The politics of user-platform relationships: Co-scripting live-streaming on Twitch.tv

Abstract

What characterises the relationship between users and platforms? How are use and users configured by platform design, and in turn, how do users accept or reject such efforts? Using the live-streaming platform Twitch, this paper explores the user-platform relationship to answer these questions. Twitch is a highly popular live-streaming platform with an emphasis on gaming, whose rise to fame has been far from streamlined or expected. Based on qualitative analysis of design, discourse and user practices, the paper draws on script theory from science and technology studies and platform theory from Internet studies, to unpack the configuration of use and users. By tracing the development of the platform, we identify a pattern of frequent interaction between platform owners and users, and consequent course changes, which we label co-scription. Finally, we analyse the current Twitch script and propose five dimensions of co-scription that determine the user-platform relationship: 1) Sociality: community or individual use; 2) Audience: specific or general; 3) Moderation: strictly moderated or laissez-faire; 4) Content: user-generated or commercial; and 5) Scope: specialised or multi-feature.

The dimensions of streaming: toward a typology of an evolving concept

“…Each time Twitch’s detection system discovered the illegal broadcast – which usually took a minute or so – the transmission was moved to another account. Rumors about such actions were often spread on sites like Reddit (Ask et al, 2019). Modern piracy, in Burroughs’ account, also takes the form of more mundane activities such as borrowing and exchanging accounts from and between relatives and friends, sharing logins and passwords, and siphoning free promotions and subscriptions.…”

Exploring Video-Game Production’s Contingency on Live-Streaming Platforms: The Case of Twitch

“…Second, we attempted to critically analyse the discourse dictated by Twitch: following the tradition of semiotically analysing software affordances (Curinga, 2014) or scripts (Ask et al, 2019), we analysed Twitch's document in order to infer how the platform is shaping up to accommodate game developers not only as streamers but also as customers.…”

Samfunnsoppdrag i forvitring?

“…Det virker som om kringkasterne vurderer strømme-tv til generelt enten å vaere bedre teknisk egnet for og/eller mer ønsket brukt til visning av innhold på etterspørsel -arkivert innhold generelt og serier spesielt -mens lineaerkanaler er best egnet for direktesendt liveinnhold generelt og sport og nyheter spesielt. Nyere forskning om strømming viser imidlertid at for brukerne er fordelene de opplever med strømmeløsninger, ikke bare på-etterspørsel-funksjonaliteten, men fleksibiliteten løsningene kan gi på flere andre parametere også: fleksibiliteten og mobiliteten som ligger i å kunne koble seg til fra ulike enheter, samt muligheten til å sosialisere med andre brukere over live-innholdet i sanntid (Ask et al, 2019, Spilker & Colbjørnsen, 2020. Derfor har Sanson og Steirer argumentert for at «'live' viewing seems less a vestige of legacy television than the next big frontier of streaming» (2019, s. 13).…”