DIGITAL INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION ETHICS IN PRODUCT REVIEW PRACTICES ON THE SHOPEE MARKETPLACE

Abstract

The rapid growth of digital marketplaces has turned product reviews into more than an evaluative feature; they have become a site where the ethics of digital interpersonal communication are enacted and negotiated between consumers and sellers. This study examines how honesty, civility, empathy, and authenticity are practiced when consumers write reviews and when sellers respond to them on the Shopee marketplace. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, data were gathered through in-depth interviews with Generation Z consumers and sellers, complemented by observation of review-and-response interactions on Shopee. The findings show that ethical communication underlies the credibility of reviews: honest, experience-based reviews are perceived as trustworthy, while manipulative or abusive language is regarded as a breach of communicative ethics. Sellers' ethical conduct in responding, marked by empathy, non-defensiveness, and solution orientation, further shapes perceived integrity and strengthens interpersonal trust. The study argues that ethics functions as the governing principle of digital interpersonal communication in marketplaces, with trust and two-way relational communication emerging as its outcomes rather than its foundation. These findings reframe product reviews from a transactional feature into an ethically grounded communicative practice in digital commerce. 

Keywords : digital communication ethics, interpersonal communication, product review