Web of Mouth 2.0, an Exploration of Trust through Online Restaurant “Guidebook” Communities

This dissertation was submitted to the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2010, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MSc in Media and Communications.

If you would like to read the 12,000 research paper in its entirety please get in touch with me!

Abstract
This is a study of online food and restaurant recommendation websites and how we come to use or not use them in our decision making process. By employing a media studies audience uses and gratification approach combined with a marketing research word of mouth perspective this body of research seeks to understand the motivations, behaviors and consequences of use surrounding online restaurant recommendation websites and the pivotal role of trust in their feedback mechanisms. This paper provides insights into how the internet is influencing trust habits and examines whether or not electronic word of mouth is successful in the context of online food and restaurant recommendation websites such as Yelp, Chowhound, OpenTable, MenuPages, and New York Magazine. It studies why opinion seekers are willing to accept online customer reviews by asking: why do people trust (or distrust)online restaurant recommendations? Through a combination of 21 short surveys and interviews I discovered that respondents generally trust the electronic word of mouth for restaurant recommendations. There are certain attributes and cues that signal which online restaurant recommendations are most useful. How well a review is written has the most impact on credibility and usefulness for respondents; interviewees also use comprehensiveness as an indicator of trustworthiness. Within our sample, attribute centric electronic word of mouth restaurant recommendations were considered the most beneficial. Results also indicate the formation of a new kind of parasocial trust. Furthermore, the traditional word of mouth is moving online as demonstrated by the appropriation of guidebook communities into our respondents’ restaurant decision making processes.