that if the source is from an acquaintance and the content feature is concrete, then people will have the highest intention to watch the movie. In addition, the acting skills of the cast and the love of the movie genre also enhance the positive influence on the viewer’s experience. Research implications/limitations – The respondents were selected only in Taiwan so this paper do not explain any differences among different countries. For example, cultural differences exist between the West and the East in the content feature of eWOM. Originality/value/contribution – If a type of genre is greatly accepted by the audience and generates huge box-office revenue, then producers and movie companies might keep making movies in these kinds of genre to secure profits. Therefore, box-office movies will usually fall into these certain types of genres, and there will be an abundance of them released in the near future.