“oh my god! buy it!” a multimodal discourse analysis of the discursive strategies used by chinese ecommerce live-streamer austin li

Abstract

Ecommerce livestreaming, also known as live commerce or social commerce, has taken off over the past two years in East Asia and is showing the tendency of going global. Intrigued by the phenomenal success of ecommerce livestream, we concentrate on analyzing the most prominent and illustrative example of Chinese ecommerce live-streamer Austin Li. Through this individual case study, we aim to investigate discursive strategies employed in ecommerce livestreaming and reveal resources specific to this new media genre. Guided by multimodal discourse analysis, our research first accommodates the socio-economic context of Li’s success to warrant social situatedness in interpreting data. After that we move into analyzing his discourse employed in livestreaming. Research findings suggest that in attention economy, Li strategically utilizes his male gender as a resource in trying on lipsticks for female customers. His discourse in multiple modes serves to build consumer trust and propagate products. An in-depth analysis of his discursive strategies indicates that, ecommerce livestreaming as a new form of advertising not only shares commonalities with traditional advertisement discourse but also embodies affordances that are specific to livestreaming platforms. To be more specific, livestreaming is featured with delimitation of time, real-time interactivity, and video-aided communication. These affordances enable Li to adopt more interactive and personalized persuasive discourse than conventional advertisements.