Keskusteluteemat tekniseen erikoisalaan liittyvissä verkkokeskusteluissa kuluttajan näkökulmasta

Authors

• Eveliina Salmela Vaasan yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70484/vakki.149135

Keywords:

verkkoyhteisö, verkkokeskustelu, keskusteluteema, ostoprosessi

Abstract

This paper is a piece of ongoing research which concerns requesting and providing domain-specific information in online communities. The present study examines discussion boards that function as information-sharing communities about a specific domain. The aim of this paper is to find out what kinds of discussion themes are brought up in the opening messages of the message threads and how they can be divided into the phases of the consumer buying decision process. The special field selected for this study is domestic heating and especially heat pumps. The empirical data consists of 300 opening messages collected from two different Finnish discussion boards: Lampopumput.info (heatpumps.info), which requires participants to register and Suomi24.fi (Finland24), which allows them to participate in the discussion anonymously. The methodological and theoretical approach of the present study is computermediated discourse analysis. By using content analysis, the data was categorized into discussion themes based on the consumer buying decision process. The results show that the buying decision process was the most common discussion theme as a whole, especially on the discussion board that allows anonymous participation. Installing and using products were more common themes on the discussion board that requires registration.