A Study of Danmaku Video on Attention Allocation, Social Presence, Transportation to Narrative, Cognitive Workload and Enjoyment

Danmaku video (video with overlaid comments) is a relatively new social TV format and is getting popular in China. This study conducted a 3-condition experiment to examine Danmaku video watching experience in terms of 5 aspects: attention allocation, social presence, transportation into narrative, cognitive workload and enjoyment. 61 Chinese college students from the Northeast region of US were recruited to participate the study. Result indicated out that Danmaku distracted some attention from the initial video content but fostered a feeling of joint viewing with others. The presence of Danmaku also had some effect on the enjoyment of watching videos, but did not affect cognitive workload or the degree of feeling being transported into video's narrative.