Mao Eric
School of Cultural Creativity and Management, Communication University of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, China.
Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 11;13:951055. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.951055. eCollection 2022.
While previous research into live streaming was predominantly focused on video games, its content creation and provision has tremendously evolved, extending well-beyond game streams. Contents of general interest, such as e-commerce shopping, talent shows, and cute pets, started to prevail in today's landscape of live streaming. However, limited attention has been given to how distinct types of streaming contents influence viewers' psychological and behavioral responses. To fill this void, we employed an online survey ( = 583) to empirically examine the associations between popular live stream content types on (i.e., the app for China) and their viewers' psychological and social gratifications and typical support behaviors. The results revealed that gratifications varied drastically across different content types. Game streaming, in particular, generated significant indirect impacts on all the support behaviors under consideration. On the other hand, whereas tension release served as a consistent mediator, the cognitive needs had no significant mediation effects. In sum, our study makes theoretical contributions to the literature by analyzing the thriving live stream phenomenon from a uses and gratifications perspective. We help augment the understanding of new media users' preferences and choices in an attention economy, wherein human attention is conceptualized as a scarce resource. In practice, a better knowledge of viewer needs can facilitate streamers to customize their content creation and provision so as to accentuate elements of interest and elicit desired support behaviors (i.e., monetization opportunities).
虽然先前对直播的研究主要集中在视频游戏上，但其内容创作和提供方式已经发生了巨大的演变，远远超出了游戏直播的范畴。诸如电子商务购物、才艺表演和可爱宠物等大众感兴趣的内容，开始在当今的直播领域占据主导地位。然而，对于不同类型的直播内容如何影响观众的心理和行为反应，人们给予的关注却很有限。为了填补这一空白，我们开展了一项在线调查（n = 583），以实证研究抖音（即中国的抖音应用程序）上流行的直播内容类型与其观众的心理和社会满足感以及典型支持行为之间的关联。结果显示，不同内容类型的满足感差异很大。特别是游戏直播，对所有考虑中的支持行为都产生了显著的间接影响。另一方面，虽然紧张释放起到了一致的中介作用，但认知需求并没有显著的中介效应。总之，我们的研究从使用与满足的角度分析了蓬勃发展的直播现象，为该领域的文献做出了理论贡献。在将人类注意力概念化为稀缺资源的注意力经济中，我们有助于加深对新媒体用户偏好和选择的理解。在实践中，更好地了解观众需求可以帮助主播定制他们的内容创作和提供方式，从而突出有趣的元素并引发期望的支持行为（即盈利机会）。
