Market Competition as a Moderator of the Effect of Social Signals on Viewership in Video-Sharing Platforms. Issue 3 (May 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fang, Jiaming; Liu, Lu; Hossin, Md. Altab; Wen, Chao; Xia, Guoen
• Is Part Of: Information processing & management. Volume 60:Issue 3(2023)
• Publication Date: 2023-05
• Subjects: Video-sharing platform -- Information asymmetry -- Social signals -- Information processing -- Market competition; Information storage and retrieval systems -- Periodicals; Information science -- Periodicals; Systèmes d'information -- Périodiques; Sciences de l'information -- Périodiques; Information science; Information storage and retrieval systems; Periodicals; 658.4038
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2023.103329
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-4573

Abstract

Highlights: The mechanisms by which social signals affect video viewership are investigated. Social presence has a greater impact on the increase in viewership than social endorsement. The effects of social signals are contingent on the platform's market competition conditions. The effects of social presence and social endorsement abate in a crowded market. The effects of social signals are strengthened in a highly concentrated market. Abstract: In this paper, we use a panel dataset of 15988 videos from 6826 online video producers across 17 markets on a large video-sharing platform to examine the impact of social signals on video viewership, with a particular focus on investigating the moderating role of the market competition. This study reports that social presence and endorsement are critical social signals that viewers use to predict viewing experience and video content quality. Notably, the results find strong evidence that the effectiveness of these social signals on video viewership is substantially contingent on the platform's market competition conditions at the producer and product level. More specifically, in highly (+1SD) competitive markets at the product level, social presence and social endorsement have a 2.92% and 3.46% less positive impact on video viewership, respectively, compared to low (-1SD) competitive markets. On the other hand, markets with high (+1SD) concentration, where there is a lack of competition at the producer level, increase the impact of these signals on video viewership by 7.55% and 6.22%, respectively, compared to markets with low (-1SD) concentration.