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Department of Informatics and Media

Master’s Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society specialization

Two-year Master’s Thesis

Resisting Mediatization and Watching ‘Boredom’:

An Empirical Study of Users of Uninformative Live-Streaming in China

Supervisor: Cecilia Strand Student: Zhiying Mo

May 2020

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Abstract

Little is known about ‘uninformative live-streaming’, a new genre of online streaming media that has become a new trend in China. In these real-time streams, streamers would not interact and communicate with viewers and not perform in front of cameras.

The content is about uninterrupted trivial everyday activities, such as sleeping and studying for several hours. This thesis aims to obtain a comprehensive understanding of this media and to explore what motivates users to continuously watch it. This research employed qualitative methods of online observation and semi-structured in- depth interviews to collect empirical data, through the cases of study-stream and sleep- stream. The concept of media life by Mark Deuze provides a general theoretical context of mediatized lifeworld. Based on Uses and Gratifications Theory and Compensatory Internet Use Theory, I described and explained the prominent features of uninformative live-streaming and examined the user motivation for it. The research results show that this authentic, less-interactive, and non-narrative live-streaming creates an undisturbed media environment, in which users can escape media distraction and media overload.

The prominent user motivations for uninformative live streams are self-discipline and self-management, and compensation for the real-life deficiency of ‘non-social companion’. These findings offer new insight into user motivation and help to expand and improve related theories.

Keywords: live-streaming, sleep-stream, study-stream, boredom, mediatized lifeworld,

media saturation, media overload

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Table of Contents

Abstract ... 2

List of Figures ... 5

Acknowledgements ... 6

1. Introduction ... 8

1.1 Everyday Life in Live-streaming ... 8

1.2 Aims and Research Questions ... 11

1.3 Contributions ... 12

1.4 Thesis Structure ... 13

2. Background ... 15

2.1 Popularity of Live-streaming in China ... 15

2.2 General Live-streaming ... 17

2.3 A New Category of Live-streaming ... 19

3. Previous Research ... 21

3.1 Amusing Everything ... 21

3.2 24-hour Truman World in Live-streaming ... 22

3.3 Boredom and Our Fear of Boredom... 23

3.4 Active Choice of ‘Boredom’ ... 24

3.5 The Unexplainably Popularity of Watching ‘Boredom’ ... 27

3.6 Watching ‘Boredom’ in China’s Digital Media ... 27

3.7 Summary ... 28

4.Theoretical Framework ... 30

4.1 Initial Form of Uses and Gratifications Theory ... 31

4.2 Uses and Gratifications Theory in Digitalization... 32

4.2.1 Motivational Model of General Live-Streaming Engagement ... 33

4.2.2 Potential Motivators and Engagement Indicators of Uninformative Live-Streaming ... 34

4.2.3 Understanding of Emotional Connectedness ... 36

4.3 Compensatory Internet Use Theory ... 37

4.4 Needs and Gratifications in Media Saturation ... 39

4.5 Analytical Framework of User Motivation ... 40

5. Methodology ... 42

5.1 Case Selection and Source ... 42

5.2 Data Collection... 44

5.2.1 Online Observation... 44

5.2.2 In-depth Interviews... 45

5.3 Purposeful Sampling ... 46

5.4 Data Analysis ... 48

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5.4.1 Observation Data Analysis ... 48

5.4.2 Interview Data Analysis ... 49

5.5 Limitations ... 50

5.6 Ethical Consideration and Confidentiality ... 50

6. Findings and Analysis ... 52

6.1 Basic Situation of Sleep-stream and Study-stream ... 52

6.1.1 Content and Forms of Study-stream ... 53

6.1.2 Content of Sleep-stream ... 55

6.1.3 User Online Practices in Uninformative Live-stream Communities... 57

6.1.4 Summary ... 59

6.2 Relationship Between User Motivation and Personal Real Life ... 59

6.2.1 General Reflections of the Interviewees ... 60

6.2.2 Active Choice of Uninformative Content ... 62

6.2.3 Emotional Connectedness with Community ... 69

6.2.4 Summary ... 73

7. Discussion and Conclusion ... 74

7.1 Critical Review... 74

7.2 Limitations ... 75

7.3 Suggestions for Future Research ... 76

7.4 Conclusion... 76

Bibliography ... 78

Appendix I: Correspondence with Interviewees ... 88

Appendix II: Interview Outline ... 89

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List of Figures

Figure 1. A Live streaming channel accompanied by a text-based chatroom and virtual gifts ... 18

Figure 2. Bullet Screens ... 18

Figure 3.The motivational model of live-stream engagement by Hilvert-Bruce et al. ... 34

Figure 4. The motivational model of uninformative live-streaming engagement ... 41

Figure 5. General Information about the Interviewees of study-stream ... 47

Figure 6. General Information about the Interviewees of sleep-stream ... 47

Figure 7. A study-stream by a single streamer (76283 online users at 20:15) ... 53

Figure 8. A Study-stream of multiplayer mode (7886 online users at 00:45) ... 55

Figure 9. Two sleep-streams ... 56

Figure 10. Behavioral response/digital practice and identified gratifications obtained ... 60

Figure 11. The ‘study-corner’ of Respondent Study5 ... 65

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Cecilia Strand and Johan Lindell who offered me generous help and constructive ideas. I also want to thank all the teachers and my classmates in Digital Media and Society Program, and friends I met in Sweden.

They enriched my knowledge and broadened my horizon of this world of my unknown

things.

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Dream Song 14

1

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn,

and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Peoples bore me,

literature bores me, especially great literature, Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.

And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag and somehow a dog

has taken itself & its tail considerably away into mountains or sea or sky, leaving behind: me, wag.

1John Berryman, 1969. Dream Song 14 from The Dream Songs.

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1. Introduction

1.1 Everyday Life in Live-streaming

Digital media have constructed a mediated public space in which modern life is supported and constituted by our experiences and expressions through digital technologies. People’s everyday life in the digital era not only links with media but always takes place in pervasive and ubiquitous media (Deuze, 2011). A new kind of media content—live-stream video—is providing people with a new stage to display their everyday activities, where technical thresholds, language barriers, budget shortfalls are no longer big issues. All that is required are smartphones, free live-stream Apps, and 4G or Internet signals. Compared with traditional media like TV and other forms of online video content, most live streaming programs are unedited, uncensored and authentic. Even if without the skills of making videos or taking photos, everyone gains more opportunities to become a ‘streamer’ (creator of live streaming video). The prosperity of live-streaming market witnessed the increasing tendency. For instance, one of the most popular live streaming platform Twitch has made up 1.8% of total internet traffic in the U.S in 2014 (Pires & Simon, 2014). Meanwhile, the global live streaming market increased by 47 percent to $7.4 billion in 2018, when compared to the year before (Deloitte, 2018).

The enthusiasm which bases on 1.4 billion population to the commercialization of

personalized digital media has resulted in the highly distinctive pillar for China’s

socialist economy (Keane, 2007). According to China Internet Network Information

Center (CINIC), China’s live streaming market owns 433 million users in 2019, which

accounted for more than half of its whole internet users (CINIC, 2019). Compared with

its development in western countries, the prominent feature of live-streaming in China

is programmatic diversity, and those live streaming landscapes consist of ‘wide variety

of activities that viewers had a high interest in watching’ (Cunningham, Craig & Lv,

2019). Across different platforms, streamers have generated content genres of real-time

screen performance that include but are not limited to the video game, talent show, e-

commerce, cooking, painting, eating, travelling, education and even pornography

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(Recktenwald, 2017). On the one hand, live streaming streamers attract fan communities through interactive practices such as liking, sharing, donations (virtual gifts), commenting and collaborations. On the other hand, the combination of multi- media platforms, personalized content, and community management enables the streamers to gather a large number of loyal fans. This trend has not only brought income and potentially sustainable business to the live streamers but also set up new approaches of online sales for traditional industries (Cunningham, Craig & Lv, 2019). It is the so- called ‘live streaming economy’ of China (People Daily, 2020).

Commonly, high interactivity and frequent communication are considered as the significant characteristics of general live streaming activities (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018, Cunningham et al., 2019, Hu et al., 2017). However, a kind of ‘anti-traditional’ live- streaming is becoming a new trend in this field. On February 9, 2020, to ‘verify whether I will snore while sleeping’, an amateur actor YuanSan started to live-stream his sleeping process on a popular video-sharing platform Douyin (also known as TikTok outside China), which caused nearly 540,000 people to watch it during the whole night.

The next day, his ‘sleep-stream’ continued from 5 pm and attracted ultimately 18 million audiences in total. Unexpectedly, the two-day sleep-stream brought him more than $11,000 as income which comes from virtual gifts sent by the audiences. When asked about his opinion on this event, YuanSan stressed that the purpose of his broadcast was ‘just to kill boredom’, but to his surprise, the audiences’ enthusiasm for watching his sleeping illustrates that ‘too many audiences were more bored than I was’

(Reference News, 2020). In fact, YuanSan is not the first streamer to carry out sleep- stream and thus become a focus. Previously, the hashtag #live-sleeping has already become a hot spot on Douyin in midnight period. Likewise, another popular Chinese website Bilibili have set up a live-stream section called ‘study with me’ since 2018, which leads to a craze of ‘watching studying’ among the youth (CCTV.com, 2019). It seems that more and more people are immersing themselves in such ‘special’ live streams where the ‘interaction’ is no longer important. Hence, I cannot help wondering what the rationale is behind the audience’s behaviour of watching live-streaming of such content.

This study focuses on this emerging media phenomenon. To be specific, the audience’s

motivation for watching such type of media content, and which I call it ‘uninformative

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live-streaming’. Generally speaking, when creators utilize video-sharing platforms to uninterrupted live-stream their mundane everyday activities in silence, such as sleeping, doing homework and staring blankly, these videos are regarded as ‘uninformative’.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, ‘uninformative’ refers to ‘not giving enough information’. It is not ‘non-information’ but lacks useful or interesting data/details.

Compared with traditional video types, the content of ‘uninformative live-streaming’ is day-to-day life which is non-narrative, long-time and has few or no commentary, in the way of concurrently recording and broadcasting in real-time without editing. Besides, there is little communication and interaction between the creators and the audiences, and even videos images are nearly motionless (e.g. sleeping) or only with little movement (e.g. studying). Not only that but also most creators in those live streams pretend to be unaware of audiences—active response and engagement are commonly nonexistent in a long time.

In general, there is to date no set the definition of this new genre. Therefore, I suggest the following definition about ‘uninformative live-streaming’: it refers to a type of online live streaming video in which the streamers would not interact and communicate with viewers and not ‘perform’ in front of real-time cameras, and the video images are about uninterrupted doing trivial daily activities such as literally ‘sleep’ and ‘study’ for several hours or even a whole day. Hence, compared with other types of live-streaming, the prominent characteristics of uninformative live-streaming are not informative, interactive and novel.

However, it should be emphasized that even though the streamers in uninformative live streams are rarely responsive, digital technologies have supplied a wide range of operable and interactive possibilities. Thus, the viewers are no longer media ‘audiences’

but ‘users’ (Sundar & Limperos,2013). To be specific, the social media tools supplied by video-sharing platforms enable users to comment, share, give likes, or send virtual gifts. Besides, users can also converse with each other via real-time comments. Hence, the research subject in this study is considered as ‘user’ rather than audience/viewer.

Overall, although the uninformative live-streaming sounds very ordinary and

oversimplified, its popularity in China has indicated that it provides some sort of

fulfillment to the users.

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1.2 Aims and Research Questions

There is an increasing trend of coverage about this unique medium in social media.

However, compared with its flourishing development in the practical field, academic literature is so few. Moreover, most of the previous news reports focused on the facts and influences of this media service but are not empirical studies based on the user’s perspective. My inspiration for doing this research comes from my incomprehension about the popularity of the media genre and the curiosity about user motivation for it.

Specifically, this research aims to motive why this media expression and its viewership are fascinating, because the media content has gone against what we regard as ‘keys’

for popularity such as offering interaction, being informative, being entertaining, being educational, being edited for drama and/or increasing aesthetics. In short, it is not trying to appeal to audiences and even to oppose what ‘normally’ generates audience interests and engagements.

This research is motivated by Mark Deuze’s (2011) study on media life. As he emphasizes, since people’s everyday lives and media are inseparably integrated, the lifeworld has turned into a lived experience of completely mediatized life—media life.

The concept of mediatization of society should be expanded from the scope of institutional activities such as politics, work, family and religion to mediatization of everything (Hjarvard, 2008, Livingstone, 2009, Deuze, 2014). We must recognize that the users’ choices of media are their active engagement in everyday life, and media life is no longer an imaginary or less real realm but a necessary and inevitable part of individual’s experience, existence and survival (Deuze, 2011). Given this, the users’

continuous watching behaviours of uninformative live streams reflect some aspects of

needs and fulfillments of users’ real lives, which can be understood by exploring user

motivation for media choice. Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G) is a basic approach

that can help to understand how various forms of media use fulfill users’ psychological

needs (Blumler &Katz, 1974, Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018). In addition, Compensatory

Internet Use Theory (CIUT) provides an in-depth dimension for exploring the

relationship between media use and individuals’ real-life deficiencies (Kardefelt-

Winther, 2014, Elhai et al., 2017). Hence, this study employs a U&G-CIUT framework

to seek user motivation for uninformative live-streaming, which embeds in the media-

saturated landscape.

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To further explore uninformative live-streaming and potential-various user motivations of continuous watching behavior, users from China’s video-sharing app Douyin and the website Bilibili, are chosen as the research samples for ‘watching sleep’ or ‘watching study’, since the two types are the most popular and typical content of uninformative live-streaming. Some of the questions that I want to raise are: what are the fascinations of sleep-streams and study-streams? What is the significance of watching sleeping or watching studying for users? How do they engage in uninformative live streams and obtain fulfillments (if they did)? In detail, according to qualitative methods of online observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews, this research aims to find out what motivates users’ engagement in the uninformative live-streaming including its video content as well as its community. The research questions of this thesis are:

1. What are the prominent features of uninformative live-streaming of study-streams and sleep-streams?

2. What motivates users to continuously watch uninformative live-streaming on mundane everyday activities?

It should be emphasized again that the research object ‘users’ in this study refers to those people who actively choose this media for their intentional fulfillments. Therefore, the user’s continuous watching behaviour is a premise for examining user motivation.

‘Occasional visitors’ are not included in the scope of this study.

1.3 Contributions

This study split a new genre out from digital media content, which is rarely explored and discussed before. I hope it is helpful to address an academic gap and can contribute to the following aspects. Firstly, distinct from most previous work that focuses on traditional popular content, this study aims at a new media genre and how it attracts users and lead to their long-time and continuous watching behaviour. Therefore, the emerging sight and original outcomes could enrich the latest empirical research on digital media. It may further bring inspiration to scholars, designers or engineers.

Secondly, since the prominent features of uninformative live-streaming differ from

others, its popularity indicates that user motivation may be driven by ‘unconventional’

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needs and gratifications. Hence, in addition to those widely recognized user motivations, I hope this research could provide new perspectives and insights.

1.4 Thesis Structure

This thesis consists of seven parts, including this introductory chapter. Beginning with a brief context of live streaming industry and its development in China, chapter one mainly introduces the research subject, aims, research questions, research design, potential contributions as well as the outline of this thesis.

The second chapter primarily explores underlying elements that contribute to the popularity of live-streaming under the social context of China. Then, it presents the mainstream features, genres, and contents of general live streams. Furthermore, based on the introduction of general live-streaming, I briefly explain why uninformative live- streaming is considered as a new genre. This background section is helpful to obtain a better understanding of this study.

Chapter Three is about previous research. Due to the academic margin in this field, this chapter reviews scholars, artists, journalists on mundane everyday life in media, including why users consume such content, how the content is presented in media, and what is the meaning of mundane every life in media.

Chapter Four is the theoretical framework of this study. It starts with the general context of media life. Based on the media-saturated landscape, Uses and Gratifications Theory and Compensatory Internet Use Theory provide potential dimensions of user motivations in watching uninformative live-streaming. Besides, drawing on previous U&G studies, an initial model is set up to examine different user motivations in relation to user engagement.

Chapter Five elaborates the methodology of this study. Online observation and semi-

structured interviews are used to collect data, and content analysis is used to conduct

data analysis. Also, this chapter involves the limitations and ethical issues in this study.

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Chapter Six concerns the findings and analysis based on the collected materials from online observation and interviews. The first method observation provides analytical description in terms of the media content and its community practices. Then, according to the semi-structure in-depth interviews, the deep-seated user motivation which embed in individuals’ backgrounds will be presented and analyzed.

The final chapter reaches a discussion and conclusion. Combined with the various

theoretical and empirical strands, it presents a summary and critical review for the

research questions and existed theories, and also suggestions for further research.

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2. Background

2.1 Popularity of Live-streaming in China

It is known that China built a particular Internet ecosystem due to state-controlled administration and intervention which involves the ban on western social media such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Instead, it cultivates its own platforms in a parallel online world (Keane, 2016). Hence, considering of the relatively closed cultural context and policy support from the government to the network-based economy, the live streaming industry in China differs significantly in aspects of user online practice, market size and programmatic diversity when comparing with its development in Western (Lu et al., 2018, Cunningham, Craig & Lv, 2019). For example, by 2017, the development of China’s live-streaming has brought more than 200 million people watching online live broadcasts each night on more than 200 live streaming platforms (Moshinsky, 2017). According to an industry report from Deloitte Global (2018), nearly 60 percent of live-streaming revenue in the world was contributed by the Chinese market. Donation (tipping) by virtual gifts which originated from China is the primary revenue model of the industry, and it is exporting to other markets including Japan, North America and the U.K (2018: 5).

The changes of social environment in recent decades are also essential factors for the rapid development of the live streaming industry. To be specific, China conducted a

‘one-child’ policy due to the enormous population pressure since the 1980s. Although it has been modified to some extent in recent years, the policy caused a huge gender imbalance. The estimated gap between men-to-women is nearly 70 million in population by 2020, which results in millions of ‘lonely leftover men’ (Sun, 2017).

Thus, some scholars consider the prosperity of live-streaming in China is partly related

to the partnerless situation of Chinese males. Aynne Kokas regards it as ‘an entire

industry of virtual girlfriends’ (Kaiman & Meyers, 2017). A feminist study by Zhang

and Hjorth (2017) depicts that Chinese female streamers are participating in gender

performativity which demonstrates ‘entrepreneurial agency’ and topples ‘traditional

performative norms’ around gender (2017:17). At the same time, since most people

born after the 1980s have no brothers or sisters, the deficiency of communication with

peer family members makes more people (especially the youth) feel lonely and bored

when staying at home. Thirdly, China is experiencing an economic shift from rural

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agriculture and manufacturing model to a consumer-oriented, service-based model which has led to enormous population migration from rural to urban (Johnson, 2013).

The process of urbanization and population migration have further resulted in the social reality that rural parents and children are scattered in at least two or even three places, and family ties are weakened by long-term solitude. Hence, watching streamers in real- time videos becomes an alternative option of ‘feeling family atmosphere’.

Putnam (1995) suggests that the decline of civic engagement and social connectedness in the U.S since the 1960s might be triggered by the loosening of family bonds and the technological transformation of leisure, and this trend has led to the redistribution of social capital (1995:232-234). Likewise, China is now experiencing tremendous demographic and technological changes—urbanization, population migration, fewer marriages, fewer children, and so on. These realities create vital social context for the prosperity of live streaming industry. On the one hand, the traditional social relations based on consanguineous and geographical ties are being eroded by internet-based communities and interpersonal ties. On the other side, the ‘personalized’ live streaming service provides all-around real-time online lives, from entertainment to information, socializing and consumption. As what a manager of live streaming platform says,

‘Chinese people lack companionship, rarely have occasions or places to spend time, money, and energy. Watching live stream can partially satisfy their needs.’

(Cunningham, Craig & Lv, 2019). In general, the zeal of Chinese people to participate in live streaming activities is related to the psychological state of individuals which are led by particular social reality. Dispelling the feelings of loneliness and boredom are probably the core needs.

Furthermore, considering the authority’s policies and guidance that exert great influence on the digital media industry, those ‘good’ contents which involve the

‘cultural value of socialism’ will gain more supports from media platforms (Horwitz,

2017). For example, on the Chinese popular video-sharing website Bilibili, even if

study-streams are generally far-less prevalent than game-streams and talent-streams,

the platform may give a more conspicuous or forward position to study-streams on its

websites—this is because ‘studying’ is always more ‘politically correct’ than ‘playing

games’ and thus cater to the cultural guidance of the government. To some extent, this

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support strategy has increased the exposure and influence of the study-stream and may be conducive to its popularity.

Because this study is an empirical investigation based on China-located users, here I mainly present the status of live-streaming in China and the particular social-political context. On the whole, the government’s policies have shaped to the live streaming market a competitive-emerging industry in China, and the unique social environment makes Chinese audiences more enthusiastic about live streaming activities. Although the research is not principally about the development of live streaming industry in China, to understand it is helpful for exploring in-depth user motivation embedded in China’s social context.

2.2 General Live-streaming

Benefited from the broad coverage of the internet and the popularity of smartphones, a

new trend—web-based live streaming developed rapidly in recent years. The service

distinguishes from other forms of social media through the existence of broadcasters or

streamers (Smith et al., 2013). Hence, compared with television and other non-live

media, live-streaming could provide real-time human interactions between streamers

and users (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018). To be specific, most of the live streaming

activities involve individual streamers (creators) who utilize real-time cameras to live-

stream their daily activities or share computer/phone screens. Users on live-stream

channels can interact with streamers by real-time comments. Text-based chatrooms and

virtual gift donating (tipping whereby users donate money to creators) are popular

interactive tools (See Figure 1). Besides, a function called bullet-screen comment is

another fashionable way for users to post feedback among the youth in China and Japan,

which allows real-time text messages from users to fly across the screen like bullets

(see Figure 2).

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Figure 1. A Live streaming channel accompanied by a text-based chatroom and virtual gifts

Figure 2. Bullet Screens2

The video game and the talent show are the most popular categories of all the live streams (Hu et al.,2017). Thus, previous studies mainly focus on user motivation and engagement within the scope of the two types. Commonly, it is believed that co-users and high-frequent interactions are the key elements for attracting users (e.g. Lim et al., 2012, Hamilton et al., 2014, Smith et al., 2013). For example, users of talent-streams

2 Retrieved from: https://www.ifanr.com/app/1178899

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could ask the streamer to sing the appointed song through sending virtual gifts or posting real-time comments, and streamers usually take the initiative to answer users’

questions during the ‘chat time’ outside performances. These interactive actions contribute to intergroup connections in virtual communities (Hu et al., 2017). Secondly, in addition to the social motivation, snooping on privacy and seeking novelty also brings satisfaction to some users (Yu et al., 2018). The streamer’s offline job, personal experience, relationship status are frequent topics of users’ concerns. Thirdly, ‘micro- celebrities’ is another reason for its attractions towards users. Streamers who live- stream themselves on live-stream platforms and attract a massive of fans are called

‘micro-celebrities’ (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). These people who either have an exceptional talent or attractive appearance and own huge attention on other social media (Marwick, 2015). Thus, no matter what is performed on live streams, micro-celebrities themselves are the motivation that drives users’ engagement.

2.3 A New Category of Live-streaming

As mentioned, the video content of uninformative live-streaming is very distinct from that of general live-streaming. High-interaction, novelty and celebrity effect are not key characteristics which lead to its popularity. For example, during the real-time broadcasting hours of sleep-streams and study-streams, streamers would not interact and communicate with users or ‘perform’ in front of cameras, the video images are just uninterrupted and literally ‘sleeping’ and ‘studying’ instead of ‘telling bedtime stories’

or ‘recommending learning methods’. Hence, they fall short of interactivity and novelty.

At the same time, the streamers who live-stream their sleep or study are ordinary people or even anonymous, and thus user motivation for watching their videos are weakly connected with streamers’ fame, appearance, or unique talents.

According to Goffman (1959), people engage in ‘front stage’ behaviors when they realize that other people are watching. They usually ‘perform’ and comply with conventions that are meaningful to audiences. The routines of everyday actives such as commuting, working, shopping, dining out, or going to parties are typical front stage behaviors. In these scenes, people (actors) participate in ‘performance’ and follow fixed rules and expectations of what they should do and talk about with others (Cole, 2019).

Meanwhile, Goffman defines ‘backstage’ as ‘the performer can relax; he can drop his

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front, forgo speaking in his lines, and step out of character’ (1959:488). Hence, backstage is the setting where actors are present while audiences are not, which allows people can step out of rules without worrying about disrupting the performance. In uninformative live streams such as sleep-streams and study-streams, the privacy of streamer’s bed and desk are almost certainly backstage regions. Sleeping and doing homework alone are also normally considered as backstage behaviours. Yet, due to the existence of webcams and online audiences, it can be said that typical backstage behaviours are now live-streamed and thus come to the front stage.

However, in addition to the fascinations of video content and streamers, Hu et al. (2017)

propose that live-stream community is another reason contributes to users’ continuous

watching behaviour. Regarding uninformative live-streaming, although the interaction

between streamers and users is not frequent or even nonexistent, social media tools

such as chatrooms and bullet screens provided by video-sharing platforms still enable

users to communicate with other users or just to browse others’ commentaries. Hence,

even if the ‘traditional advantages’ of general live-streaming are hardly perceived in

uninformative live-streaming, it is evident that there are other fulfillments that

contribute to users’ watching behaviour. I will explore and elaborate on it in the finding

part.

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3. Previous Research

Little is known about the underlying user motivations in the emerging uninformative live-streaming. Therefore, based on previous relevant studies, this chapter aims to discuss the presentation of mundane everyday life in media and its potential meanings, influences, and reflections. The first and second sections present the entertainment value of long-playing media content of mundane everyday activities in the context of media life. Then, the third and fourth sections discuss the relationship between the sense of boredom and media usage. In the last two sections, the theme is narrowed down to the studies of live-streaming by respectively presenting the digital practices of ‘amusing mundane everyday life’ in other places and in China.

3.1 Amusing Everything

As proposed by Neil Postman (1985) in Amusing Ourselves to Death, the so-called entertainment in media is a sedative drug called ‘soma’ by which people can easily get fictitious pleasure. Thus, ‘amusing everything’ has yet become the popular culture and infiltrated into public opinions. In any form of media, public issues such as politics, religion, sports, education and business are all expressed in an entertaining way and attached to entertainment. Thus, even the most serious, boring or unattractive issues can become ‘interesting entertainments’ through media. This results in a trend that many useful information outputs of media are gradually diluted or even become ‘non- information’—the objective existence of ‘nothing’ (Postman, 1985).

The longtime display of mundane everyday activities is not a new concept: in art, Andy

Warhol took the film Sleep which showed poet John Giorno sleeping for five hours and

twenty minutes. La Monte Young claims that it is a ‘pure experience of boredom’ for

audiences (McNeil & McCain, 1995). Furthermore, since 2009, the Norwegian

Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) started producing a series of ‘marathon’ television

programs with a long endurance in a naturally slow pace, which was so-called ‘Slow

TV’. The content of the broadcasts included a 12-hour non-stop knitting marathon, 18

hours of live salmon fishing, a 134-hour boat trip from Bergen to Kirkenes, an 8-hour

fire burning live show of firewood, and so on. Although these programs have received

significant attention and good audience ratings in the locality, many commentators from

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outside Norway expressed bemusement to its popularity: why does a TV program without a storyline, script, drama and climax still attract audiences? Some news articles even covered these TV activities under the title of ‘the world’s most-boring show’

(Harris, 2018). However, the slow pace and ‘boring’ plots are considered as ‘possible antidotes’ which enables audiences to get rid of ‘stress and mental clutter that have been marking our lives of late’, since the overloaded media environment has created too much information, narration, characters, or emotion which led to some people’s depression and anxiety (Skelley, 2020). Meanwhile, some audiences consider that there is still suspense in ‘Slow TV’ since they do not know ‘if anything will actually happen’

(Lynch, 2013).

In a sense, The Truman Show (1998) describes a practice of ‘amusing everything’ in the way of movie: a man lives in the ‘Truman world’ where everything of his is 24- hour live-televised on TV to the real world. The story reveals a fable for the current lifeworld. That is, the viewers kill their ‘boring’ time by watching others’ flat lives.

They call it entertainment and collect pleasure from it. Although the ‘Truman world’ is fictional, in a very short time, digital technology turns it into reality.

3.2 24-hour Truman World in Live-streaming

Digital media is now enabling everyone to take part, and it provides a stage for everyone

to become content creators through expressing opinions and thoughts on any subject

and at any time. To a certain extent, user-generated content is developing into an equal

footing with other traditional media (Hutchinson, 2016). More importantly, live-

streaming further refines this dynamic—creators do not even need to well-design the

content and grasp shooting skills but just open the camera. As Deuze (2011) says, our

lifeworld now seems like a television studio as in Truman Show movie, ‘We do not just

have to perform for the cameras—the cameras can also perform for us’ (2011:21). It

can almost be said that any trivial daily activities of every ordinary people can become

media content, ranging from fishing, walking, fitness, eating, makeup and even sleeping,

studying and doing nothing. Despite the lack of narrative, edition and climax, the rapid

growth of the live-streaming market seems to have certified the zeal of users for such

content, in which the mundane everyday life ‘appears to be’ entertaining.

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According to Svendsen (2005), the cult of celebrities or the complete immersion into the lives of others is derived from the lack of personal meanings. The seeking for meanings of self stimulates increasing media consumption. In a sense, live-streaming service provides a portable screen as well as an entrance, by which users can take part in other’s life. In the 24-hour live-stream world, they can find all the aspects related to their own real lives and get feedback through real-time interaction. Deuze proposes that the lived reality of individuals cannot be experienced outside the mediatized lifeworld.

We are now living in our own Truman World in which no one can escape pervasive and ubiquitous media. It is the world that “we are constantly and concurrently deeply immersed in, that we are stars of, and that dominate and shape all aspects of our everyday life” (Deuze, 2011). There is no doubt that of all media products, online live- streaming is the most conspicuous representative of the 24-hour mediatized world.

3.3 Boredom and Our Fear of Boredom

According to the Cambridge Academic Dictionary, boredom refers to a state of ‘not interesting’ or ‘have nothing to do’. In Philosophy of Boredom, Svendsen (2005) considers the chaotic rush for ‘amusing everything’ has indicated our fear towards boredom and emptiness. Here, boredom points to the deficiencies of personal meaning,

‘where one gets completely engrossed in the lives of others (in media) because one’s own life lacks meaning. Stimuli are the only interesting thing’ (2005:26). In the digital era, smart devices that accompany people at all times have created a unique opportunity for people to kill time or seek entertainment when they feel bored, anytime and anywhere (Leung,2020). However, a ten-year-statistic-based study reveals that, although social media use in American adolescents increased significantly from 2008 to 2017, the tendency of boredom was also increased. Meanwhile, boredom was likely caused by social media use and time spent alone (Weybright, Schulenberg & Caldwell, 2019). In a sense, the digital media is the manufacturer of boredom, as well as the solvers but without apparent effect.

Since the word ‘boring’ is always tied to the word ‘interesting’, the main product

provided by media is ‘interesting information’, by which ‘boredom can be kept at arm’s

length (Svendsen, 2005). However, as has been noted that the media content of

uninformative live streams goes against the key elements of ‘popularity’ —not only

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because there is very little information and interaction in it, even though the images also tend to be ‘still’. If we agree that using social media is related to ‘solving boredom’, why do people choose to watch the seemly ‘boring’ sleeping process rather than other more ‘interesting’ programs? As the streamer YuanSan shares his confusion in an interview, ‘I live-streamed my sleeping because I felt bored. My program is such boring, but it attracted so many boring people (18 million) to watch. I don’t know what happened, and why?’ (Reference News,2020).

Certainly, it is hard to say that ‘to watch others sleeping, studying, staring blankly are essential boring behaviours’, since boredom is, first of all, a subjective cognition instead of an epistemological substance. However, from another perspective, the

‘boring’ sleep-streams and study-streams may not be interesting or exciting, but they are not ‘useless’ or ‘meaningless’ for some users. Nowadays, when claiming that a thing is ‘boring’, people are discussing what Heidegger argues about, ‘more than inner state that is projected onto a meaningless world’. In What Is Metaphysics, he regards

‘boredom’ as a mood that connects people with their surroundings:

“Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and human beings and oneself along with them into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole.” (Heidegger,1993)

Boredom can be explained as either one’s emotional state or one’s perception towards something or someone, but it is undoubtedly related to both subject and object. As Heidegger’s argument, boredom is a whole being that invades people and things, and all people’s cognition of boredom must be restricted by specific context or situation.

Thus, the mood of boredom is both subjective and objective determination (Svendsen, 2005). Boredom in this study is first understood as negative emotion generated by individuals and projected onto their surrounding things. They are dissatisfied with or tired of some aspects of real lives and thus develop motives for watching the certain medium.

3.4 Active Choice of ‘Boredom’

As mentioned, the silently mundane everyday activities such as studying and sleeping

in uninformative live streams go against what we regard as ‘key elements’ of popular

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content such as being informative, being entertaining, or being offering interaction.

This media content is widely considered as ‘boring’ (Lu, 2016). That is to say, the users actively chose a media content that is not interesting nor exciting to overcome their sense of boredom—Does this sounds strange? Andy Warhol regards the nature of mundane everyday life as emptiness, and the presentation of everyday life in his film is a reflection on boredom. He explains his film Kitchen that ‘illogical, without motivation or character and completely ridiculous, very much like real life’. Similar to the film Sleep, the Kitchen also shows repetitive and trivial daily life but puts the scene in a kitchen (it is like ‘amusing everything’, including amusing the kitchen in a movie way). Warhol considers watching daily mundane practices is to ‘looks into a mirror’, and to gaze boredom—an empty situation without a soul—nothingness:

“I wake up and call B.

B is anybody who helps me kill time.

B is anybody and I’m nobody. B and I.

I’m sure I’m going to look into the mirror and see nothing.

The thing is to think of nothing ... nothing is exciting, nothing is sexy, nothing is not embarrassing.

Everything is nothing.

I don’t want it to be essentially the same—I want it to be exactly the same. Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel”. (Warhol, 1975, Pessoa, 2001, Svendsen, 2005).

If we consider Andy Warhol’s ‘boredom show’ as merely private avant-garde art, the uninformative live-streaming is a practice of ‘amusing mundane everyday life’ for the public. In the mediatized lifeworld where the media are fully integrated with private life, the gap between reality and expectation grows wider and wider (Deuze, 2011).

More and more people lose their motives and passion for pursuing something, thus fall

into depression or apathy. In order to break away from the emptiness or to

counterbalance negative emotion, they attempt to find a slow pace and quiet space from

media. To watch others silently sleep or study in live streams is probably a particular

way of escaping boredom and pressure in modern life. In other words, they may attempt

to obtain a profound peace of mind by watching a non-narrative, long-playing, and

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uninformative ‘nothing’ (Svendsen, 2005). As what Jonathan Nordin, a digital producer of Sweden’s TV4 feels, programs like Slow TV have no concern with a high tempo and fast transitions. It is slow, calm and boring but caters to some audiences’ appreciation of a slower pace while ‘the rest of the flow around them is so fast’ (Radio Sweden, 2013).

Tomlinson (2018) introduces the concept of ‘fast media’ to summarize the affordance of current media technologies. It refers to that media have dramatically accelerated the pace of people’s everyday life, which are closely related to a series mediated practices, such as ‘typing, scrolling, clicking and browsing at the computer screen, talking, texting or sending and receiving pictures on a mobile phone, watching television…, and tapping in PIN codes and conducting transactions on a keypad’ (Tomlinson, 2018, Fast

& Jansson, 2019). Furthermore, the notion of fast not only point to the shift in technological affordances, but also includes a ‘quick cluster of values, attitudes, and cultural imaginings’ (Tomlinson, 2018). Although speed can bring energic, dauntless, and affirmative dispositions, it may also lead to stress and anxiety. Tomlinson calls for the balance between ‘culture of speed’ and ‘value of slow’, which means to take stock and self-reflect our lives in order to ‘sharpening the resolution of our present experience of being-in-the-world rather than allowing the speed and flux of life to carry us away’

(Tomlinson, 2007). Hence, to watch ‘slowness’ and ‘boredom’ in media could be in a sense understood as escapism from what Tomlinson refers to as ‘culture of speed’.

In general, ‘boredom’ refers to various negative emotions (e.g. feel anxious, lonely, depressive) that users desire to get rid of through media use. At the same time, it is also understood in a narrow sense (as its definition in the dictionary) as the basic characteristics of ‘not interesting’ and ‘not exciting’ of uninformative live-stream content. In fact, most of the participants in this study claim that they deliberately choose those videos that are not interesting and not exciting for meeting their specific needs—

in a sense, to conquer boredom by watching boredom. I will elaborate on it in the

finding part.

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3.5 The Unexplainably Popularity of Watching ‘Boredom’

Although many audiences consider that the presentation of mundane everyday life is boring and meaningless, this cannot prevent uninformative video content from being popular in various regions: a Korean YouTube creator called Nojambot (which means

‘a robot with no fun’ in Korean) attracted more than 410,000 subscribers on his YouTube Channel where he uploaded a video titled ‘study with me’

which was really a silent study that lasted 9 hours but earned 412,000 views. Furthermore, on the popular

#sleepingsquad hashtag of YouNow app (a popular social network of live streams in the U.S), users could watch random teens sleeping, and there are dozens of sleeping teens at any given time (Notopoulos, 2015).

Katie Notopoulos, a reporter from BuzzFeed News, conducted an informal observation in #sleepingsquad community of YouNow. In the interviews, when asked why they watch these, the users’ (all of them are underaged students) answers are always related to ‘nothing to do’ or ‘feeling bored’. Notopoulos considers that the desire of breaking away the tedium of everyday life with connection and interaction is the driving force of such media use. It seems that compared with the sleepers in videos, users focus more on the communication with co-users in real-time chat rooms. Besides, Brian Mandler, a founder of digital agency Network Effect, considers that the sleep-streams provide authenticity which fulfills many user’s needs: ‘they want authentic, engaging content.

Watching someone sleeping, while it is unique and somewhat strange, as you start to understand what really works on social media, it makes sense’ (Lorenz, 2020).

3.6 Watching ‘Boredom’ in China’s Digital Media

Due to the vast population base and the prosperity of the ‘micro-celebrity’ industry, the

Chinese are probably the most enthusiastic consumers to display and watch such

content. Wang Cuncun, a young man who self-claims ‘the most boring guy’, launched

a series of activities called ‘boredom experiment’ which made him famous on China’s

social media Weibo. For example, in order to cook a meal, he spent 5 hours to drill the

woods by sticks just for making the fire. Then, he made the pots and tableware by mud

and put in the rice and vegetables cultivated by himself. During the waiting period, he

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counted for 6 hours for the sake of ‘an unsolved puzzle’—how many grains of rice in one bowl (Qdaily, 2019).

More than that, a live streaming activity which was called ‘carnival of boredom’ by media happened in 2016 and triggered a great sensation (China.com, 2017). To promote the new model of smartphone that equipped with a ‘super durable battery’, the Chinese mobile brand Xiaomi conducted an online activity called ‘we do not know when the live-streaming will end’ on the website Bilibili. In the following 19 days from 10 of May, a phone with a SIM card was quietly placed in front of a real-time camera. With every hour the screen of the phone would be lightened up until the battery ran out.

Although most people regarded it as ‘the most boring show’, the 19-day live-streaming still attracted over 40 million viewers (Economic Weekly, 2016).

However, at the same time, some mainstream Chinese media hold a negative attitude to this kind of live stream: “If creators cannot provide meaningful and nutritional content, and real-time interaction, these empty live streams will soon be abandoned by audiences” (Guangzhou Daily, 2020: A4). Likewise, People Daily, the most influential state-owned newspaper, criticized that some live streams without ‘concrete content’ are boring-streams: ‘Not only a wasting of time but also lead to spiritual emptiness’, it says,

“these boring-streams are typical representatives of pessimism…, they reflect and cultivate audience’s pursuit of meaninglessness” (Lu, 2016).

3.7 Summary

According to reviewing the previous studies, it can be found that the content of mundane everyday life in media has been discussed by many scholars, artists and journalists from various perspectives. To conclude, firstly, live streaming service provides media space for anyone to display anything, and watching everyday activities is now an entertainment for users. Secondly, the emerging genre of live-streaming is widely spreading and has become a popular trend, especially in China. However, concerning the typical types of uninformative live-streaming such as ‘study with me’

and sleep-streams, they do not fit the ‘traditional’ script of popularity, since information,

interactivity, storyline, creators/performers are no longer highlights. In general, we do

not know enough as to why this new genre is popular. Previous studies on boredom

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provide some potential clues, that is, people fear boredom and have gotten used to using

media to kill boredom. Hence, more research is needed.

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4.Theoretical Framework

The theoretical frame of this research is inspired by Mark Deuze’s book on Media Life.

Media life emphasizes the influence of mediatization on private life. This means that not only social institutions have to submit to or rely on media and its logic, but also our personal life is based on the context of complete mediatization of everyday activities (Hjarvard, 2008, Deuze, 2014, Jansson, 2018). As Deuze notes, we are now living in the mediatized lifeworld— ‘Mediapolis’ (Silverstone, 2007), where the pervasive and ubiquitous media ‘underpin and overarch the experiences and expressions of everyday life’ (Deuze, 2011). However, with the increasing reliance on media, mediatization tends to bring a sense of ‘simultaneously gaining and losing control’, because our autonomy is threatened by too much information while obtaining information (Jansson, 2017). Considering that information overflow makes people unable to seek out the truth and accurate generalizations, and excessive media reliance leads to ‘diminishing control over one’s life’, user motivation for uninformative live-streaming may relate to users’ designated self-reflection and autonomy (Gergen, 1992, Jansson, 2018). In general, the chosen theories of this frame are considered within the basic context of media-saturated landscape.

Under this condition, this chapter aims to provide a comprehensive overview of theories in relation to user motivation for uninformative live-streaming. Firstly, the theory of Uses and Gratifications (U&G) discussed by Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch (1973) will be reviewed to present how media gratify audiences’ psychological and social needs.

In the second part of this chapter, the continuous discussions based on U&G by

different scholars will be explained, which will provide multiple perspectives of user

motivation on social media use as well as live-streaming. The third part is about

Compensatory Internet Use Theory (CIUT). As a supplement to U&G, it supplies an

in-depth dimension of considering user motivation. To be specific, on the premise of

active choice for gratifying individual needs, CIUT is more inclined to regard certain

media use as compensation for user’s real-life deficiencies. Then, combined with the

concept of media life and media reliance, I will further elaborate U&G and CIUT in the

media-saturated environment. Finally, there is a summary and reflection concerning the

adoption of these theories for the following analysis. Also, a proposed analytical frame

of user engagement in uninformative live-streaming will be presented.

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4.1 Initial Form of Uses and Gratifications Theory

In mass communication field, Uses and Gratifications is one of the oldest continuous research programs which can trace back to a variety of studies conducted at Paul F.

Lazarsfeld’s Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University in the 1940s (Haridakis & Whitmore, 2006). Early researchers aim to understand what motives individuals use media such as radio (Herzog, 1944), newspaper (Berelson, 1949) or comics (Wolfe & Fiske,1949) and how these media gratify their set of needs behind their various motivations (Katz et al., 1974).

Firstly, the pace of U&G depends on a body of assumptions, including the audience has great initiative, and audiences’ active choice of media is highly linked with their intelligence and self-awareness. These claims make U&G significantly differ from other early theories of mass communication (e.g. hypodermic needle theory) which regard the mass media as having uniformed and immediate impacts on individuals and making people unable to form their own opinion (McQuail & Windahl, 1993).

Generally speaking, U&G argues that the audience is characterized as active, motivated, and shrewd in media use. It is thus to understand what individuals do with the media instead of the influence of the media on the individual is the focus of this approach (Katz et al., 1973). By assuming the audience as actively choosing and using media for meeting specific needs, researchers can examine whether the media gratify the psychological and/or social needs of the users, and sometimes bring other unexpected gratifications (Quan-Haase & Young, 2010). In detail, U&G are concerned with: ‘(1) the social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3) expectations of (4) certain media, which lead to (5) differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities), resulting in (6) needs, gratifications and (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones’ (Katz et al., 1973:510).

In the same year, Rosengren(1974) proposes a more comprehensive model which

indicates that the uses and gratifications of audience consist of (1)basic need, (2)

individual distinctions, and (3) social contexts, (4) combine to result in a series of

perceived problems and motivations, (5) the gratifications from media and (6) other

sources, (7) leading to diverse modes of media effects on both (8) individual-level and

(9) social level (Sherry, 2002). Besides, according to McQuail et al., the range of media

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use purposes could be divided into four categories in U&G: information, entertainment, personal identity and social interaction (McQuail, 2010).

Palmgreen et al. (1980) stress that it is necessary to distinguish gratifications sought (GS) and gratifications obtained (GO). As they note, the difference between GS and GO is what Katz et al. (1973) propose ‘expectations about content formed in advance of exposure’, or ‘satisfaction subsequently secured from consumption of it’ (Palmgreen, 1980). In other words, individuals’ GS are partly based on pre-set expectations for the content and related satisfactions obtained from media consumption, and this situation would influence the gratifications of what people actually get. Instead, GO are not based on preconceptions but more sensitive to the ‘actual’ content or unintended fulfillment. (Palmgreen et al., 1980). On the one hand, GS commonly correlated either moderately or strongly with the corresponding GO. On the other hand, GS are not always the same as the gratifications that audiences obtained (ibid.). For example, Abelman (1987) finds that the motivation of some audiences for religious TV programs was driven by their dissatisfaction with other TV offerings, and the audiences were not intentionally seeking programs to serve their religious beliefs. Furthermore, Palmgreen and Rayburn propose a model of GS and GO process in 1985. The study shows that when GO are obviously higher than GS, audiences tend to express higher satisfaction and thus lead to high ratings of appreciation and attention (McQuail, 2010).

4.2 Uses and Gratifications Theory in Digitalization

Thanks to the extensive coverage of the internet, the concept of ‘active audience’ has reached a peak from an assumption in early U&G to apparent reality. Compared with traditional media, digital technologies have supplied a wide range of operable and interactive possibilities. Thus, we are no longer media ‘audiences’ but ‘users’ (Sundar

& Limperos, 2013). Considering that internet and social media are multimedia

modalities rather than single-mode mass communication tools such as film, radio and

television, the insight of early U&G (mostly based on traditional media use) is limited

by the current fact. Hence, it is necessary to understand user needs and gratifications

from the new characteristics of digital media.

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Previously, researchers have used U&G to explore various needs and gratifications of social media usage. In detail, Papacharissi and Mendelson (2011) extract nine different scales of user motivation for using Facebook: kill time, relax entertainment, expressive information sharing, escapism, new trend, companionship, professional advancement, social interaction, and meet new people. Shen and Williams (2011) explore user motivation for engaging in online-game communities. The result indicates that in addition to general measures like entertainment and information seeking, psychological well-being such as out of loneliness, sense of community, and sense of achievement are closely related to user engagement (Andrew et al., 2011).

4.2.1 Motivational Model of General Live-Streaming Engagement

In live streaming field, drawing on previous studies of U&G, Hilvert-Bruce et al. (2018) set up a motivational model (see Fig.3) to explore user motivation in general live streaming engagement (video games and talent shows). In this model, user motivation is divided into eight aspects: entertainment, information seeking, making friends, social interaction, social support, external support, sense of community, and social anxiety.

Meanwhile, they propose that there are four indicators of live-stream engagement

which are related to user motivation: emotional connectedness, time spent, time

subscribed and financial donations. In short, their findings show that user motivation

could be partly explored by examining their different means of engagement. For

example, if a user is keen to tip a streamer by virtual gifts, his/her motivation is

positively related to the needs of social interaction and the sense of community. Besides,

the time spent of user engaging in live streams is greatly explained by motivations of

information seeking and entertainment.

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Figure 3.The motivational model of live-stream engagement by Hilvert-Bruce et al.

4.2.2 Potential Motivators and Engagement Indicators of Uninformative Live- Streaming

Since the object of this study is a constituent part of live-streaming, drawing on the model by Hilvert-Bruce et al., I merge some similar or overlapping elements and attempt to construct a new analytical framework for exploring underlying motivations.

They consist of sense of community, making friends, entertainment, and information seeking.

User Motivation: Making friends & Sense of Community

Live-streaming is virtual ‘third places’ where communities form and grow (Hamilton et al., 2014). The motivations of making friends and sense of community are derived from the social identification with community members (streamers or/and other users).

Although the two motivations look similar and overlapping, the frequency, scale, and

strategy of communication within communities for respective users are different. In

detail, meeting new people is more inclined to dialogues with others by platform

functions such as the real-time comment, and topics include but not limited to the

streamer, video content, and shared interests. Yet, sense of community refers to the

feeling that “could always count on an outpouring of feelings about loneliness,

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alienation, impotence in regard to social forces, the desire to belong and to be mutually dependent” (Sarason, 1974). Compared with making friends, the motivation of sense of community could be understood as the expectation of collective life which driven by loneliness, with frequent converse, laugh and jokes are not necessities (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018). Generally speaking, the motivation of the sense of community indicates a user’s desire for a feeling of belonging and emotional security rather than the communication with others.

User Motivation: Entertainment & Information Seeking

In terms of general media content, entertainment or information are usually basic user’s needs when watching videos (ibid.). Although uninformative live streams are not aimed at generating entertaining content nor educational information, users in the communities can still engage in relevant discussions such as learning methods or how to improve sleeping quality. Besides, we cannot assert that the content of uninformative live streams is completely non-entertainment and non-information for ‘all’ users. Thus, entertainment and information seeking are still considered as potential motivations.

Three Engagement Indicators

At the same time, drawing on the previous study by Hilvert-Bruce et al., the distinctions of users’ motivations can be partly perceived by capturing their engagement, including four indicators of time spent, time subscribed, financial donating and emotional connectedness. Considering that the users of this study must have ‘continuous behavior’

on ‘long-time’ uninformative live streams, the indicators of time subscribed and time

spent in Hilvert-Bruce et al.’s model are no longer necessary elements. Hence, three

indicators could help the researcher to capture user engagement in uninformative live-

streaming: text communication (through real-time chatrooms, real-time bullet screens

or general comment), amount of money donated, and emotional connectedness. The

former two indicators are users’ online practices for examining user activeness and

user’s concerns in live-stream communities. Besides, emotional connectedness refers

to the psychological attachment to the streamer, video content, other users, or the whole

live-stream community (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018). This indicator can help the

researcher to understand the users who continuously observe but do not participate in

communities (also called lurkers).

References

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