The Influence of Electronic Word-of-Mouth Communication on the Behaviour of the Theatre Audience Analysed Through the Kosovo Example

Abstract

The expansion of Internet, the development of the new information and communication technologies as well as social networks have revolutionized the social interaction as they have enabled individuals to quickly and conveniently get in touch with each other. The interaction performed online, defined as online interpersonal communication, or the Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), as seen in numerous research papers, impacted the consumer behaviour. This paper analyses audience behaviour when making decisions vis-à-vis cultural offers presented in social networks. Although the issue of subjectivity in relation to the offered content in these platforms is set up as a determining factor for using e-WoM and the social networks, the main results suggest that both have been used by audience as a primary source of information when deciding to visit a cultural event. Moreover social networks have been described as places where information is not headed by clienteles, thus significant, customer friendly and trustworthy, despite the fact that all these information are based on subjective impressions of each social network user. The limited number of research on the impact of online communication of the theatre audience has been perceived as an obstacle, as there are no guiding direction how we should do it, and as a challenge, given that through this research we will set the baseline for future researches that will analyse the effectiveness of eWoM.