Whose stream is this anyway? Exploring layers of viewer-integration in online participatory videos

Abstract

Within this paper, we explore variants of user-integrating (live) videos as examples of collaborative practices in social media. We propose an empirically informed typology of layers of user-integration in terms of: (A) directness / ‘bodiliness’ of interaction, (B) Unfinishedness in the content at hand and (C) Productive tensions through streamer-audience-interactions. As an example of spontaneously emerging (virtual) communities of practices, we argue that analyzing IOPVs - integrated, online participatory videos – allows us to outline the conditions for such participatory formats to unfold, and how video-communities engage with them. In this analysis, we connect to methodical literature on online participant-videos, applying ethnographic research-methods to our main case-studies ‘chAIR Speedtest’, ‘Snappy’s Chain-Stich’ and ‘Miko’s tormenting chat’, explicitly exploring methods of tracing viewer-producer-interactions. Here, we also add to conceptual literature on participatory (live) videos by questioning the understanding of live-participation as fundamentally peaceful collaboration. Here, our analytical categories (A-C) help us to get a broader understanding of the dynamics that keep such formats going and the required translation-practices from both viewer and video-producer alike. We conclude by summarizing our results and by discussing the issue of responsibility regarding (video) contents that emerge from such an asymmetrical collaboration.