“Pop a titty for the boys” -A qualitative study of negative communication towards femalestreamers on Twitch

• Main Author: Kejser, Katrine
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Örebro universitet, Institutionen för humaniora, utbildnings- och samhällsvetenskap 2021
• Subjects: Female Streamer; Negative Communication; Online harassment; Qualitative research; Sexism; SSLS; Third Place; Twitch; Media and Communications; Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-92543

The development of technology has created many platforms for entertainment, participatorycommunities and socialization online. One of the largest current platforms for live streamingis Twitch.tv with a focus on gaming and eSports. This is a male-dominated field wherewomen often face harassment and a non-welcoming community. This paper is a qualitativestudy of the negative communication towards female streamers on Twitch with a focus onthe context in which said communication takes place. The aim of the study is to understandthe circumstances in which negative communication occurs and how it changes dependingon context. The study takes a qualitative approach and analyses the content of six streamsfrom five different channels, as well the negative communication in their chat room. Theresults show that negative communication varies depending on the content as well as thenature of the community built around the channel.