Who sells knowledge online? An exploratory study of knowledge celebrities in China
ISSN: 1066-2243
Article publication date: 24 August 2021
Issue publication date: 9 May 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores identity signaling used by an emerging class of knowledge celebrities in China – Knowledge Wanghong – who sell knowledge products on online platforms. Because identity signaling may involve constructing unique online identities and controlling over product-related and seller-related characteristics, the purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) to uncover different online identities of knowledge celebrities; and (2) to examine the extent to which the online identity type is associated with their product-related characteristics, seller-related characteristics and sales performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A unique data set was collected from a Chinese leading pay-for-knowledge platform – Zhihu – which featured the online profiles of tens of thousands of knowledge celebrities. Online identity types were derived from their self-edited content using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Thereafter, their product-related characteristics, seller-related characteristics and respective sales performance were analyzed across different identity types using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple-group linear regression.
Findings
Knowledge celebrities are clustered into four distinctive online identities: Mentor, Broker, Storyteller and Geek. Product-related characteristics, sell-related characteristics and sales performance varied across four different identities. Additionally, the online identity type moderated the relationships among their product-related characteristics, sell-related characteristics and sales performance.
Originality/value
As emerging-phenomenon-based research, this study extends related literature by using the notion of identity signaling to analyze a peculiar group of online celebrities who are setting an important trend in the pay-for-knowledge model in China.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciated the comments and suggestions from the editors and review team. An earlier version of the manuscript entitled “Who sells knowledge to you? Understanding online identities of knowledge influencers on a pay-for-knowledge platform” was published at Proceedings of 13th China Summer Workshop on Information Management (CSWIM 2019). This research was also benefited from oral presentations at 5th CoHASS Graduate Student Conference at Nanyang Technological University, 17th Chinese Internet Research Conference at National University of Singapore (CIRC 2019), and iConference 2021 Doctoral Colloquium at Renmin University of China.
Citation
Chen, X., Chua, A.Y.K. and Pee, L.G. (2022), "Who sells knowledge online? An exploratory study of knowledge celebrities in China", Internet Research, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 916-942. https://doi.org/10.1108/INTR-07-2020-0378
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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