A theoretical framework to identify authentic online reviews

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which textual characteristics of online reviews help identify authentic entries from manipulative ones across positive and negative comments. Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical framework is proposed to identify authentic online reviews from manipulative ones based on three textual characteristics, namely, comprehensibility, informativeness, and writing style. The framework is tested using two publicly available data sets, one comprising positive reviews to hype own offerings, and the other including negative reviews to slander competing offerings. Logistic regression is used for analysis. Findings – The three textual characteristics offered useful insights to identify authentic online reviews from manipulative ones. In particular, the differences between authentic and manipulative reviews in terms of comprehensibility and informativeness were more conspicuous for negative entries. On the other hand, the differences between authen...

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