Interpersonal Relations and Social Actions on Live Streaming Services. A Systematic Review on Cyber-social Relations

Abstract

This article provides a systematic review on interpersonal relations and social actions on live streaming services as, for instance, Twitch, Chaturbate, YouNow, or Taobao Live. Are those relations social, parasocial, or is there another specific kind of relation? Based on 77 articles, we give a short bibliometric overview and discuss interactions on live streaming services, social actions of streamers, social actions of viewers, shopping relations on live streaming services, and the streamers’ and viewers’ intentions to continuous actions leading (also supported by elements of gamification) the audience to a kind of stickiness towards individual streams, streamers, and services. Due to highly interactive communication between audience and broadcasters and among the viewers, social actions on live streaming services take a middle position between social and parasocial relations and―concerning shopping―also a middle position between physical event-shopping and ordering on an e-commerce platform. They form a new human-human relation, which we name “cyber-social relation.”