Detailing social influence in predicting cinema attendance: a vignette approach

The movie market is full of incommensurable products, encouraging consumers to rely on various judgment devices of a social nature (e.g., ratings and recommendations) to make choices. However, the role of movie genres and individual characteristics in relying on judgment devices remains uncertain.

Drawing upon Karpik’s theory of the economics of singularities, this study examines social influence in a movie market by employing a factorial survey to investigate the role of movie ratings and recommendations in predicting the likelihood of going to the cinema to watch a movie across four genres: romance, sci-fi, documentary and horror — genres distinguished by their varying levels of social stratification and popularity. The vignettes are presented in the form of pictures, depicting either low, middle or high ratings by movie experts, broad audience and peers, as well as personal recommendations from close friends, parents or neither.

First, the results reveal that the ratings by experts, broad audience and peers emerge as positive predictors; the gain from each rating's increase from the middle level to the highest level is greater than the loss from a decrease from the middle level to the lowest level among all movie genres. Second, personal recommendation by close friends, rather than parents, holds the highest significance regardless of the genre. Third, orientation toward specific judgment devices depends on individual characteristics of respondents, such as trust in family and importance of friends, genre preferences and the level of cultural omnivorousness.