Determining consumers' most preferred eWOM platform for movie reviews: A fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach

In light of the sheer number of movie releases each week, consumers seek out online reviews to help them decide which movies to watch. Although there are numerous Web 2.0 platforms offering online reviews, the standard of some platforms leaves much to be desired. Accordingly, this research aims to determine consumers' most preferred electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) platform for movie reviews and examine the criteria that form an effective eWOM platform. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to evaluate the eWOM present in a personal blog, review site, social networking site and instant messaging site according to two global criteria: information quality and source credibility. A decision tree containing the two global criteria and their sub-criteria was evaluated in a systematic manner through subjective ratings by actual movie-goers. Source credibility was found to be more important than information quality with review sites emerging as the most preferred eWOM platform. The results showed that FAHP provides a non-biased and transparent assessment approach for ranking platforms and determining the platform that individuals prefer when receiving their information. FAHP also identified the important attributes of an effective eWOM platform, thus rendering it a useful and valuable tool for decision makers.