Trust building in wine blogs: a content analysis

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify trust-building signals and signaling patterns of commercial and non-commercial wine bloggers within a trustworthiness framework and assess prominence of balanced versus unbalanced resource-based or compensatory approaches for the management of consumer trust beliefs and the facilitation of positive trust intentions. Design/methodology/approach -Development and validation of theory-based signal-classification scheme and two-stage content analysis of trust-building signals embedded in wine blogs. Findings -It is found that wine bloggers manage consumer trust beliefs using an unbalanced signaling approach emphasizing ability over character. Ability sub-dimension signals vary by commercial orientation. Also, character signaling varies with commercial orientation. Research limitations/implications -Only English-language wine blogs were studied. Limitations of content analysis procedures preclude direct evaluation of signal efficacy in absolute or contextualized terms. Practical implications -Bloggers must secure reader trustworthiness to be effective communicators. Readers are likely to possess latent concerns about the bias of commercial bloggers and abilities of non-commercial ones. Bloggers recognize the importance of ability signaling but may not be fully exploiting their positions of perceived advantage nor fully compensating for their distinctive inherent perceived weaknesses. Social implications -Trustworthiness signaling in wine blogs has implications for bloggers in other contexts, including consumer and non-consumer information environments and not-for-profit and governmental communicators. Blog and blogger trustworthiness must be addressed by these communicators to effect audience persuasion. Originality/value -The paper discusses deductive development and validation of a novel signal classification scheme applied to trust building by bloggers that, through analysis of signal content, sheds light on behavior of commercial and non-commercial information sources in emerging product information environments.

Credibility in the blogosphere: A study of measurement and influence of wine blogs as an information source

“…The qualitative phase revealed comments such as “wine blog writers help me understand wine,” “I'm looking for things that really teach me about wine,” or “I read them for information about XXX, information about wineries, information about the wine industry.” This study also offers some support for Doyle et al . (). The indicators retained in the factor analysis for source credibility centered on expertise.…”

“…Wine, a social object and product, has become more prevalent in consumer behavior studies in a variety of social media contexts (e.g., virtual community, Habel et al ., ; Thach, ; WOM, Bouzdine‐Chameeva and Galam, ; blogs, Doyle et al ., ; search, Atkin and Thach, ; Twitter. Wilson and Quinton, ; blog influence, Zafiropoulos, ), ranging in focus from awareness to purchase.…”

“…Doyle et al . () identified the cues that commercial and non‐commercial wine bloggers use to signal trustworthiness to their readers, finding that commercial bloggers stress product‐related authority cues and non‐commercial stress product‐related consumption experience cues.…”

“…This observation particularly supports the critical role of credibility in the development of trust (Lee, ). Further, the predominance of online trust studies also focus on the role of credibility in trust development (e.g., Corritore et al ., ; Doyle et al ., ; Pan and Chiou, ), indicating the importance of credibility to the development of trust on the Web. Therefore, as depicted in H1a, H1b, and H1c, a positive wine blog credibility assessment provides the reason to trust the wine blog as an information source.…”

Chinese import demand for wine: evidence from econometric estimations

“…the strong connection between wine, countryside, environment and tourism (Charters & Ali-Knight, 2002;Getz & Brown, 2006;Hall, 2000;Mitchell, Charters, & Albrecht, 2012) and . the role of social media in providing information, encouraging interaction among users and building brand reputation (Doyle, Heslop, Ramirez, Cray, & Armenakyan, 2012;Reyneke, Pitt, & Berthon, 2011;Wilson & Quinton, 2012).…”