Live Streaming for Political Campaigns Persuasive Affordances Political

Live Streaming for Political Campaigns: Persuasive Affordances, Political Mindfulness, and Political Participation Tian Yu Yan Chen Florida International University

Introduction • Live-streaming in social media • Political campaigns and livestreaming • Political live streaming during the pandemic (election 2020) 2

Research Question • How do perceived persuasive affordances on online live-steaming platforms affect participants’ political mindfulness as well as their political participation? 3

Theoretical Background Persuasive Affordances • Affordance “defines the possibilities and limits for action that a material object offers to an actor” (Robey et al. 2013, p. 386). • We define persuasive affordances as action possibilities designers intend for users to engage in. 4

Theoretical Background Fogg’s Behavior Model of Change (FBM, Fogg 2009) • There are three types of persuasive properties in IT for behavioral changes: enablers, motivators, and triggers. • Enablers offer simplicity and capability for use. Motivators work on human emotions. Triggers are prompts that push behavioral changes. • Guided by FBM, we argue that persuasive affordances are built upon system properties enabling “sufficient motivation, sufficient ability, and effective triggers. ” 5

Theoretical Background Political Mindfulness • Mindfulness is a mind state of alertness and lively awareness (Langer 1989). • The common themes in the contextualized concepts of mindfulness are openness to novelty and multiple perspectives and appreciation of new experience. • In this study, we define political mindfulness as a state of active deliberation on political messages, and openness to multiple perspectives and new political views. 6

Theoretical Background Political Mindfulness, Political Participation and Persuasion • Mindfulness is an active process of elaboration that can be linked to the concept of the central route to persuasion. • Both mindful (characterized by openness and elaborative thinking) and mindless engagements (characterized by rigidity and rulegovernment behaviors) exist in processing persuasive messages. • The audience of political live stream may be influenced in both ways to engage in political activities. 7

Research Model 8

Hypothesis Development Enablers: • H 1: Synchronicity is positively associated with political participation. • H 2: Simplicity is positively associated with political participation. 9

Hypothesis Development Motivators: • H 3: Presence is positively associated with political mindfulness. • H 4: Presence is positively associated with political participation. • H 5: Co-experience is positively associated with political mindfulness. • H 6: Co-experience is positively associated with political participation. 10

Hypothesis Development Trigger: • H 7: Nudging is positively associated with political mindfulness. • H 8: Nudging is positively associated with political participation. • H 9: Political mindfulness is positively related with political participation. 11

Method • An online survey was conducted on Amazon Turk to test our model. • Before filling the survey, participants were asked to watch at least 10 minutes of a live-streaming video of political content and post at least one comment on Youtube Live platform. 12

Construct Simplicity Synchronicity Presence Co-experience Nudging Political Mindfulness Definition The perception of being able to make communications effortless and worry-free. The perception of being able to have simultaneous and multiple communications and instant transmissions of messages. Reference Lowry et al. 2016; Leonardi 2014 Dennis et al. 2008 Addas and Pinsonneault 2018; The perception of being physically present at a site and having Ou et al. 2014; Hartmann direct human contacts and even one-to-one interactions. and Goldhoorn 2011 A perception of being able to belong to a group and influence each other. A perception of being nudged by cues that prompt desired actions. A state of active deliberation on political messages and openness to multiple perspectives and new political views. Political Participation Intention to participate in various political activities. Lim et al. 2012 Weinmann et al. 2016 Addas and Pinsonneault 2018; Gil de Zúñiga et al. 2014 13

Discussion and Conclusion • This research identifies various persuasive affordances perceived by users and supported by system properties of online streaming platforms for politics. • This study explores the relationship between persuasive affordances and political mindfulness and political participation. • It also contributes to theory by focusing on synchronous computermediated communication in the political context. 14

Thanks for listening. 15