Do endorsement topics sway public investment in citizen science projects: Topic analyses and intrinsic versus extrinsic comparison

The endorsement text of citizen science projects can be person&identity-, content&idea-, promotion&persuasion- or review&evaluation-oriented. This article examines how endorsement orientation can improve the value of citizen science projects by swaying public investment in the projects. We apply the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) theory and text mining to analyse 2564 endorsement texts elicited from 1264 citizen science projects. Our results inform that person&identity-oriented endorsements is most effective for gaining funds and other project resources, followed by content&idea-oriented endorsements. Furthermore, the effect of person&identity-oriented endorsements on citizen science projects led by amateur researchers is more pronounced than those projects led by professional scientists and research students. Also, intrinsic endorsement topics deliver better promise than extrinsic ones, regardless of the research discipline. Hence, for successful projects, citizen science project managers need to have USPs in their endorsement orientations. Finally, the endorsers of citizen science projects need to tie the endorsement topics to the identity of the researchers and the management of such projects is discipline agnostic.