research-article

Liking the Game: How Can Spectating Motivations Influence Social Media Usage at Live Esports Events?

Authors:

Maria Törhönen,

Juho HamariAuthors Info & Claims

SMSociety '18: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society

Pages 160 - 167

https://doi.org/10.1145/3217804.3217908

Published: 18 July 2018 Publication History

Abstract

There is no doubt that various social media services shape the ways in which we approach our daily lives. The ubiquitous nature of these services, afforded by mobile devices, means that we can take them with us wherever we go --- including when we attend live events. Uncovering why individuals use social media during live events can help improve event organization, marketing, and the experiences of attendees. Our understanding of the motivations for using social media during live events is, however, still lacking in depth, especially in regard to emerging live events such as esports. This study aims to answer the question: what motivates the use of social media during live esports events? Data was gathered via a survey (N=255) at the 'Assembly 2016' LAN-event, a major live esports event. We examine the relationships between using various social media services and the motivations for esports spectating, through the Motivation Scale for Sports Consumption. While the results indicate that using social media services while attending Assembly 2016 was quite popular, it seemed that in many cases social media usage was a distraction from esports spectating, a core activity of the event. The results provide implications as to how marketers of live esports events should encourage or control usage of social media by attendees.

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Cited By

Formosa JO'Donnell NHorton ETürkay SMandryk RHawks MJohnson D(2022)Definitions of Esports: A Systematic Review and Thematic AnalysisProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35494906:CHI PLAY(1-45)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3549490
Mao E(2022)The effectiveness of event marketing in an attention economy: Findings from Twitch live-stream esports tournament eventsJournal of Media Economics10.1080/08997764.2022.211550334:3(194-211)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08997764.2022.2115503
Lamirán-Palomares JBaviera TBaviera-Puig A(2020)Sports Influencers on Twitter. Analysis and Comparative Study of Track Cycling World Cups 2016 and 2018Social Sciences10.3390/socsci91001699:10(169)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9100169
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Liking the Game: How Can Spectating Motivations Influence Social Media Usage at Live Esports Events?

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SMSociety '18: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society

July 2018

405 pages

ISBN:9781450363341

DOI:10.1145/3217804

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Copenhagen Business School

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Publication History

Published: 18 July 2018

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The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies
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SMSociety '18

SMSociety '18: International Conference on Social Media and Society

July 18 - 20, 2018

Copenhagen, Denmark

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Overall Acceptance Rate 78 of 189 submissions, 41%

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Cited By

Formosa JO'Donnell NHorton ETürkay SMandryk RHawks MJohnson D(2022)Definitions of Esports: A Systematic Review and Thematic AnalysisProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35494906:CHI PLAY(1-45)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3549490
Mao E(2022)The effectiveness of event marketing in an attention economy: Findings from Twitch live-stream esports tournament eventsJournal of Media Economics10.1080/08997764.2022.211550334:3(194-211)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/08997764.2022.2115503
Lamirán-Palomares JBaviera TBaviera-Puig A(2020)Sports Influencers on Twitter. Analysis and Comparative Study of Track Cycling World Cups 2016 and 2018Social Sciences10.3390/socsci91001699:10(169)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2020
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9100169
Li YWang CLiu J(2020)A Systematic Review of Literature on User Behavior in Video Game Live StreamingInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health10.3390/ijerph1709332817:9(3328)Online publication date: 11-May-2020
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093328
Rogers RFarquhar LMummert J(2020)Motivational Differences Among Viewers of Traditional Sports, Esports, and NBA 2K LeagueCommunication & Sport10.1177/216747952094273810:2(175-194)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2020
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479520942738
Macey JTyrväinen VPirkkalainen HHamari J(2020)Does esports spectating influence game consumption?Behaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2020.179787641:1(181-197)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2020
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2020.1797876
Poecze F(2019)What You Post is What You Get: The Mediator Role of Reached Individuals in the Causal Relationship among Posted Content Types and Follower Counts on FacebookNaše gospodarstvo/Our economy10.2478/ngoe-2019-002065:4(57-71)Online publication date: 31-Dec-2019
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