A preliminary study of emotional contagion in live streaming

Abstract

Live streaming is an increasingly popular communication medium that allows real-time interaction among a broadcaster and an audience of any size. Using archived YouTube live video transcripts and associated live chat messages, we find evidence for emotional contagion in live streams: sentiment in live video oral transcripts and viewers? text chat is associated with the sentiment in subsequent viewers? comments. This relationship is stronger between viewers? chat messages and the subsequent chat than between the oral messages in the video and the subsequent chat. However, in some types of live streams, negative sentiment in the live video is followed by less negative chat. We conclude with a discussion of future research and potential uses of the dataset.