When Haters gather in a virtual community… Netnography of a french community called « Les Râleurs en ColRER E »
(A2023-114028)

AUTHORS

Virginie RODRIGUEZ, Université d'Orléans - VALLOREM; Pierre BUFFAZ, Université Panthéon Assas (Paris 2) - LARGEPA

ABSTRACT

This research aims to understand the nature of the exchanges of members of a virtual community of Haters. An exploratory study, based on a netnographic approach, was carried out within a virtual community of users of an RER line angry against the SNCF, in charge of the railway line. The analysis highlights four categories of speech: mostly emotional discourse, through which the members of the community express their feelings towards the SNCF; normative discourse, through which members help each other by sharing information; mixed discourse, both affective and normative; and, more marginally, discourse of a cognitive type, aiming at collecting information. This research enriches the literature on customer relationships by showing that it is not necessarily the love but sometimes the hate of a brand that will constitute the basis of community belonging, and alerts brands to the fact that a broken brand promise can lead customers to form a community to denigrate the brand and harm it.