The Main Elements of eWOM

According to Hennig–Thurau et al.’s (2004) definition: “Any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet”, we can discover that electronic word-of-mouth consists of five main elements:

1. Statement: positive, negative or neutral
2. Communicator: statement creator i.e. potential, actual or former customer
3. Object: product, service or/and company
4. Receiver: multitude of people and institutions
5. Environment: the Internet, particularly the social media

The statement, author and object are essentially the same as in traditional, non-electronic word-of-mouth but the nature of receiver and environment have changed in consequences of Internet and social media. The receiver in eWOM is not solely a single person – it consists of multitude of people and institutions. The statement passing process has shifted from oral, person-to-person communication to electronic and written form, in many cases to person-to-unknown-people communication. Additionally, the whole environment has changed from face-to-face context to the extensive Internet and social media.

Source:
Hennig-Thurau, T., Qwinner, K.P., Walsh, G., Gremler, D.D. (2004), "Electronic word-of-mouth via consumer-opinion platforms: what motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?", Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 18 No.1, pp.38-52.