Language in Social Media - Period 1

This course focuses on language in social media by investigating electronic word of mouth and webcare. Since the rise of social media, consumers are enabled to voice their complaints, questions, and remarks to a large audience (i.e., electronic word of mouth). For instance, consumers post a negative review of their restaurant visit on Tripadvisor or tweet about their positive experience with an electronic device they recently ordered. Electronic word of mouth impacts the reputation of brands. To prevent and control potential negative impact of dissatisfying customer experiences, organizations have appointed organizational representatives to monitor the online interaction (i.e., who are talking in which sentiment about our organization/products/services?). When deemed necessary, these representatives intervene by responding to questions, complaints, and compliments. Such practices have become known as webcare. Recently, webcare has become a topic of interest in scientific research. There have been numerous experimental studies in which the effects of specific webcare interventions are examined. But it is still unclear which determinants play a role in this process and which (psychological, linguistic, interpersonal) theoretical models can be related to the phenomenon of webcare. The course teaches the theoretical principles related to webcare, as well as providing students hands-on experience (monitoring and analyzing consumer messages).

Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.