온라인 유대관계와 동질성이 온라인 구전의 수용에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

The Effects of Online Social Tie and Homophily on The Acceptance of Word-of-Mouth Information

Previous research on the topic mostly considered consensus, vividness, and interactive communication cause-and-effect factors of online word-of-mouth acceptance and shed light on how these elements affect credibility. In this paper, we empirically investigate whether social ties that were established online would, as an independent variable, significantly influence positive credibility through expertise, a mediator. According to preceding studies, online homophily is very likely to influence acceptance of word-of-mouth credibility. The purpose of our study is to employ online social ties and homophily, both cause-and-effect factors, as independent variables and prove how they affect other variables; previous research did not consider the mediated effect of expertise and instead focused on network cause-and-effect factors as moderating variables. Therefore, this article reveals how the online word-of-mouth cause-and-effect factors outlined above affect the acceptance of undocumented news through expertise and credibility, both mediators compared to existing research. The article contains three findings: first, our study reveals that online social ties, an independent variable, is likely to influence expertise. Second, expertise has a significant impact on credibility. Third, online homophily is fundamentally influential to credibility. Following previous findings, we empirically show that credibility is likely to positively influence acceptance of unproven news, examine both theoretical and practical implications, and discuss limitations for future research.