Examining Emotional Presence, Authenticity, and Intimacy in Live-Streaming Experiences: A Focus on Audience–Streamer Interactions
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Abstract
Live streaming has become a rapidly growing form of digital communication, transforming how people interact, build relationships, and experience emotional connections in real time. Despite increasing scholarly attention, limited research has explored the subjective meaning-making processes behind emotional presence, authenticity, and intimacy in live-streaming environments, particularly within Indonesian cultural contexts. This study addresses that gap by investigating how streamers and viewers construct and interpret emotional engagement in ways that are socially and culturally distinctive. Here, we adopt an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to explore the lived experiences of 28 participants, including streamers and viewers, focusing on how emotional closeness is co-constructed through interaction. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and live-chat analyses, then analyzed using IPA to uncover themes representing shared meanings. The findings reveal that emotional presence develops through reciprocal engagement, authenticity is negotiated between performance and sincerity, and cultural norms shape expressions of intimacy and trust. These insights offer a deeper understanding of how digital relationships are socially and culturally mediated, filling a gap left by previous studies that relied mainly on quantitative metrics. This study advances theoretical perspectives on digital communication and phenomenology by highlighting the subjective experiences underpinning online emotional interactions. The results also provide practical implications for streamers, platform designers, and policymakers to foster more meaningful, culturally responsive user engagement while opening opportunities for future cross-cultural and mixed-method research.
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