A Content Analysis of Social Live Streaming Services

Abstract

Social Live Streaming Services (SLSSs) are a new and exciting area of Social Networking Services (SNSs), with Periscope, Ustream, and YouNow representing some of the most commonly used international services. SLSSs offer the opportunity to examine the human-computer interaction between the streamers and their medium, the live stream, as well as the streamers’ information behavior. To get a better understanding on the information behavior on SLSSs and who produces which kind of live streams we conducted a systematic observation of live streams (N = 7,667) in a time-span of four weeks. We implemented a content analysis and investigated if differences between gender and the produced content, as well as the motivation of a person can be observed. Furthermore, the content was analyzed by country (U.S., Germany, and Japan) as well as by the service (Periscope, Ustream, and YouNow) to gain insight into the question if the streamed content depends on the applied services or the cultural background.