Abstract

With the shift from linear television to over-the-top media, streaming platforms have come to be a popular avenue for consuming on-demand or live video content. Digital users watch content to relax, alleviate tension, learn something new, connect with others, or improve mood. An aspect to consider is the influence of emotion represented in the video content. Content emotion is for the expressions of characters, tone, sounds, colors, or patterns in the video. During interactions, individuals catch on to the emotions of the other individual like the spread of a contagion, bringing them into shared emotional state. In context of video consumption, would the subjective emotional experience of a user occur in association to such a spread of emotion from the video to the user? Contra to the video effect, users may encounter technical intermittence. Although various advanced solutions have been implemented to reduce the frequency of technical intermittencies, many users continue to encounter them while streaming video. An intermittent stream quality is associated with a negative emotional experience resulting from discontinuity of thought, and an interference in short-term memory. These can be manifested as ruined excitement or frustration in users. Some ignorant users may attribute the service provider for the interruptions and cancel the subscription by moving on to other richer services available to them. Streaming glitches are known to cause reputation damage for live streamers, dropping the number of viewers and followers of a channel. The study seeks to investigate how the buffering and glitches encountered when streaming a video change the video effect on the user, and the user’s desire to engage with a video? The current study posits that stimuli such as content emotion and intermittencies interact to influence the emotions of the user, and subsequently their behavior. Behavior here refers to the desire to continue watching or to learn more about the video. Additionally, watching a video may help users increase their social connectedness and sense of belonging with friends, family, or community, thereby influencing their desire to interact more with it. Lastly, would the perceived meaningfulness and value of a video to the user lead to an increase in the desire to continue watching the content? The user’s desire to continue use would have implications on usage intention, the social transmission of content, owner popularity, and particularly the well-being of users.

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