The Role of Portrayals of Risky Behavior in Alcohol-Branded eWOM in Driving Online Engagement
Jackie London, Jr. and Marie A. Yeh
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
Volume 29, Number 1, 2025, pp. 131-154.
Abstract:
In an attention economy, content creators may seek to attract viewers and followers by employing increasingly transgressive strategies. This research investigates the prevalence and consequence of one such strategy: depictions of risky alcohol behaviors (e.g. drunkenness, passing out, chugging, etc.) in alcohol-branded YouTube videos, a form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Though alcohol-branded content is common on social media platforms, little is known about how portrayals of risky behavior affect exposure to or engagement with eWOM. We explore these issues by leveraging insights from benign violations and morbid curiosity theories in a content analysis of 250 alcopop (i.e. flavored alcoholic beverages) YouTube videos identifying risky behaviors and their effects on exposure and engagement. We find that depictions of risky alcohol behaviors are associated with increases in eWOM exposure and engagement with direct and indirect effects. A semantic analysis of comments shows that risky behaviors are associated with a coarsening of engagement tone. Our work provides insight into the prevalence of risky alcohol behaviors in eWOM and shows that while controversial content drives engagement, it does so at the cost of tone.