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Gender, writing and ranking in review forums: a case study of the IMDb

Online review forums provide consumers with essential information about goods and services by facilitating word-of-mouth communication. Despite that preferences are correlated to demographic characteristics, reviewer gender is not often provided on user profiles. We consider the case of the internet...

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Published in:Knowledge and information systems 2013-06, Vol.35 (3), p.645-664
Main Author: Otterbacher, Jahna
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Language:English
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description Online review forums provide consumers with essential information about goods and services by facilitating word-of-mouth communication. Despite that preferences are correlated to demographic characteristics, reviewer gender is not often provided on user profiles. We consider the case of the internet movie database (IMDb), where users exchange views on movies. Like many forums, IMDb employs collaborative filtering such that by default, reviews are ranked by perceived utility. IMDb also provides a unique gender filter that displays an equal number of reviews authored by men and women. Using logistic classification, we compare reviews with respect to writing style, content and metadata features. We find salient differences in stylistic features and content between reviews written by men and women, as predicted by sociolinguistic theory. However, utility is the best predictor of gender, with women’s reviews perceived as being much less useful than those written by men. While we cannot observe who votes at IMDb, we do find that highly rated female-authored reviews exhibit “male” characteristics. Our results have implications for which contributions are likely to be seen, and to what extent participants get a balanced view as to “what others think” about an item.
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subjects Analysis
Applied sciences
Bias
Biological and medical sciences
Case studies
Collaboration
Communication
Computer Science
Computer science
control theory
systems
Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface
Consumers
Correlation
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
Data processing. List processing. Character string processing
Database Management
Demographics
Displays
Exact sciences and technology
Filtering
Filtration
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender
Gender differences
Information Storage and Retrieval
Information systems
Information Systems and Communication Service
Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet)
Information systems. Data bases
Internet
IT in Business
Memory organisation. Data processing
Men
Motion pictures
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Regular Paper
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social networks
Social psychology
Software
Studies
Utilities
Virtual communities
Women
Writing
title Gender, writing and ranking in review forums: a case study of the IMDb
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