Social Networks on Twitch.tv

Abstract

Computer mediated communication is becoming increasingly prevalent, with innovations being introduced in rapid succession. One of the more recent ones is video game live streaming, which has seen a huge spike in popularity over the last few years, but is still scarcely researched. This paper placed a streaming platform, Twitch.tv, into the fields of research on computer mediated communication and community building, and argues for Twitch.tv’s capabilities as a platform where advanced social networks can emerge, as well as Twitch.tv having developed its own norms regarding the use of language. It approached this medium through the scope of social networking theory, and sought to test whether the distribution of Twitch.tv standard features can be predicted on the basis of network density. We have compiled small quantitative corpora and analyzed the frequency with which linguistic features specific to Twitch.tv were used in networks of varying densities. The results confirmed the notion of network density influencing the distribution of Twitch.tv standard linguistic features, as the frequency with which these features were used increased as the networks got looser.