A Study of the Body Symbolization and Mediatization and Emotional Consumption of a Streamer

Abstract

Live streaming is prevalent in news communication, leisure and entertainment, daily consumption, advertising, mass education, and telemedicine fields of our daily lives in China. Such hotly debated words as e-commerce, live streaming, short video, and growing figures reflect a new change in the universal lifestyle in the Internet era. Live streaming, a new form of communication, may become a critical medium for people to connect with society. Based on the perspective of symbolic interactionism, this article explores the body symbolization and mediatization and emotional consumption of a streamer. Streamers bolstered by the consumption society, add a new body spatial dimension through body symbolization and mediatization, thus creating the desire and impulse for consumption among viewers on the one hand. People are increasingly reliant on products and services related to emotion provided by the market to meet their emotional needs in modern society on the other hand. Streamers, as a medium, have become one of the main suppliers of these products and services. As emotional labor and consumption become increasingly prevalent, streamers utilize emotional, physical, and linguistic symbols to convey a symbolic narrative. Consumers actively engage in the interpretation of these image texts and participate in live consumption through symbolic interaction. Streamers inject a sense of competition, intimacy, visual pleasure, and watch desire into the emotional structure of viewers unattainable through traditional media, which drives their consumption behavior for emotion.