This paper examines the impact of network social presence, parasocial interaction, and emotional response on livestream viewers’ social support willingness, as well as the interaction mechanisms between these influencing factors. Through 515 valid samples, we have supported some previous research conclusions but also creatively proposed some research arguments, inspected and tested them, and finally constructed a possible pathway that affects the willingness of live viewers to provide social support to the live host. The specific research conclusions are as follows.
This study found that network social presence can positively promote the willingness of live viewers to support the host at three levels of social support. These findings suggest that network social presence is an important factor in explaining social support willingness in live streaming environments. The findings show that the network social presence can give the viewer a real experience in the media intermediary environment, not only allowing viewers to have a positive attitude towards the media, improving the pleasure of media viewing, but also enhancing the persuasive effect of media information (Westerman et al., 2015). Previous research has also confirmed the importance of network social presence in intermediary environments (Cummings and Wertz, 2022). The findings support the proposition that network social presence positively impacts the economic support willingness of live viewers, and this is consistent with previous studies, which suggests that shaping viewers’ network social presence is an effective strategy for live streaming platforms to maintain their cooperation with the viewers and subsequently trigger more purchasing addiction (Huang et al., 2022; Algharabat, 2018). However, apart from the economic support willingness, limited research has explored the effect of network social presence and other forms of support willingness. Therefore, this study further investigated the relationship between network social presence and emotional and instrumental support willingness, and found that network social presence also had a positive predictive effect on emotional and instrumental support willingness in the live streaming environment. Compared to traditional media, live streaming platforms have the advantage of being three-dimensional, interactive, and real-time, allowing viewers to observe the host’s facial expressions, body gestures, and their offices (or homes) while watching live streaming, and to hear their voices in real time. These rich sensory stimuli make online conversations similar to face-to-face interactions (Zhang et al., (2022)), generating a sense of identity and companionship with the host, as well as the sense of coexistence and connection, immersing viewers in a virtual interaction. This sense of social presence in the virtual space as a factor helping the development of close social bonds (Maloney and Freeman, 2020) has a positive impact on the viewer’s social support willingness. This research conclusion expands upon and enriches the research and application aspects of this relationship.
Moreover, network social presence was found to have a significant and direct impact on parasocial interaction. This is consistent with previous research results (Kim and Song, 2016; Lee, 2013). These findings resonate well with the notion that social presence can affect the formation of PSI (Lombard and Ditton, 1997). As the media form evolves in the direction of “humanization” proposed by Levinson, the necessity of “personal participation” in social activities decreases with the evolution of media (Meyrowitz, 1986). Live streaming not only enables the live host to release information in the form of text and pictures but also through voice and video that can convey richer social clues over a variety of communication technologies. High network social presence communication that uses humor, emojis, and phatic communication to express interconnectedness with viewers can foster a sense of intimacy, which is part of the parasocial interaction experience (Rubin, 2002). This humorous or warm communication style encourages the viewer to believe that the live host is friendly and warm, which helps to narrow the psychological distance between them (Lu et al., 2016), thereby providing the viewers with an imaginary sense of intimacy and social bond with the live host, even considered the live host to be a friend and companion.
On the other hand, parasocial interaction plays a significant positive mediating role in the relationship between network social presence and emotional, instrumental, and economic support willingness. That is to say, the network social presence can indirectly affect the viewer’s social support willingness by influencing their parasocial interaction. Specifically, during a live stream, the live host not only provides the viewer with functional benefits but also creates interactive relationships with viewers which can help create emotional experiences such as setting off the atmosphere, arising resonance, enhancing the authenticity and intimacy of the communication, and improving the interactive experience between the viewer and host. The stable parasocial interaction as a spiritual relationship model can be maintained to enhance the viewer’s willingness to provide support for the live host (Horton and Whol, 1956).
Significantly, this study also examines the emotional response of the live viewer and investigates whether the mediating effect of parasocial interaction on the relationship between network social presence and social support willingness is moderated by emotional response. Previous studies largely focus on the direct effect of emotional response on individual behavior (Zhang et al., 2012; Klein et al., 2009). There is a gap in the literature regarding whether emotional response indirectly affects social support willingness through parasocial interactions. This study offers new insights that emotional response only moderates the relationship between parasocial interaction and instrumental support willingness. Specifically, emotional response strengthens the relationship between parasocial interaction and instrumental support willingness. In the live streaming environment, the interaction between the live host and the viewer makes the viewer feel as if they are close friends in real life (Horton and Wohl, 1956), arousing the viewer’s emotional pleasure, and thus enhancing the willingness and motivation to provide instrumental support. Nevertheless, emotional response has no moderating effect on the relationship between parasocial interaction and emotional and economic support willingness. The first reason for this lack of a moderating effect may be that, for the sake of performance, the live host is often oriented by task interaction; that is, the host needs to interact with multiple viewers synchronously, utilizing the limited live time to complete the explanation and promotion of goods, ignoring the establishment of emotional social interaction with the viewer. This one-to-many asymmetric communication interaction mode weakens the real-time interaction experience of some viewers and reduces the trust of the viewer (Yu et al., 2018; Chen et al., 2017). Second, live streaming is unlike other online community activities with reciprocal support (Introne et al., 2016). The live host does not provide economic or instrumental feedback to the viewer. Third, Chinese internet users have been accustomed to a “free” online consumption mode for a long time, and many viewers instinctively have a resistance to the reward and gift-giving mechanism in the live platform. The interaction loss, one-way payment and free inertia make it difficult for emotional response to play a moderating role in the process of parasocial interaction affecting emotional and economic support willingness.
Research implications
Theoretical implications
This study has three theoretical contributions. Firstly, social support willingness is a multidimensional structure. Currently, academia has not reached consensus on these dimensions, but research has consistently shown that there is a difference between tangible support (such as instrumental assistance, goods, services, money) and intangible support (such as emotional care, information; Barrera, 1986; Weiss, 1974). Around webcasting, our study has supported social support willingness as a three-dimensional structure, including emotional support willingness, instrumental support willingness, and economic support willingness. One advantage of a multidimensional conceptualization of social support intention is the ability to better capture the different behavioral intentions of live viewers, which overcomes the limitations of viewing social support intention as a one-dimensional structure. Moreover, previous research on the social support willingness of live viewers has mainly focused on economic support, such as consumer purchase willingness (Huang et al., 2022; Chen et al., 2018) and gift-giving behavior (Zhou et al., 2019) in online live streaming, but little progress has been made in studying the factors that affect the instrumental and emotional support willingness of live viewers. The findings of this study provide a deeper understanding of what factors affect the three dimensions of social support willingness of live viewers. Therefore, our research complements existing research on the viewer’s social support willingness in the online live streaming environment.
Secondly, this study provides a new path for the study of network social presence. As an emerging type of social television, live streaming is more attractive than other media such as video games, online shopping, and online broadcasting because it provides both entertainment and immersive experiences (Haimson and Tang, 2017). Past research has shown that network social presence is an important factor affecting quasi-social interaction (Kim and Song, 2016; Lee, 2013) and has also confirmed the mediating role of parasocial interaction between social presence and intention of financial supportive action offline (Shin et al., 2019). However, the mediating role of parasocial interaction between network social presence and online social support willingness is not explored. In online consumption research, network social presence is considered a powerful predictor of consumer behavioral willingness (Huang et al., 2022; Algharabat, 2018), but few studies have explored the relationship between network social presence and online nonmonetary support willingness. Therefore, this study links network social presence and parasocial interaction, confirming the positive relationship between the two, echoing previous research, and also confirming that parasocial interaction plays a mediating role between network social presence and online social support willingness. In addition, this study explores the monetary and nonmonetary support driven by network social presence and finds that network social presence can enhance the viewing experience in live streaming situations. Network social presence impacts the viewer’s willingness to support the host in terms of emotions, tools, and economics, thereby echoing the role of network social presence in controlling, engaging, and cognitively and emotionally arousing the audience in an intermediary environment, immersing the audience in it, and thus promoting audience participation (Mollen and Wilson, 2010). This study combines the discussion of network social presence in the field of media and consumer behavior, expands the research and application level of this concept, and constructs a complete pathway, providing a theoretical reference for subsequent research on online live streaming.
Thirdly, this study takes a step forward by empirically investigating the regulatory role of emotional responses in these relationships. In the past, most studies on emotional response have focused on exploring its direct mechanism of action on individual behavior (Zhang et al., 2012; Klein et al., 2009); few studies have examined whether emotional response can exert an indirect impact on social support willingness through parasocial interaction. This study is the first attempt to provide empirical evidence on the impact of emotional response on the relationship between quasi-social interaction and the social support willingness of live viewers in online live streaming settings, providing guidance for future research in this field. The results indicate that emotional response regulates the relationship between parasocial interaction and instrumental support willingness. This finding not only helps to answer the question of how parasocial interaction enhances the instrumental support willingness of live viewers but also helps to further enrich the theoretical implications and application fields of emotional response.
Practical implications
This study provides important practical guidance for live host and live streaming platforms. The results indicate that network social presence can effectively induce the perception of parasocial interaction and emotional response of live viewers, thereby enhancing their social support willingness. However, improving the network social presence, parasocial interaction, and emotional response in live streaming requires multiple efforts.
From the perspective of live hosts, live hosts should adopt effective, interactive, and collaborative strategies to enhance the live viewer’s network social presence, parasocial interaction, and emotional response (Rourke et al., 1999). Firstly, live hosts should adopt emotional strategies. The live hosts can act as an acquaintance and adopt emotional language, such as “My dear family”, “Babies”, and other intimate terms, to quickly establish a stronger and intimate relationship with the audience through this kind of familial, friendly, and greeting language (Xie and Fang, 2021). In addition,the live host can also engage in daily care, greetings, emotional sharing, and confiding intimate communication in a heart to heart mode through live room chats (Xie and Fang, 2021), promoting emotional connection with the audience, thereby increasing the viewer’s retention time and social support willingness in the live room. Secondly, to increase viewers’ perception of online live streaming, live hosts should communicate with viewers in an interaction-oriented manner. Live content is not just a personal talk show for the live host, but also shaped by the viewer’s responses and feedback (Hamilton et al., 2014). Moreover, discussing familiar topics can also help improve intimacy (Argyle, Cook (1975)), which is an important factor affecting the viewer’s network social presence. Therefore, the live host should increase real-time interaction with the viewer during online live streaming, focusing on real-time feedback on viewer behavior (such as entering live streaming, liking, following, forwarding, commenting, and purchasing). For example, the live host can view the comments of the viewers in real time, ask or respond to targeted questions, understand the viewer’s surrounding environment and hobbies through viewer descriptions, and appropriately adjust the live content to create attractive content that meets viewer’s expectations, increasing their interest and enhancing interactive effects, and further enhancing viewer’s network social presence and parasocial interaction, thereby enhancing their social support willingness. In addition, the live host can also play the role of “curators” by listening and providing the viewer with multiple opportunities to exchange and share their understanding and experience, and using various incentive measures to enhance their sense of participation, in order to fully stimulate and guide the viewer’s positive cognitive-emotional experience. These real-time interactions can drive viewers to better respond to live streaming content and services, ensuring smooth interaction during the live streaming process. The more interaction with the viewer, the greater the likelihood that they will stay on the live streaming platform because they believe they have a close relationship with the host and other viewers, and experience a sense of immersion. Finally, the live host should utilize a cohesive strategy, including phatic language and online nicknames that enhance users’ parasocial interaction experience and convey a sense of connection (Labrecque, 2014), this stable interaction can effectively make viewers feel like they are part of the live streaming platform and immerse in it. To further enhance the positive effects of social presence communication via social interaction and emotional response, live hosts should improve their personal information such as their name, gender, and avatar, effectively inducing the viewer’s perception of establishing intimate and personal relationships with the live host. Furthermore, live hosts should conduct responsive, reciprocal, and back-and-forth conversations to maximize the viewer’s emotional response.
From the perspective of live streaming platform operators, the mass communication nature of online live streaming may not be suitable for promoting direct interaction. Firstly, for live hosts with relatively small numbers of viewers, direct interaction is still feasible, but for live hosts with large viewers, it is physically impossible for the live host to interact directly with a large viewer simultaneously. To this end, live streaming platform operators can use both robots and human hosts to help adjust the chat function of the live host. In addition, live streaming platform operators can also optimize the design and production of live streaming platforms to help their live hosts interact more directly with the viewers. For example, emotion monitoring tools can be established such as facial expression analysis, audio analysis, and text analysis with the help of artificial intelligence technology to assist in dynamic interaction between live hosts and viewers by displaying viewer emotions and viewer management suggestions (Chen et al., 2023).
Secondly, live streaming, as a new environment that erodes the boundaries of time and space, should give full play to its unique advantages of social and life attributes, promote interaction between viewers and increase their perception of network social presence. Danmaku system is an effective tool for promoting communication and interaction on a live streaming platform. When watching the live broadcast, viewers can publish and read Danmaku comments that update on the screen in real time, which helps viewers create a shared viewing experience (Zhou et al., 2019). The viewers can also trigger heated discussions through Danmaku to improve their sense of social presence with other viewers, create a higher level of immersion, and ignore the existence of time, thereby affecting their level of arousal, effectively promoting viewer online gift giving behavior. To do this, engineers can highlight debate content or words related to excitement in the bullet screen to enhance the viewer’s network presence and emotional response (Zhou et al., 2019). Developing real-time interactive voice functions, such as virtual conference applications such as Zoom and VooV meeting, may bring better co-awareness and positive emotional arousal.
Thirdly, the live streaming platform can reward the viewer with points or create identity tags and identity symbols for the active interactive viewer to encourage them to interact with other viewers on the platform, so as to generate a stronger sense of network social presence and social support willingness, which will also enhance viewer’s continuous use of the live streaming platform.
Finally, live streaming platform operators should improve efforts to increase personalization, provide customized services, and provide different types of live streaming content to meet the social and psychological needs of different viewers, thereby significantly enhancing the viewer’s immersive experience and generating positive emotional resonance. For example, live streaming platform operators can classify viewers by mapping click streams to different types of visits, and provide personalized information for different types of viewers based on their access goals (Tam and Ho, 2006).
Limitation and future research directions
This study is subject to certain limitations that require further investigation, which may present opportunities for future research. Firstly, this study uses a questionnaire survey method to conduct a preliminary understanding of the social support willingness of Chinese live viewers to live hosts and determine the pathway of increasing the social support willingness of live viewers towards live hosts. However, the cross-sectional nature of this study prevents us from reaching clear conclusions about the causal relationship between the analyzed variables. Although most previous studies have adopted a retrospective questionnaire survey method to explore the relationship between network social presence and social support willingness (such as Huang et al., 2022; Algharabat, 2018), such retrospective questionnaire surveys still cannot fully reflect the series of psychological changes of respondents while watching live streaming. The unique immediacy, dynamism, and interactivity of live casts are more suitable parameters for testing the relationship between online presence and social support willingness through real-time and direct communication between media figures and viewers. Therefore, future research can use experimental or observational methods to further explore the causal relationship between network social presence and social support willingness, also reducing commonly used variables by collecting data from different time periods and setting reference items.
Secondly, the AVE value of network social presence is only 0.506. In the future, the measurement and application of network social presence can be further deepened. For example, measurement can be divided into “co-existence,” “psychological participation,” and “intimacy”; further division could include “emotional presence” and “cognitive presence” (Shen and Khalifa, 2008). Such multiple consideration can enhance the accuracy of the research results and contribute to finding further mediators or moderators that affect social support willingness, to find more possible influence pathways of network social presence and social support willingness.
Finally, this study did not make a more detailed classification of live streaming, only measuring the influence mechanism of the viewer’s willingness to support the live host in the general viewing situation. However, the differences in the live content, the characteristics of the live host and the live situation create different degrees of influence on the viewer’s decision and behavior (Zhou et al., 2019). Therefore, given that different types of live streaming (such as travel live streaming, gaming live streaming, shopping live streaming, and chat live streaming) meet the different needs of viewers, future research can investigate factors that can display the uniqueness of the live streaming environment, to summarize and obtain more granular findings in different live streaming environments. For example, product category and gender may affect audience behavior in a live streaming environment. Currently, taking Taobao as an example, the most popular live streaming product categories are clothing, shoes, accessories, jewelry, cosmetics, and household goods, which attract more female viewers (Xu, Wu, and Li, 2020). Future research on Taobao can be designed and studied for female audiences to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the social support willingness mechanism of female Taobao users.