Sources Related to Our Statement

Hamilton, W. A., Garretson, O., & Kerne, A. (2014). Streaming on twitch: fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1315–1324. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557048

This paper presents an ethnographic investigation of the live streaming of video games on Twitch. It found that Twitch streams act as virtual third places, in which informal communities emerge, socialize, and participate. It also explores Twitch as a sociotechnical system for creating third places through the use of mixed media. (Victoria)

Hilvert-Bruce, Z., Neill, J. T., Sjoblom, M., & Hamari, J. (2018). Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch – ScienceDirect. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, 58–67. https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563218300712 (Victoria)

In this paper, Hilvert Bruce and her colleagues explore the social motivations for using a streaming platform such as Twitch. They identify 6 main motivations: social interaction, sense of community, meeting new people, entertainment, information seeking, and a lack of external support in real life. They found that compared to the motivations of mass media viewers, the motivations of viewers on live stream engagement platforms such as Twitch appear to have a stronger emphasis on social and community engagement.

Lim, S., Cha, S. Y., Park, C., Lee, I., & Kim, J. (2012). Getting closer and experiencing together: Antecedents and consequences of psychological distance in social media-enhanced real-time streaming video – ScienceDirect. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(4), 1365–1378. https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.library.georgetown.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563212000647

This study created its own social media-enhanced real-time streaming video service in order to conduct a field experiment with actual social media users, all to distinguish the differences between it and its media antecedents such as Youtube. The study found that the reason these live streaming platforms are so popular is because of their ability to reduce psychological distance between users, and in turn, enhance co-experience. The reduction in psychological is due to the creation of inhabited spaces (third places) and their corresponding isomorphic effects. (Victoria)

Johnson, M. R. (2019). Inclusion and exclusion in the digital economy: disability and mental health as a live streamer on Twitch.tv. Information, Communication & Society, 22(4), 506–520. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1476575

Johnson delves into the magnitude of positive reinforcement, empowerment and inclusivity that streaming on Twitch can have on people with disabilities and mental health issues. He explains how streamers can profit from streaming their work while also enjoying certain comforts and more opportunities in the digital world than what they do in the real one. From conducting countless of interviews to ethnographic work and going through years of streaming videos, the findings of this paper highlight the inclusivity and community presence that marginalized groups have on such a streaming platform as changing forces of the platform.(Danae)

Richard, G. (2017). Video Games, Gender, Diversity, and Learning as Cultural Practice: Implications for Equitable Learning and Computing Participation Through Games. Educational Technology, 57(2), 36-43. from http://www.jstor.org/stable/44430522

In this paper, Richard discusses the historical diversity issues that exist and have been present since the very beginning of gaming, computing and the STEM field overall. She looks into how education and certain cultural practices have been supporting such behavior and applications over the years, but also how through supportive and inclusive communities found online and on platforms such as Twitch, fair design and learning can be established. (Danae)

Seering, J., Kraut, R., & Dabbish, L. (2017). Shaping Pro and Anti-Social Behavior on Twitch Through Moderation and Example-Setting. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 111–125. https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998277

Seering’s paper explores the use of bots and moderation tactics as a way for streamers to condition and shape their communities. Through the use of moderators, the streamer is able to impress their own values and beliefs on their communities and influence their behaviors. He and his colleagues also found that placing bans and using chat moderators had a positive effect on deterring bad behavior. This study considers the intersection of tools, authority, and types of behaviors, offering a way to further consider and develop moderation strategies. This study heavily reminded me of Pavlov’s experiment. (Victoria)

Sheng, J. T., & Kairam, S. R. (2020). From Virtual Strangers to IRL Friends: Relationship Development in Livestreaming Communities on Twitch. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 4(2), 1-34.

This article discusses how this pseudonymous and text-based live streaming platform could help people build strong relationships and communities. Their finding is that Twitch features, such as reduced-cue and pseudonymous environment, encourage participants to have more self-disclose and gain more trust and intimacy. They also discover that some extra services (e.g., polls and games) will promote individuals ‘ interaction with streamers and other participants, further developing a stable community identity. (Qi)

Sources Related to The System

Deng, J., Cuadrado, F., Tyson, G., & Uhlig, S. (2015). Behind the Game: Exploring the Twitch Streaming Platform. International Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames), pp. 1-6.

Deng et al., give a great overview on Twitch as a streaming platform while exploring the unique features that create this experience so many enjoy. They also provide a great exploration of the variety of games that are streamed on Twitch and discuss the cultural and societal significance and impact of those, on such a new and different platform. This piece also makes a good source for looking into Twitch trends, Twitch tournaments and interesting statistical findings about the different aspects of the platform. (Danae)

Flores-Saviaga, C., Hammer, J., Flores, J., & Seering, J., Reeves, St., Savage, S. (2020).  Audience and Streamer Participation at Scale on Twitch. Hypertext v.19 

In this piece, Flores – Saviaga et al., investigate the relationship of audience-streamer interaction dynamics and unpack audience participation attributes and meanings behind the interactions. By studying and breaking down 12 million audience chat messages and 45 hours of video steams the authors describe the sense of community that exists on the platform due to its interactive and participatory nature. They also look into the challenges that can arise for both viewers and streamers and the outcomes that can come out of one’s design choices in terms of the experience that the audience will have. (Danae)

Iqbal, M. (2021). Twitch Revenue and Usage Statistics. Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/

Informative article on Twitch’s history and 2021 overview; revenue and usage statistics. Iqbal follows the history and ‘life’ of the platform starting as a spin-off of Justin.tv in 2007 leading to why and how it became such a big worldwide phenomenon that brings people from all circles of life together and cultivates a new form of digital presence and interaction. (Danae)

Jackson, N. (2021). Understanding Memetic Media and Collective Identity Through Streamer Persona on Twitch.tv. Persona Studies, 6(2), 69–87. https://doi.org/10.21153/psj2020vol6no2art966

In this article, Jackson discusses how streamers and their audiences build their community identity through the use of “memetic” media. While the article as a whole discusses an interesting avenue for how community building works on Twitch (i.e. through repeated themes and media resulting in memesis), what was especially relevant to this project was his discussion of how Twitch alerts could be used to by content consumers to express their own agency on the stream; in other words, an example of bots facilitating community building. (Nicholas)

Partin, W. C. (2020). Bit by (Twitch) Bit: “Platform Capture” and the Evolution of Digital Platforms. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120933981

Partin’s article discusses “platform capture,” or how digital platforms adopt and integrate certain outside, augmenting technologies into their own system. In this case, Partin talks about how Twitch bits were created as a way to bring tipping onto the Twitch platform rather than through outside applications. One of the applications discussed was the original TwitchAlerts, which transitioned into Streamlabs, a bot application which streamers still use today. (Nicholas)

Sarumi, S. (2020, April 12). The Secret Art of Building a Community on Twitch. Medium. https://blog.streamelements.com/creating-a-third-place-on-twitch-and-building-a-community-9a5b3188c685

This blog post outlines the “secret sauce” to building a quality Twitch Channel. The blog emphasizes the importance of creating and using high-quality visuals in order to engage viewers and create a quality third place for them. The author emphasizes that the purpose of a Twitch channel is to serve as a place where someone can go to relax, socialize and feel comfortable. (Victoria)

Taylor, T. (2018). Watch Me Play : Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Princeton University Press,. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691184975

In her book, Taylor gives a very thorough overview of the rise of livestream media and broadcasting platforms with an emphasis on Twitch as it has managed to quickly rise in fame and use. She explores, in a very approachable, interesting and fun way, the birth of this new way of expressing oneself, creating, audience and creators interacting live with each other, and community building. Focusing in on Twitch, Taylor writes about all the different and unique attributes of the platform such as the chat, the subscriptions and shout-outs, large audiences from all over the world and what it means to be crossing the lines between what is private and what becomes public in a world where people seem to be really interested in what others are doing in their day-to-day lives. (Danae)

TwitchTracker. (2021). Twitch Statistics and Charts. TwitchTracker. https://twitchtracker.com/statistics

Great source for updated and live information and statistics on Twitch. Provides and compares charts and overviews on channels, viewers, games and languages present on Twitch. Also has weekly, monthly and yearly detailed overviews to monitor the rise of the platform in both streamers/content creators and audience. (Danae)

Wohn, D. Y., Freeman, G., & McLaughlin, C. (2018). Explaining viewers’ emotional, instrumental, and financial support provision for live streamers.  Proceedings of the 2018 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 1-13.

They mainly discuss how viewers support streamers through emotional, instrumental, and financial ways. And all these supports are related to form a community. They focused on the reasons behind the financial support: paying for entertainment, helping streamers sustain and improve content quality, affection, and increasing interaction. These reasons are related to our project by explaining the importance of financial support. They also mentioned that money-giving would materialize other supports by acting as a carrier. (Qi)

Sources Related to The Technical Component

Kappamon. (2021). Kappamon Chat Bot Documentation. Kappamon. https://kappamon.com/guide

Kappamon documentation helps with the installation of the KappamonBot. Works on Twitch, Youtube and Trovo. With this chat bot streamers can create their own Twitch pets which can interact with the audiences through the chat. You can talk to them, feed them, they also dance and play songs! They enhance the interactivity and custom experience each streamer can create on their Twitch! (Danae)

Moobot Developers. (2021). Moobot Documentation. Moobot. https://moo.bot/docs

A great source for finding all the documentation supported by the chat bot Moobot. A bot exclusively used on Twitch. It is used to monitor and moderate the chat and remove spam messages. The documentation provides users with an overview and all the variety of features and commands that can be implemented into your Twitch account for a better user experience. Made and developed in 2008 by Moobot independent developers. (Danae & Nicholas)

Nightbot. (2019). Nightbot Docs. NightDev, LLC. https://docs.nightbot.tv/

This is the documentation available for the chat bot Nightbot that can be used on both Twitch and YouTube. It gives the general description, over and detailed documentation on how to install commands for chat moderation, foul language, playing music, adding polls and small games into the chat and more! It was first created by one of the Justin.tv (the original Twitch) streamers Kona and was then names SFXBot. It is now owned and developed by NightDev, a software development company. (Danae & Nicholas)

Paolillo, J. (1999). The Virtual Speech Community: Social Network and Language Variation on IRC. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4(4), 0–0. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1999.tb00109.x

Internet-Relay-Chat (IRC) is the foundation for the Twitch bots of today. Originally used in early internet chatrooms, they carried out similar moderation and administration tasks. Interestingly, Paolillo denotes how they were used to maintain a social hierarchy between “ops” and “newbies,” relationship that could easily shift between “benevolent” and “capricious.” While we argue here that bots of today are far more welcoming and less manipulative, it’s important to keep in mind past relationships when thinking about how the current ones are evolving. (Nicholas)

Seering, J., Flores, J., Savage, S., & Hammer, J. (2018). The Social Roles of Bots: Evaluating Impact of Bots on Discussions in Online Communities. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274426 (Nick)

Seering et al. provide a good framework for how bots work in social online communities, especially on Twitch. While they find that interactions between bots and content consumers don’t reflect human-to-human interactions, in that there is far less conversation between the two, they still push the notion that bots can be used in social ways beyond simply conversation. They do leave their conclusions more open-ended, asking readers and future researchers to think about the complexities of moderation and machine learning, and what the roles of bots could look like in the future. (Nicholas)

Streamlabs. (2021). Streamlabs Chatbot Documentation. Logitech International S.A. https://cdn.streamlabs.com/chatbot/Documentation_Twitch.pdf

This is the documentation for the Streamlabs chat bot. Can be used on Twitch, YouTube and Facebook. Gives direction on how to setup your chatbot, features and commands to moderate chat, add notification for your audience, timers, mini-games and more. Streamlabs chatbot is owned by Logitech International S.A. (Danae & Nicholas)