Abstract

Although electronic word-of-mouth communication has attracted more and more attention, much research has been conducted to investigate the traditional word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. This study compared WOM use of general population and college students with a focus on the fans on Facebook fan pages. The results indicated that fans used social networking sites (SNS) more frequently than non-fans. The difference between fans and non-fans in the general population is more discernible than college students. Additionally, from the WOM perspective, the researchers examined the moderating role of product type in people’s word-of-mouth (WOM) preferences and found that people had different preferences for WOM for different products. Though traditional WOM is still the most important source when shopping online, the general population and college students had different preferences for other types of WOM when taking product type into consideration.

Key Words: eWOM, WOM, Fan Pages, SNS, Product Type, College Students

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 7, No. 2, October 2015, 15 – 35 

©Delmas Communications Ltd.

About the authors

*Xiao Hu is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University 302 West Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43402, U.S.A.

**Prof. Louisa Ha, Ph.D. is Editor, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly and Professor, Department of Telecommunications, School of Media and Communication, Bowling Green State University, 302 West Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43402, U.S.A.

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