Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
New Media & Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Utz, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

'Egoboo' vs. altruism: the role of reputation in online consumer communities

Sonja Utz

VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands, s.utz{at}fsw.vu.nl

This article focuses on the role of reputation in consumer communities. Reputation systems can have a sanctioning function (incentive for good conduct) or a signalling function (e.g. signalling competence or trustworthiness). If the sanctioning function is dominant, striving for reputation should be the major motivation for contribution. However, contributions also can be motivated by altruism, the pleasure of interaction, earning money or generalized reciprocity. An online study of members of a German consumer community assessed the motivations for contribution and the evaluation of various features of the site. Overall, reputation turned out to be the least important motivation. Five types of users could be distinguished, but only the multiple motive consumers scored high on reputation. However, all community members perceived the quality ratings of the reviews as very important. The findings suggest that reputation has mainly a signalling function, but not so much of a sanctioning function in consumer communities.

Key Words: altruism • consumer community • contribution • generalized reciprocity • reputation • sanctioning function • signalling function • social dilemma

New Media & Society, Vol. 11, No. 3, 357-374 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1461444808101616
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?