Cultivating Community: Presentation of Self Among Women Game Streamers in Singapore and the Philippines
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Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2021 Cultivating Community: Presentation of Self among Women Game Streamers in Singapore and the Philippines Katrina Paola B. Alvarez Vivian Hsueh-hua Chen Wee Kim Wee School Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information of Communication & Information Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Technological University [email protected] [email protected] Abstract explores how women game streamers in Southeast Asia manage their presentation of self [9] while This study explored how women game live cultivating a stable community of viewers and streamers in Singapore and the Philippines make navigating a medium perceived as dominated by North sense of their presentation of self as performers and American and European content creators, in a region gamers in a medium dominated by Western games, whose game industry and culture are also led by performers, and platforms. We conducted six in-depth foreign games [10][11]. interviews guided by interpretive phenomenological The presentation of self framework proposes that analysis in order to understand their experiences, social interactions can be understood as performance. uncovering issues such as audience connection and People engage in various practices in order to maintenance, the difficulties of presenting their own cultivate, manage, and manipulate others’ impressions femininity, and the influence of being Singaporean, of them, their actions, and the situation. Often, the Filipina, and Asian on their success as performers. We performed persona or presented self can be different discuss directions for study that further explore from the self that has no audience present [9]. As gaming and streaming as a form of cultural labor in researchers and streamers alike similarly view Asia. streaming as a performance [12][13][14][15], streaming offers a new medium in which to study the 1. Introduction and Literature Review presentation of self. Past research on online presentation of self has so far focused on asynchronous communication media such as dating People have been watching others play video websites/applications, blogs, and social networking games since the 1980s heyday of public gaming sites (e.g., [16][17]). Other work explored presentation arcades [1][2][3]. In recent years, electronic sports (e- of self on platforms with some anonymity, such as in sports) have helped to revive gaming as a spectator forums or message boards, chat rooms, and activity on a much larger scale. Global e-sports multiplayer online games, where pseudonyms and revenues are expected to reach US$1.06 billion in avatars represent oneself to others (e.g., [18]). 2020, and the coronavirus pandemic has led to Streaming, where performance is live, interaction with increased consumption of game live streams as viewers can be immediate, and one’s actual face and audiences look for more content during isolation or identity are often visible, is a comparatively new quarantine [4]. Such live streams, where both context for examining the online presentation of self. professional and amateur gamers broadcast their play Social interaction, the scene for any performance, to possibly thousands of viewers online, engages is a primary motivation for viewers and streamers players and consumers in new ways that potentially alike. Viewers hope for streamers to respond to their reshape other areas of e-sports, such as by comments or follow one of their gameplay suggestions disseminating play styles or techniques favored by [15]. They also have opportunities to chat with other leading players [5], and the game industry itself, viewers who share their interests. Viewers derive through new forms of game reviewing, marketing, and status from becoming a stream regular and knowing sharing [6]. At the same time, live streaming is serving who’s who in a stream community, and a stream can as a new form of cultural labor and production [7]. One be an important channel for socialization for the overlooked area is the cultural labor of women game physically and/or socially isolated [13]. One study streamers in Southeast Asia, the world’s fastest growing e-sports market in 2019 [8]. This paper URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/70960 978-0-9981331-4-0 Page 2834 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Table 1. Background of interview participants Streaming Participant Nationality Occupation Platform Game/Genre E-Sports Role Jayna PH streaming, family Facebook Gaming League of streaming talent business Legends Camille SG paralegal, student Twitch Fortnite and other n/a first-person shooter (FPS) games Venice SG public relations Twitch casual, mobile, or former executive FPS games professional player Bethany SG artist Twitch multiplayer online streaming talent battle arena (MOBA) games Wednesday SG streamer Twitch casual or digital streaming talent card games Noreen PH student, Twitch League of professional professional Legends player player found social motivations to be a key predictor of streams as a place to make friends, but they also see subscribing to a stream [19]. themselves as hosts responsible for cultivating a sense Past game streaming research has also suggested of community, by developing a core group of regular how streamers engage in impression management viewers/subscribers through interactions [13]. practices for successful presentation of self, precisely Streamers work to develop specific attitudes that to attract returning and regular viewers. Streamers see might make them appealing to pote ntial viewers while seeming natural on-camera issue for women hoping to establish their audiences [14], and a streamer’s personality and performance and be accepted by the gaming community. quality may be more important to viewers than actual Most game streaming research so far has focused skill at playing games [12][15]. Even those who on streamers and audiences in North America and stream for the first time, to almost zero viewers, Europe, and most studies on gaming culture and modify their behavior, knowing someone might be experience in Asia have tended to center on the three watching [20]. largest markets, China, Japan, and South Korea. This Although many streamers enjoy the community is similar to trends in research on online celebrity in and income gained from play, women streamers general [25]. In this study, we chose Singaporean and experience unwanted attention—harassment, Filipina streamers as participants for their in-between sexualization, and objectification—that male position. They favor Western games in a market streamers do not [21][13]. In general, women e-sports dominated by East Asian game products [11] and live professionals must carefully manage how they present in Westernized countries that continue to uphold their femininity to avoid such unwanted attention and patriarchal and Asian collectivist ideals of femininity gain acceptance by the wider community of gamers [26][27]. This study aimed to contribute to the still [22]. The discourse around women streamers’ self- growing body of research on streamers’ experiences presentation suggests that viewers and fellow by seeking them in a new context, using the following streamers alike make sexist judgments regarding their research question: how do women streamers in the legitimacy and merit as gamers and performers [23]. selected countries manage self-presentation to Even community guidelines set by streaming platform cultivate desirable relationships to and positions in companies themselves attempt to regulate women’s their communities? self-presentation in ways that might ultimately further their marginalization [24]. How women streamers manage their presentations of self is thus a critical Page 2835 2. Methods We followed IPA guidelines for analysis, reading and rereading the transcripts, making descriptive, This study was guided by interpretive linguistic, and conceptual comments before making phenomenological analysis (IPA), which is concerned final annotations of emergent and recurrent themes. with understanding participants’ lived experiences in These themes were extracted and rearranged based on their own terms [28]. Unlike grounded theory, which how they related to one another both chronologically seeks to produce explanations of a phenomenon by and conceptually in the transcripts and emails. This identifying its underlying processes, IPA aims for an process yielded three higher-level themes tackled in account of the world as experienced by its participants, the subsections below: meeting the expectations of whose unique and varying experiences of the chosen their viewing communities, struggling with phenomenon might yet yield common meanings and expectations regarding female streamers, and finding themes [29]. or not finding satisfaction in their reach as Asian We interviewed six women in their early to mid- streamers. 20s who had been streaming gameplay for approximately one year or more. Four of them were 3. Analysis and Results Singaporean, and two, Filipina. Three of them were directly contacted through publicly available email 3.1. A face for the community addresses or social media accounts; two, through a public relations officer for their professional e-sports Asking the streamers how they entered the organization; and one, through personal referral in the medium was met with backtracking into their personal Singapore e-sports community. The only criteria for histories as gamers. Jayna and Camille both described selection were the participants’ age, sex, and how they had been playing