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Pao Yue-kong Library, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong http://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk THE DISCOURSE OF ONLINE LIVE STREAMING ON TWITCH: COMMUNICATION BETWEEN CONVERSATION AND COMMENTARY DANIEL RECKTENWALD PhD The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2018 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of English The Discourse of Online Live Streaming on Twitch: Communication between Conversation and Commentary Daniel Recktenwald A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2018 Certificate of originality I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written, nor material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text __________________________ Daniel Recktenwald I Abstract of dissertation Live streaming on Twitch is a new form of online broadcasting of video games. Aside from the visual game, it features computer-mediated communication between a speaking streamer and a large chatting audience. This communicative setting is quickly expanding to other types of broadcasting. So far, there has been a limited number of sociological and ethnographic studies that argue that live streaming is a mixture of conversation and gameplay commentary. This conversation is said to break down with an increase in audience size and devolve into a chaotic waterfall of text. These widely shared assessments and arguments are based on common-sense and ad-hoc definitions of terms such as conversation and commentary, but they have not been tested or studied trough discourse analysis of natural occurring data. Therefore, the study sets out to describe the organization of discourse of live streaming on Twitch. The second chapter is a detailed introduction to the phenomenon of video game live streaming, the existing prior research as well as the communicative environment of Twitch’s website. Chapter three is dedicated to the linguistic literature review and will present the analytical framework of the Birmingham school and its current descriptions of spoken conversation. To apply the framework to live streaming of video games, the review will also introduce contemporary research on chat communication and online video chat. This introduction will provide a suitable starting point to discuss the discourse of Twitch. The methodology chapter explains the transformation of the visual gameplay, the streamer’s spoken language and the written chat into a coherent transcript, which is open to the discourse analysis. This transcript is studied in the three original research chapters five, six and seven. Each chapter describes the organization of discourse of live streaming from a different perspective, which will allow an overall synthesis of the study in the conclusion. Chapter five begins with the distribution of discursive moves between the participants and describes who is talking to whom, for which purposes and how often. There are different directions of communication such as from viewer to streamer, from streamer to viewer or from viewer to viewer. Often, these directions of talk and chat correspond to different social purposes within the communication. For example, viewers tend to write questions in the chat, when they address the streamer. In turn, streamers tend to give spoken responses to these questions as they address their viewers. It leads to a very consistent pattern in the dialogue. However, the chapter will also show that the largest amount of communication is not strictly dialogical. Streamers and viewers produce monological moves that talk about the game but have no direct recipient. Dialogical communication between the parties and more monological communication about the game co-occur. Therefore, the chapter will conclude that a direct equation of live streaming with conversation or commentary is too limited and needs further refinement to accurately account for the discourse of live streaming. In the sixth chapter, the dissertation shows how dialogical and monological moves combine to larger units of discourse and how they relate to the simultaneously unfolding gameplay. This will include the most common dialogical exchange patterns between streamer and viewers, which will be explained II in reference to the streamers’ status as players, the chat participants’ status as viewers, and their different modes of communication. Their discussion reveals that research on cross-modal discourse must distinguish spoken-to-written communication from written-to-spoken communication. They have a different form and spoken-to-written communication features a new discursive move, the topicalizer, which is absent from written-to-spoken communication. The topicalizer is a repetition of a written chat message in order to topicalize it in the spoken mode. The analysis also shows that the streamer’s monological commentary consists of two discursive practices with distinguishable content and a different temporal relationship to the unfolding gameplay. Lastly, the chapter demonstrates that the organization of discourse is highly cyclical and re-occurs in patterns that are aligned to the structure of the game and the organization of the broadcast. Chapter seven studies ‘donation alert messages’, which are a unique type of cross-modal exchange that receives privileged interactional treatment during live streaming because they are elicited by the payment of a ‘donation’. The chapter classifies the most common types of these messages based on their form and content and discusses their role in the overall organization of discourse on Twitch. Chapter eight summarizes the findings of the three original research chapters and synthesises them in a new descriptive model. The model is an adaptation of Birmingham school’s original description of discourse applied to live streaming. It is able to explain which discursive practices are likely to occur in different situations of the broadcast. Finally, the chapter also contains critical reflection on the research and suggest potential future research projects that may challenge established notions of casual conversation as talk that is unaffected by instrumental or monetary motivations. III Acknowledgements “No man is an island” A PhD has a single author, but there are always several people involved in the process. There is a list of people without whom none of this would have been possible and it goes as far back as to my final year of undergraduate studies with classes in sociolinguistic and language & gender. My teachers Dr. Bettina Kraft and Dr. Dorothea Halbe taught in an engaging style that encouraged students to critically reflect on their preconceptions and at times even question the reading list. As supervisors for my Bachelor’s, they have been patient and supportive and helped me to write my thesis. After graduation, I was applying for my Masters and I still remember the info evening at Saarland University, where Dr. Nele Gerhardt promised to help me in the application process. Afterwards, she would play a vital role in convincing Prof. Neal Norrick to hire me as a research assistant and I cannot overstress how important it was to be part of his research team and look behind the scenes of academia and university. During that time, I also took academic writing with Dr. Carrie Ankerstein and she taught me the skills of the trade. For the first time I was writing coherent arguments and was not just putting thoughts into words. Without a doubt, my studies at Saarland University have been the best time of my life, professionally as well as personally and it convinced me to further pursue higher education. It may sound strange to some, but good friends are essential for a successful completion of a dissertation and on several occasions, I had lengthy conversations with my dearest friends Kat & Peggy, who helped me to put things into perspective over a beer or hot pot. For a long time, I was unable to appreciate the tremendous opportunities that I have had access to and spent too much thinking about the negative aspects of a PhD. In our department, Hans, Stephen and Bernadette consistently fought on the behalf of the students and tried to address some of the issues that were arising and helped many students in the department in a period of great transition. Part of this transition was also my own extension for one semester at which point Hanna and Aditi became my new supervisors and assisted me in the last steps of the journey. Their feedback brought in new perspectives and insights, which greatly improved upon the quality of my work. The last people I have to thank are also the people I have to thank the most. Three times my parents took me back in. In the safe and familiar environment of our home, I was able to fully focus on my work and write my B.A., M.A. and PhD.

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