A Genre Analysis of Book Review Written by Professional Critics Versus Online Consumer Critics
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Abstract
Online consumer reviews, as a type of Wordof-Mouth (WOM), are regarded by potential buyersas a source of information to reduce uncertainty in making buying decisions, and therefore could
impact a product’s sales. This type of review is different from the conventional reviews written by professional critics, as consumers are given the independence to write and publish their own reviews of a purchased product. As a result, online consumer reviews have become an attractive research topic for the academic circle. However,
comparative studies as to how professional critics and consumer critics write are still scarce. This
research therefore aims to explore such discrepancies, utilizing genre analysis as a framework, and focusing on the written structures of the two types of reviews. The total sample for this study was 50; 25 for professional reviews and 25 for consumer reviews. It was found that the written structure of the professional reviews were more structured and uniform, whereas the structure of the consumer reviews were inconsistent. It was also found that
professional critics keep their writing less personal and less persuasive, whilst consumer critics have the tendency to articulate their own personal reading experience.
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