Exploring the Mechanisms of Evidence Characteristics on Persuasiveness in Crowd-Judging: An ELM Perspective

The exponential growth of online activities makes platform disputes inevitable, and the use of crowd-judging for online dispute resolution has become increasingly popular. However, there is a limited understanding of the in-depth analysis of the characteristics of evidence during the dispute process and their impact on dispute resolution outcomes. In this study, based on the ELM model, a research model containing four features related to its evidence in crowd-judging process is established. Specifically, we hypothesize that the four evidence-related features (first-evidence effectiveness, evidence consistency, evidence informativeness and evidence emotion) have different effects on the persuasive power of evidence. To validate this framework, we collect and analyze a dataset from the “Goofish” application. This research not only enriches the literature on platform governance, particularly in online dispute resolution but also provides practical insights that are effective and efficient for both platforms and their users.