Persuasion in Audio-based Social Media: A Clubhouse Interview Study

Clubhouse is an audio-based social media platform launched in March 2020. In this platform, users create chat rooms for discussions around a topic of their choice. Organizers of these discussions can decide which listener in the room to be given the right to speak. To explore their experiences of persuading others and of being persuaded in Clubhouse discussions, we interviewed 16 Clubhouse users. One's credibility is important to the perceived persuasiveness of one's argument. In Clubhouse, one may establish their credibility through their profile pages where they introduce themselves such as their backgrounds, experiences, affiliations, passions, etc. Hence, our interviews also probed whether speakers' profile pages are used to check their credibility.