Negative tweets on TV programmes can cut viewers' interest

Negative comments about a television show on social media platforms like Twitter can make viewers less interested, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin.

In the study, participants who saw negative messages in the form of tweets were more likely to say that other people would rate the show negatively.

The participants also were more likely to agree that people would not recommend the programme to their friends.

"People who saw the negative tweets were less likely to enjoy the programme because they thought other people didn't like it. It was directly affected by what they thought others thought," said S. Shyam Sundar, Professor Media Effects Research Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University.

This phenomenon was referred as the "bandwagon effect" -- when people adopt beliefs and ideas because they think others hold similar beliefs.

The effect manifests in several ways in various forms of media and social media, Sundar said in the paper appearing in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.

"The bandwagon effect could be in the form of star ratings, the number of viewers, number of views, number of shares for example, and could be positive or negative," Sundar said.

He added that these perceptions of group opinion, in turn, can cause viewers to hop on or hop offmthe bandwagon for a television show.

-IANS