Learn more below
Why do we "go live?"
Sites Promote Live Content
Now that social media users can broadcast live video directly from their mobile devices, people are streaming more than 100 years-worth of video each day. In a single day on Periscope, people are watching a combined 40 years of live video. What makes livestreaming so appealing to us?
Part of the reason is that social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter actively promote livestreamed content. When Facebook began offering livestreaming to all of its users in 2016, it altered its algorithm to make live videos appear at the beginning of news feeds (Buyer, 2018). These websites have also prioritized livestreams in push notifications on mobile devices. Within one year, Facebook Live increased daily watch time of live broadcasts by 400 percent and reported that its users spent three times longer watching live broadcasts than pre-recorded video. |
Greater Social InteractionHowever, live video provides more social interaction than traditional video. Through comment streams - and sometimes donations - streamers and watchers have more opportunities to feel connected (Chen and Lin, 2018). According to Ring Digital, the three biggest reasons people give for watching livestreams are that they make them feel like they are part of a big event, the hosts are talented, and they have the ability to interact with the host. During the first three months of 2018, Twitch - a video game streaming website - had an average of 953,000 users watching livestreams at the same time. In that same time span, viewers tipped more than $34.7 million to the streamers, showing their support of their virtual relationship.
|
How has it changed the world?
EntertainmentLivestreaming allows us to instantly stream moments of joy, achievement, self-reflection and “epic fails.” Even after a streamer turns off their camera, the video can continue to sit in news feeds and even become viral like “Chewbacca Mom.” Not only does this provide social media users with instant entertainment, but it also provides a microphone to the world.
Citizen JournalismThe use of livestreaming to broadcast newsworthy information allows people to share stories of crimes happening around them, like during the Dallas shooting. Or like in July 2016, when Diamond Reynolds turned on Facebook Live after her fiancé Philando Castile was shot by police during a routine traffic stop in Minnesota. Facebook originally took down the graphic video, but later reposted it with a warning. She told reporters she did it because she wanted people to see the truth, “no matter how the police tamper with evidence [or] how much they stick together." And in August 2014, when activists in the center of the Ferguson, Missouri protests used Livestream.com and Ustream to give the entire country an unfiltered glimpse into the violent unrest. Streams of the protests on Livestream.com racked in more than 1.5 million views the day of the grand jury's decision.
|
Why do people trust these videos on social media? When Doug Tewksbury (2018) asked members of the Ferguson community, they quickly pointed out that livestreams aren’t edited or modified. You see exactly what the streamer sees. These livestreams quickly became crucial tools for documentation. These are all good examples of how livestreaming can provide us with entertainment or calls-to-action. But what happens when people decide to use it to show unnecessary violence, crimes, or even self-harm. What happens when we see the dirty, dark and ugly? |
How do you go live?
Think about your experience with live video. What kind of videos do you watch? Why do you enjoy it? Take this survey.