“Crash” And “Join”: Users' Cross-media Practices In Game Live Streamin

Nowadays,video game streaming(VGS),as a form of entertainment,is gradually coming into the public view.Gamers and live-streaming users gather based on their common interests and share the visual feast of game live-streaming in the atmosphere of common participation.The purpose of this paper is to explore the viewing motivation of VGS users by taking the main domestic live game platforms as the carrier,so as to explore the cross-media participation behavior of game players and live streaming users and their mapping of the youth subculture from the perspective of situation theory of media.From the perspective of VGS users,this paper examines VGS viewing behavior,which is a key part of new media user needs and new media subculture.Through in-depth interviews and participant observation,this paper summarizes and distills the motives of VGS users: the viewing motivation of VGS users is mainly to enhance self-efficacy,transcend the reality barrier,escape from flow experience immersion and release entertainment emotions.During the live game viewing process,users gain the acquisition and enhancement of game skills,integrating the viewing experience and participating emotions into imagination beyond reality.However,they are not addicted to games,but rather break away from the game through the autonomous activity of watching VGS,drifting between game media and live-streaming media,releasing their leisure emotions and expanding their social interaction behavior.On this basis,this article combines the situation theory of media to explore the special context of VGS-situation collapse.Due to the interactive feature of VGS,the two identity roles of users and players are constantly shuttled and intertwined,which leads to the disconnection and imbalance of users’ body recognition;due to the public exhibition feature of VGS,the foreground-background relationship between streamers and users is out of balance,and streamers are distracted by the gaze of players and need to accept the value criticism of users.However,the cross-media embodied practice of VGS users,facilitated by media technology,effectively creates new composite contexts in the dynamic fusion process of old media contexts,weaves new relationships in the form of composite media,and weakens the negative impact of situation collapse.The user and player groups present cultural omnivore characteristics in VGS context that presents game content based on games,transcending the media form of live-streaming to nomadize among different media contexts.Meanwhile,in the digital media scene of VGS,the pseudo-company effect gradually reconciles and accommodates the self-contradiction and conflict caused by the contextual collapse,and the user realizes the self-extension and interaction relationship construction with “dual subjectivity”,which weakens the situation collapse and realizes the contextual “articulation”.The media using behavior of users is intertwined in the new practical changes,and players and users show a positive and proactive picture that deviates from the traditional perspective of “digital labor” and “playbour” in the field of political economy of communication under the choice of personal subjectivity motivation.Under the background of youth subculture,game players and live-streaming users form a new network interest circle with game as the center,and create a new landscape of emotional sustenance and value transformation in the connected situation,showing cross-media,“dual subjectivity” and even “multi subjectivity”.