Co-viewing Experience in Video Websites: The Effect of Social Presence on E-Loyalty

ABSTRACT

Video website operators work in a highly competitive market and, thus, cultivating evangelists who keep coming back and spreading positive word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals is important to retain market share and boost sustainability. This study empirically tests a model proposing that social presence elicited by the emerging bullet screen (“DanMu” in Chinese or “Danmaku” in Japanese) system in video websites serially affects immersive experience and perceived benefits, which in turn influence viewers’ e-loyalty. Data collected from 523 participants provide strong support for the proposed model. The results indicate that compelling immersive experience and perceived benefits are important mediators explaining the theoretical mechanism of how social presence affects loyalty. The presence of moderators such as group identification reinforces the influence of social presence on immersion. In addition, this study also suggests that perceived benefits differentially affect the two facets of e-loyalty (i.e., revisit intention and positive WOM). Specifically, revisit intention is mainly driven by the perceived hedonic benefit while positive WOM likelihood is largely determined by the utilitarian and social benefits. This study is the first to provide theoretical insights into understanding how increased social presence triggered by DanMu comments inspires the desired e-loyalty responses.

KEY WORDS AND PHRASES:

• Co-creation
• DanMu comments
• e-loyalty
• group identification
• immersive experience
• social presence
• S-O-R framework
• video websites

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article. The work described in this article was partially supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71571029, No. 71572028).

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jiaming Fang

JIAMING FANG ([email protected]; corresponding author) is an associate professor in the School of Management and Economics at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). His research focuses on electronic commerce and information management. He has published in International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, and other journals.

Lei Chen

LEI CHEN ([email protected]) is a Ph.D. student in the School of Management and Economics at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC). Her research focuses on electronic commerce and data mining. Her work has appeared in International Journal of Electronic Commerce and Information and Management.

Chao Wen

CHAO WEN ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the School of Business at Eastern Illinois University. His research interests include e-commerce, consumer behavior, and service operations. He has published in International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information and Management, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Information Management, and other journals.

Victor R. Prybutok

VICTOR R. PRYBUTOK ([email protected]) is the vice provost of the Toulouse Graduate School at the University of North Texas, and a regents professor of decision sciences in the Information Technology and Decision Sciences Department in the College of Business. He has authored over 170 journal articles, more than 200 conference presentations and proceedings, and several book chapters. He has published in MIS Quarterly, Operations Research, Decision Sciences, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Communications of the ACM, and others.