The Political Turn of Twitch – Understanding Live Chat as an Emergent Political Space

• Research and media have all emphasized the importance of digital platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in contemporary political activism. Yet, little is known of the politicization of other digital platforms, such as Reddit, Twitch, and Discord, and how such politicization is manifested. By politicization, we refer to the emergence of political messages in a “decidedly a-political” space. In this paper, we explore a case of politicization on Twitch, a live streaming platform associated with the gaming community. We focus on the live chat, a central feature of Twitch. Our analysis illustrates rapidly emergent actor roles and their respective use of different features in posting (and objecting to) political messaging. We develop a model that illustrates the dynamic between actors and conclude with implications for research and practice.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Games and Gaming

actor roles

live chat

political activism

twitch

Actor roles

Live chat

Political activism

Twitch

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)