The Never Ending Book: The role of external stimuli and peer feedback in user-generated content production

Maria Marchenko and Hendrik Sonnabend ()
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Hendrik Sonnabend: Department of Economics and Business Administration, University of Hagen

Department of Economics Working Papers from Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the determinants of the voluntary provision of user-generated (online) content. Using data from the largest fanfiction website, we find that writers respond differently to new original material: conditional on text length, writing times increase for the average writer and even more for the elite of prolific writer. We explain this finding with quality concerns. In addition, we find supportive evidence that community feedback encourages first-time contributors to continue publishing. For more established writers, we find that community feedback has a rather dampening effect on text lengths and writing times. Overall, these effects are more pronounced for high-quality community feedback ('reviews') compared to low-quality community feedback ('following', 'favoriting').

Keywords: fanfiction; user-generated content; online public goods; voluntary contribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 D01 H41 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul and nep-dem
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Working Paper: The Never Ending Book: The role of external stimuli and peer feedback in user-generated content production (2022)
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