ISSCY_ Social Identity and Virtual Gift Donation in Live Streaming Communities

ISSCY PUBLICATION_ ONLINE JOURNAL

Abstract
In 2020, a frequent regular to the live streams of several Korean Twitch streamers called Applesiri gave 2.5 million dollars worth of virtual gift donation to the streamers. (Segye Ilbo, 2020) Due to the sheer magnitude of the ‘donation’, people started speculating about the identity of this viewer. Contrary to speculations that he would be a rich person who had cash at his disposal to spend as he would like, Applesiri turned out to be a middle school student without any financial ability. Furthermore, the money that he spent came from his parents’ loans.
This case was proof that people do not spend a large amount of money on live streaming sites solely because they are rich or have extra money to spend. Due to the increasing popularity of live streaming platforms “with the rapid and pervasive development of 4 G technology and broadband Internet services” (Luc Chia-Shin Lin, 2021) and their growing trend and influence on the media industry, it seems necessary to consider these motivations in detail, since live streaming platforms promise a newly growing significant economic activity in our daily lives. 
             Meanwhile, on a related note, live streaming seems to have distributed its content to other media through social identity that one feels as a fan of a specific streamer or as a member of a platform. Based on this observation, this study intends to identify the correlation between the social identity coming from being a fan of a streamer and the financial consumption of virtual gift donations. This research will further discuss whether social identity (Suh & Wagner, 2013) created by social affordance (Bradner, 2001) will incite virtual spending through parasocial interactions and social presence (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976), and expects to attain an insight into behavioral studies and the sociology of new media. Furthermore, this study will especially focus on the case of South Korea, where the live streaming industry is already prominent and therefore provides a model for its possible application to other national and international contexts.
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https://isscy.com/online-journal/