The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live streaming

In this paper, I consider live/life streaming as a mediated venue for making social relationships and a mediatized world constituted of diverse livelihoods. Drawing from my digital ethnography on two Chinese live streaming platforms Inke and Huajiao, I document the emergence of narratives, performances, and interactions that are either sexually suggestive or have gendered implications. I identify patterns of emotional expression and self-disclosure that lie within these interactions and analyze their alignment with and distinction from those that have been considered within the existing theorization of intimacy. In doing so, I examine how live/life streaming constructs scalable “mediated intimacy,” in the one-versus-many semi-public setting, through nurturing gendered performances and building subtle sexual tension between its participants.

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Live Streams on Twitch Help Viewers Cope With Difficult Periods in Life

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586975 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 ◽

Author(s):

Jan de Wit ◽

Alicia van der Kraan ◽

Joep Theeuwes

Keyword(s):

New Media ◽

Live Streaming ◽

Online Behavior ◽

Self Disclosure ◽

Loved One ◽

Teenagers And Young Adults ◽

Media Platform ◽

The One ◽

And Control ◽

As Relationship

Live streaming platforms such as Twitch that facilitate participatory online communities have become an integral part of game culture. Users of these platforms are predominantly teenagers and young adults, who increasingly spend time socializing online rather than offline. This shift to online behavior can be a double-edged sword when coping with difficult periods in life such as relationship issues, the death of a loved one, or job loss. On the one hand, platforms such as Twitch offer pleasure, distraction, and relatedness with others to help with coping, and the increased sense of anonymity and control could stimulate self-disclosure. However, the prevalence of trolling and memes may also discourage people from opening up, and relationships that are built online—especially those with microcelebrity streamers—could be perceived as more meaningful than they actually are. To create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a new media platform embedded in game culture, and how users perceive its potential as a coping mechanism, we have conducted a first exploration by means of a survey. The questions focused on general Twitch behavior, the difficult period in life, and the role of Twitch during this period. It was distributed online among people who considered themselves active Twitch users, and who had gone through a difficult period. Eighty-four participants completed the entire survey. The majority of participants indicated that Twitch helped them cope, and that it became a larger part of their lives during the difficult period compared to regular viewing. Recurring themes were the entertainment, distraction, and sense of community Twitch offers. Viewing behavior during difficult periods appears to remain largely the same in terms of the streamers that are watched, although time spent viewing increases, and there is a change toward more time spent actively watching rather than having the stream on in the background. With this work, we aim to create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a platform, and its importance for gamers that are going through difficult periods in life.

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Violation Detection of Live Video Based on Deep Learning

Scientific Programming ◽

10.1155/2020/1895341 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Chao Yuan ◽

Jie Zhang

Keyword(s):

Rapid Development ◽

Internet Technology ◽

Live Streaming ◽

Public Network ◽

Security Issues ◽

Detection Stage ◽

Live Broadcast ◽

Low Efficiency ◽

Core Idea ◽

The One

With the rapid development of Internet technology, live broadcast industry has also flourished. However, in the public network live broadcast platform, live broadcast security issues have become increasingly prominent. The detection of suspected pornographic videos in live broadcast platforms is still in the manual detection stage, that is, through the supervision of administrators and user reports. At present, there are many online live broadcast platforms in China. In mainstream live streaming platforms, the number of live broadcasters at the same time can reach more than 100,000 people/times. Only through manual detection, there are a series of problems such as low efficiency, poor pertinence, and slow progress. This approach is obviously not up to the task requirements of real-time network supervision. For the identification of whether live broadcasts on the Internet contain pornographic content, a deep neural network model based on residual networks (ResNet-50) is proposed to detect pictures and videos in live broadcast platforms. The core idea of detection is to classify each image in the video into two categories: (1) pass and (2) violation. The experiments verify that the network proposed can heighten the efficiency of pornographic detection in webcasts. The detection method proposed in this article can improve the accuracy of detection on the one hand and can standardize the detection indicators in the detection process on the other. These detection indicators have a certain promotion effect on the classification of pornographic videos.

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Parasocial Theory in Communication

Communication ◽

10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0181 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Gayle Stever

Keyword(s):

Mass Communication ◽

Visual Media ◽

Research Literature ◽

Talk Shows ◽

Parasocial Interaction ◽

Communication Studies ◽

Face To Face ◽

Sense Of Security ◽

Parasocial Relationship ◽

The One

Parasocial theory is an area of inquiry that has been principally pursued in communication studies, although work in psychology, sociology, and related disciplines has been done as well. The concept originated in 1956 with the article “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction” by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl wherein the authors suggested that television specifically, but also media in general, had put people in contact with those who were previously unknown and unknowable before the existence of visual media. Celebrities/famous people had existed before television, but what changed with the advent of televisions in the living rooms of people’s homes was that now it was possible to have a parasocial interaction in a face-to-face way with someone whose image and personality had invaded the privacy of one’s own home. Horton and Wohl focused in their discussion on the evening talk shows where a host brought celebrity guests onto the show and conducted informal conversations with those guests in a format that made the viewer feel like part of the conversation. The format encouraged the viewer to “interact” with the participants on the program, even though they were unable to really be part of the conversation. Creating a semicircle seating configuration on the show that implied that the circle was completed by the viewers at home added to the sense that one was part of a conversation. Such parasocial interaction (PSI) was defined by the one-sidedness of the interaction with the viewer knowing the television celebrity quite well while being completely unknown in return. PSI thus led to a parasocial relationship (PSR), which was the continuation of the feeling of knowing the celebrity long after the program had actually ended. In a small percentage of cases, the celebrity became a source of felt security and safe haven such that a parasocial attachment (PSA) was created. An attachment relationship is one in which a person seeks proximity to another in order to feel safe and secure. Traditionally infant/caregiver relationships and adult romantic relationships have been recognized for their attachment properties, but the idea that television personalities or other public entertainers can afford a sense of security and safety is one that has been explored in the parasocial research literature.

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Predictors of parasocial interaction and relationships in live streaming

Convergence The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies ◽

10.1177/13548565211027807 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 135485652110278

Author(s):

Caitlin McLaughlin ◽

Donghee Yvette Wohn

Keyword(s):

Online Survey ◽

Parasocial Interaction ◽

Live Streaming ◽

Parasocial Relationships ◽

Source Characteristics ◽

The Past ◽

Parasocial Relationship ◽

The Media ◽

Current Article ◽

Parasocial Interactions

The purpose of the current article was to explore parasocial phenomena in the unique and interactive context of live streaming. Specifically, the predictors of parasocial interactions (PSIs) and parasocial relationships (PSRs) were compared. In the past, the terms ‘parasocial interaction’ and ‘parasocial relationship’ have been used interchangeably, even though they are distinct constructs – which has confused researchers’ understanding of these phenomena. The current study aims to begin to disentangle our understanding of these two constructs by studying the predictors for each construct separately. An online survey was utilized to collect data on PSRs, PSIs, and various parasocial predictors that fell into three categories: streamer (source) characteristics, viewer characteristics, and behavioral (relationship) characteristics. Results indicate that streamer characteristics were the most important predictors of both PSIs and PSRs in the live streaming context, although characteristics of the viewer and relationship were also influential. These findings indicate that message sources can modify their content to encourage parasocial phenomena in their audience. This is encouraging, as research suggests that parasocial phenomena lead to many positive repercussions for the media and so are generally considered a goal of media personae.

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Note on Selection of Coordinate Systems for Geodynamics

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100051174 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 395-407

Author(s):

S. Henriksen

Keyword(s):

Sea Level ◽

The Other ◽

Coordinate Systems ◽

Mean Sea Level ◽

The Earth ◽

The One ◽

Static Systems ◽

Selection Of

The first question to be answered, in seeking coordinate systems for geodynamics, is: what is geodynamics? The answer is, of course, that geodynamics is that part of geophysics which is concerned with movements of the Earth, as opposed to geostatics which is the physics of the stationary Earth. But as far as we know, there is no stationary Earth – epur sic monere. So geodynamics is actually coextensive with geophysics, and coordinate systems suitable for the one should be suitable for the other. At the present time, there are not many coordinate systems, if any, that can be identified with a static Earth. Certainly the only coordinate of aeronomic (atmospheric) interest is the height, and this is usually either as geodynamic height or as pressure. In oceanology, the most important coordinate is depth, and this, like heights in the atmosphere, is expressed as metric depth from mean sea level, as geodynamic depth, or as pressure. Only for the earth do we find “static” systems in use, ana even here there is real question as to whether the systems are dynamic or static. So it would seem that our answer to the question, of what kind, of coordinate systems are we seeking, must be that we are looking for the same systems as are used in geophysics, and these systems are dynamic in nature already – that is, their definition involvestime.

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Nucleation of Disorder in Fe3Al Alloys

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100061574 ◽

1967 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 312-313

Author(s):

P. R. Swann ◽

W. R. Duff ◽

R. M. Fisher

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽

Annealing Temperature ◽

Antiphase Domain ◽

Effect Of Temperature ◽

Domain Structures ◽

Transmission Electron ◽

Domain Boundaries ◽

Higher Temperature ◽

The One

Recently we have investigated the phase equilibria and antiphase domain structures of Fe-Al alloys containing from 18 to 50 at.% Al by transmission electron microscopy and Mössbauer techniques. This study has revealed that none of the published phase diagrams are correct, although the one proposed by Rimlinger agrees most closely with our results to be published separately. In this paper observations by transmission electron microscopy relating to the nucleation of disorder in Fe-24% Al will be described. Figure 1 shows the structure after heating this alloy to 776.6°C and quenching. The white areas are B2 micro-domains corresponding to regions of disorder which form at the annealing temperature and re-order during the quench. By examining specimens heated in a temperature gradient of 2°C/cm it is possible to determine the effect of temperature on the disordering reaction very precisely. It was found that disorder begins at existing antiphase domain boundaries but that at a slightly higher temperature (1°C) it also occurs by homogeneous nucleation within the domains. A small (∼ .01°C) further increase in temperature caused these micro-domains to completely fill the specimen.

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Fundamental Research into Thin Films in a Developing Country

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100095753 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 30 ◽

pp. 500-501

Author(s):

J.A. Eades ◽

E. Grünbaum

Keyword(s):

Thin Films ◽

Growth Process ◽

Empirical Process ◽

Nucleation And Growth ◽

Research Groups ◽

Film Research ◽

Fundamental Research ◽

Controlled Deposition ◽

The One ◽

The University

In the last decade and a half, thin film research, particularly research into problems associated with epitaxy, has developed from a simple empirical process of determining the conditions for epitaxy into a complex analytical and experimental study of the nucleation and growth process on the one hand and a technology of very great importance on the other. During this period the thin films group of the University of Chile has studied the epitaxy of metals on metal and insulating substrates. The development of the group, one of the first research groups in physics to be established in the country, has parallelled the increasing complexity of the field.The elaborate techniques and equipment now needed for research into thin films may be illustrated by considering the plant and facilities of this group as characteristic of a good system for the controlled deposition and study of thin films.

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STM studies of crystal growth

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100086179 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 49 ◽

pp. 374-375

Author(s):

M. G. Lagally

Keyword(s):

Crystal Growth ◽

Molecular Beam ◽

Chemical Vapor ◽

Sputter Deposition ◽

Field Of View ◽

Scanning Tunneling ◽

Wide Field ◽

Tunneling Microscopy ◽

Wide Field Of View ◽

The One

It has been recognized since the earliest days of crystal growth that kinetic processes of all Kinds control the nature of the growth. As the technology of crystal growth has become ever more refined, with the advent of such atomistic processes as molecular beam epitaxy, chemical vapor deposition, sputter deposition, and plasma enhanced techniques for the creation of “crystals” as little as one or a few atomic layers thick, multilayer structures, and novel materials combinations, the need to understand the mechanisms controlling the growth process is becoming more critical. Unfortunately, available techniques have not lent themselves well to obtaining a truly microscopic picture of such processes. Because of its atomic resolution on the one hand, and the achievable wide field of view on the other (of the order of micrometers) scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) gives us this opportunity. In this talk, we briefly review the types of growth kinetics measurements that can be made using STM. The use of STM for studies of kinetics is one of the more recent applications of what is itself still a very young field.

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Preparation of Electron Transparent Metal-Matrix Composites

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100101414 ◽

1968 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 334-335 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M. R. Pinnel ◽

A. Lawley

Keyword(s):

Stainless Steel ◽

Load Transfer ◽

Volume Fraction ◽

Steel Wire ◽

Initial Step ◽

Interfacial Region ◽

Matrix Composites ◽

Specific Test ◽

The Matrix ◽

The One

Numerous phenomenological descriptions of the mechanical behavior of composite materials have been developed. There is now an urgent need to study and interpret deformation behavior, load transfer, and strain distribution, in terms of micromechanisms at the atomic level. One approach is to characterize dislocation substructure resulting from specific test conditions by the various techniques of transmission electron microscopy. The present paper describes a technique for the preparation of electron transparent composites of aluminum-stainless steel, such that examination of the matrix-fiber (wire), or interfacial region is possible. Dislocation substructures are currently under examination following tensile, compressive, and creep loading. The technique complements and extends the one other study in this area by Hancock.The composite examined was hot-pressed (argon atmosphere) 99.99% aluminum reinforced with 15% volume fraction stainless steel wire (0.006″ dia.).Foils were prepared so that the stainless steel wires run longitudinally in the plane of the specimen i.e. the electron beam is perpendicular to the axes of the wires. The initial step involves cutting slices ∼0.040″ in thickness on a diamond slitting wheel.

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