Spanish Twitch streamers: Personal influence in a broadcast model akin to television

Abstract

Following the migration of influencers from YouTube to Twitch and the boom in popularity experienced by the latter social network, this paper explores if brands are capitalizing on the influence capacity of streamers or if streamers might be getting money from their own content. In order to investigate this, it was necessary to perform a quantitative analysis on the publication schedules and broadcast formats used by streamers. This facilitated the simultaneous identification of another main finding: Spanish streamers are using a broadcast model on Twitch that resembles that of open linear television. Although they only broadcast content related to videogames, trends towards other types of audiovisual content have already been identified. Moreover, it has been found that influential streamers prioritize Twitch over other social networks even though feedback flows have been detected, especially from Twitch to other platforms. This work represents a contribution to knowledge in terms of understanding Twitch and understanding platforms and influencers. It is important to determine whether these new forms of broadcasting and interaction could be considered a hybrid model between linear television and social media streaming.