Paper ID

2493

Paper Type

short

Description

Mobile live streaming enables everyone to broadcast anywhere and anytime. A critical challenge faced by streaming platforms and broadcasters is how to increase viewership engagement and monetization performance in terms of virtual gifts. However, limited understanding on the roles of broadcasters’ characteristics has been given by prior studies. Drawing on literature in live streaming and social presence, we specifically investigate how and to what extent broadcasters’ two main characteristics—screen presence and dynamic emotions are related to viewership engagement outcomes. By utilizing streaming videos and user gift-sending data from a mobile-based live streaming application, we algorithmically extract some human body related features and empirically quantify their effects with multilevel mixed model estimations. Our preliminary findings show that broadcasters’ screen presence in terms of facial and hand appearances is significantly associated with gift-giving. With future work on dynamic emotions, this study is expected to provide insights to both researchers and practitioners.

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Mobile Live Streaming: The Roles of Broadcasters’ Screen Presence and Dynamic Emotions in Viewership Engagement

Mobile live streaming enables everyone to broadcast anywhere and anytime. A critical challenge faced by streaming platforms and broadcasters is how to increase viewership engagement and monetization performance in terms of virtual gifts. However, limited understanding on the roles of broadcasters’ characteristics has been given by prior studies. Drawing on literature in live streaming and social presence, we specifically investigate how and to what extent broadcasters’ two main characteristics—screen presence and dynamic emotions are related to viewership engagement outcomes. By utilizing streaming videos and user gift-sending data from a mobile-based live streaming application, we algorithmically extract some human body related features and empirically quantify their effects with multilevel mixed model estimations. Our preliminary findings show that broadcasters’ screen presence in terms of facial and hand appearances is significantly associated with gift-giving. With future work on dynamic emotions, this study is expected to provide insights to both researchers and practitioners.