A Study On The Willingness Of Video Game Streamer Fans To Reward And Influencing Factors

After the fading of capital and the fierce market competition,the live streaming industry has entered a stable and mature period.Since the emergence of the live streaming platform,users' rewards have been the main sources of profits.For a long time,the operators of the platform use various ways to increase the revenue of the platform.In other words,users' reward is one of the most important factors for the sustainable development of the live streaming platform.Although the development of live streaming in China is not very a long time,there are many studies on live streaming in academia from different perspectives and disciplines.Even so,there are relatively few studies on the behavior of fans rewarding streamer.This study aim at game streamer fans as the research object,and use literature analysis,questionnaire investigation and empirical as study methods,and introduce the para-social theory of explore the virtual relationship between audiences and media characters.On the basis of predecessors' research,I propose eight hypotheses and build a research model influencing fans' willingness to reward.This model has six independent variables,including physical attractiveness,expertise,similarity,perceived usefulness,perceived playfulness and perceived interactive,these variables come from the personal characteristics of the streamer,the content characteristics and behavior characteristics of live streaming.Moreover,in this model,para-social relationship is the mediator,the willingness of fans to reward is the dependent variable,and group identification is the moderating variable.On the one hand,this paper expands the application of para-social relationship theory and social identity theory in the context of new media and it also enriches the research on live streaming platform and fans' behavior;On the other hand,it helps the operators and streamer of the live streaming platform understand the factors that affect fans' willingness to reward,which can have a guiding significance for improving the willingness to reward of fans.Based on collecting datum of correlation,regression analysis and structural equation model,I can draw the following conclusions: the similarity,expertise,perceived usefulness,perceived interactive,perceived playfulness for para-social relationship have a significant positive impaction,and physical attractiveness has few impaction to para-social relationship of fans sense;The para-social relationship has a significant positive effect on the willingness to reward,and group identity has moderating effect on this relationship.Finally,in order to improve the willingness of fans to reward,I put forward some suggestions and management enlightenments for live streaming platform on the basis of the results of empirical test.At the same time,combining with the shortcomings and limitations of this study,I put forward some suggestions and prospects for future research.