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Short abstract:

Hype is back in public and scholarship conversation. To understand the understudied phenomenon, our paper suggests that hype tools, the tools that analyse hype, could provide valuable toolkits to study hype and set up promising agendas which future empirical inquiries might investigate.

Long abstract:

We propose three reasons why studying hype tools provides an invaluable way of approaching hype. First, we claim that hype tools provide a space for researchers to study hype, a phenomenon that is difficult to capture directly. Second, we point out that hype tools usually provide a context that helps anchor the meaning of hype and makes hype communicable. Finally, we argue that studying the mechanism that evaluates hype is studying hype itself. Our first contribution is providing a multidimensional understanding of the rationales operating underneath hype. Our second contribution links closely to our first contribution. We identify and articulate important sociological dimensions of hype tools. Through our exploration of the intricacies of hype tools and their role in capturing hype and channelling it to various stakeholders in the digital economy, our aim is to inspire future research that bridges diverse research traditions and disciplines, ultimately advancing our understanding of hype and hype tools. We propose that there are a number of promising fields that need future research attention. First, we suggest a shift from a result-based view to a practice-based view on hype tools. Second, we propose that the distinctive context of hype tools presents a fertile ground for researchers intrigued by the realm of multimodality. By encouraging interdisciplinary conversation, we hope to foster new insights and perspectives that contribute to the ongoing wave of hype management research.