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Defining Virtual Consumerism Through Content and Sentiment Analyses
Sezai Tunca1, Violetta Wilk2, Bulent Sezen1
1Faculty of Management, Gebze Technical University, Gebze, Turkey.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking
|January 31, 2023
Summary
Virtual consumerism (VC) is increasingly social and evolving. While The Guardian reports positive sentiment, challenges exist in sectors like security and medicine, impacting the virtual economy.
Area of Science:
- Digital Marketing and Consumer Behavior
- Computational Social Science
- Natural Language Processing
Background:
- Virtual consumerism (VC) is an evolving phenomenon.
- Understanding consumer perceptions and industry impact is crucial.
- Existing research lacks comprehensive analysis of VC discourse.
Purpose of the Study:
- To define and understand virtual consumerism (VC) using advanced text analysis.
- To explore key themes, sentiment, and industry associations related to VC.
- To provide a foundation for future research on VC.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of 318 articles from The Guardian using text mining.
- Thematic and content analysis with Leximancer.
- Sentiment analysis using MonkeyLearn and a valence-aware dictionary.
Main Results:
- Predominantly positive sentiment towards VC, but with notable negative sentiment in certain sectors.
- Identification of key themes defining VC, emphasizing its social and evolving nature.
- VC is embraced by marketing, IT, entertainment, and science sectors, but faces challenges in security and medical fields.
Conclusions:
- A working definition and synopsis of the current state of VC are presented.
- VC is a social experience in virtual spaces, undergoing continuous evolution.
- The study highlights research gaps and conceptual relationships for future investigation.
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