A review bomb is a surge in online reviews, coordinated by a group of people willing to manipulate public opinions. This is a study on a prominent case of review bombing (n = 51,120) of the video game The Last of Us Part II, challenging the assumption that review bombing should be framed solely as misinformation. The impact of fake reviews is substantially small. Ideology-driven ratings associated with a conservative ideology are followed by a grassroots counter-bombing from progressives, aimed at mitigating the effects of the negative ratings. These factions are very similar in other metrics. Preventive measures are proposed.

Review bombing: ideology-driven polarisation in online ratings: The case study of The Last of Us (part II)

Cantone G. G.
;
Tomaselli V.;
2024-01-01

Abstract

A review bomb is a surge in online reviews, coordinated by a group of people willing to manipulate public opinions. This is a study on a prominent case of review bombing (n = 51,120) of the video game The Last of Us Part II, challenging the assumption that review bombing should be framed solely as misinformation. The impact of fake reviews is substantially small. Ideology-driven ratings associated with a conservative ideology are followed by a grassroots counter-bombing from progressives, aimed at mitigating the effects of the negative ratings. These factions are very similar in other metrics. Preventive measures are proposed.
2024
Information management
Meta-opinions
Metacritic
Online reviews
Text mining
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11769/637609
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