“I feel it is my responsibility to stream”: Streaming and Engaging with Intangible Cultural Heritage through Livestreaming
This article summarizes a paper authored by Zhicong Lu, Michelle Annett, Mingming Fan, and Daniel Wigdor. This paper will be presented at CHI 2019, a conference of Human-Computer Interaction, on Tuesday 7th May 2019, at 09:00 AM in the session Makers and Streamers at Hall 2.
“Cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”－ UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization)
Over the last few decades, globalization has led to an increased sense of urgency to maintain cultural diversity through the protection and promotion of cultural heritage. Most often, preservation activities focus on entities of tangible cultural heritage, e.g., monuments and historical sites. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in intangible cultural heritage (ICH), e.g., oral traditions, customs, language, music, and craftsmanship that are rooted in local cultures. These practices are not only a manifestation of human intelligence and creativity, but also a medium for intergenerational transmission of the wealth of human knowledge. However, ICH practices are continually being threatened by globalization, which has caused new generations to lose interest in them.
In recent years, the proliferation of high-speed internet and high-resolution cameras on mobile devices has led to a surge in livestreaming. Because of the proliferation and popularity of livestreaming in China, some livestreamers stream traditional ICH practices. With its growing popularity, livestreaming has the potential to enable ICH to reach a broader, more global audience, raise public awareness and interest in ICH practices, and further assist in the safeguarding of such practices. However, to design better tools that might help ICH practitioners using livestreaming to preserve their practices, we should first better understand the practices, opportunities, and challenges of using current livestreaming platforms for the promotion and safeguarding of ICH. To address these questions, we conducted an in-depth interview-based study with 10 streamers who livestream ICH-related content in China and 8 viewers of these streamers. We present the main findings from this study in this article.
Streaming Practices and Motivations
Streamers use diverse streaming structures to showcase ICH practices. They use a basic model wherein live video is used to showcase themselves performing the ICH practice (with video frames including their upper body and face) and simultaneously narrate while performing the practice. Streamers interact with viewers in real time using chat functions. Such streams typically last from one to two hours. A number of other streaming structures are also used, including:
- Question and Answer sessions
- Live talks by other experts/artists
- Live performances by learners, which may require additional technologies (e.g., a streamer who streams Peking Opera also uses WeSing, a mobile app for singing karaoke, to host live singing sessions for his viewers)
- Live tutorials about fundamental knowledge (e.g., sketching and basic design skills)
These different structures are made possible by the high interactivity of livestreaming, for example, learners who would like to perform live and get feedback can ask to do so by posting comments during livestreams, or they can tell streamers about knowledge that they want to learn during a livestream. The diversity of streaming structures and technology used for these endeavors suggest that a one-size-fits-all app would unlikely be beneficial for ICH streamers.
As for motivations, many interviewed streamers said that they felt a responsibility to enable more people to be aware of ICH and engage with it, e.g.,
“Young adults should not just play games using mobile phones. I feel it is my responsibility to stream. With more livestreams like mine, they could also use mobiles to learn about ICH practices. ICH is the roots of our Chinese culture inherited from our ancestors” － Streamer Four
Streamers were also motivated by potential opportunities for self-improvement, stating that livestreaming had made a positive impact on their lives, by allowing them to encounter people from diverse backgrounds and get inspirations from them. Livestreaming also enables them to clear up some misunderstandings about ICH practices with people who do not know much about ICH.
Curated Videos for Promoting ICH
Because some streamers cannot livestream regularly due to their full-time jobs, they constantly post curated short videos on streaming platforms to maintain their fan base and increase their visibility. The length of the short videos often ranges from several seconds to one minute, and due to their format, the videos can be easily be shared on social media. The content of such curated videos is often creative and focused, highlighting unique features of ICH, e.g., a video demonstrating how to make a rose from dough. Viewers’ comments on these curated videos and the number of likes can provide useful feedback for the streamers to improve their content. Streamers sometimes test how viewers react to different livestreaming content by observing the comments and the number of likes of the curated videos.
The streamers engage viewers with live and curated videos in complementary ways. If viewers raise questions during livestreams, the streamer can then call out the curated videos to attract more people to watch the videos which contain answers, hints, or other useful information. Furthermore, the more views a streamer has of their curated videos, the more likely they are to be featured on the platform, and consequently more visible to new viewers. On the other hand, because curated videos are always visible to all users on a platform, the more creative the content, the more likely it will stimulate users’ curiosity, which could lead to increased followership and viewers’ interest in watching their livestreams.
E-commerce of ICH streaming
A surprising theme that emerged was the e-commerce side of ICH streaming. All interviewed streamers run some sort of business related to their ICH practices, either providing professional online or offline mentoring of the practices or by selling artifacts (e.g., calligraphy or figurines). Although there is not an expectation that such activities would result in a large income, e-commerce is an important aspect of livestreaming because it motivates some streamers to keep streaming, which in turn increases their visibility, may help streamers sell more artifacts, and thereby ensures the sustainability of their ICH practices, e.g.,
“I sell some pieces of calligraphy just to cover the expense of tools and materials I need for calligraphy” － Streamer Nine
“I stream mainly for promoting my offline studio to attract more potential learners to come” － Streamer Eight
The real-time interactivity of livestreams and direct communication channels make it possible for viewers to have the artifact they wish to own be personalized by the streamer. For example, during Streamer Nine’s streams, viewing buyers could watch his writing process and provide him feedback in real time, which he can then use to modify the calligraphy that he is creating to satisfy the desires of his viewers.
Surprisingly, most ICH streamers do not use Taobao, the largest Chinese e-commerce website, or other e-marketplaces to sell their artifacts. These e-marketplaces are perceived as being not suitable for selling ICH-related artifacts because the items sold on these platforms are mostly manufactured by machines and are cheap, two principles that do not align with ICH practices. Some streamers also have no time or energy to manage online shops, or even have no technological literacy to use e-commerce websites.
Therefore, many streamers leverage WeChat to sell artifacts. They post images and videos of their artifacts on streaming platforms or in WeChat Moments, and those who wish to purchase them can directly contact the streamer on WeChat. The mobile payment feature of WeChat allows the viewing buyer to transfer money to the streamer directly and instantly. Although such direct money transfers with strangers can be risky, many viewing buyers have already formed a bond and degree of trust with the streamer by watching them over many days or months so they do not feel that such transactions are risky. The direct access that the viewers have with the streamer has enabled a strong bond to grow between viewers and streamers and thus a new mechanism through which e-commerce can occur.
Several streamers advertise and treat the selling of artifacts to viewers as Jieyuan, which traditionally refers to “building a natural affinity with someone” in Chinese folk religion. To these streamers, the selling of artifacts is not just a transaction or a question of money, but also enables buyers to build a relationship or bond with the artifact that they are acquiring, and ultimately, with the streamers themselves.
ICH Streaming Challenges
Our interviews revealed a number of challenges associated with ICH livestreaming today.
Fragmented Technology Eco-System
Our interviews revealed that the technology landscape surrounding livestreaming ICH activities is fragmented and complex. ICH streamers use various mobile applications, including different streaming platforms, short video sharing, and instant messaging apps (e.g., WeChat and QQ), to help them better engage viewers, promote ICH, and conduct e-commerce transactions. These practices have resulted in a fragmented and complex ecosystem. Our results highlighted the complementary effects of live and curated video, however, most streamers separated the two procedures and thought of them as distinct sets of streaming actions. As a result, the two forms of media competed for time and attention. Tools should thus be designed to help streamers easily make curated short video summaries from the archive of their livestreams and should leverage concurrent viewers’ input to achieve this.
Physical and Cognitive Demands of Streaming
Because most ICH practices require a lot of physical and cognitive skills, many streamers find it hard to keep interacting with viewers while streaming ICH. On the other hand, some viewers understand this challenge so they quietly watch the livestream to avoid interrupting the streamer. This often results in a less “active” stream. However, as current streaming platforms often encourage active streaming, and promote such streams with increased visibility, quiet ICH streams with fewer active viewers often become neglected by streaming platforms. To better support increasing the visibility of ICH-related content, platforms should consider other metrics to define engagement with ICH livestreams, for example, user’s attention levels or arousal.
Misunderstandings and Unintentional Trolling
Streamers’ skills and talent are often respected by viewers, but some reported negative experiences due to misunderstandings. Because many viewers initially had limited knowledge about ICH practices, some challenged the talent of the streamer or the value and legitimacy of their degree of craftsmanship during the stream.
Because many streamers spend years learning ICH practices, they can become discouraged by some other streamers who are not real experts in ICH practices but pretend to be experts and livestream to make money. This is not good for the ICH practitioner community because the average person may be misled by these so-called “fake experts”, leaving them with bad impressions of ICH. To mitigate the negative impact these fake experts might have, streamers expressed a desire for a verification or authenticity process.
Improving ICH Livestreaming Diversity
Diverse ICH practices are currently being livestreamed in China, however, some practices, which are only practiced by certain ethnic groups are underrepresented. This may be due to cultural differences between different ethnic groups, however, understanding the barriers that prevent these underrepresented cultural practitioners and their local communities from using livestreaming is important to improve the diversity and safeguarding of ICH livestreaming practices. Governments and other non-profit organizations should be encouraged to provide more support and incentives for these ICH practitioners, as it is these localized practices that are most in danger of being lost.
For more details about our work, please read our paper or come to our presentation at CHI 2019 on Tuesday 7th May 2019. I am pleased to announce that this paper has received a Best Paper Award (top 1% of submissions). If you have questions or comments about this study, please email Zhicong Lu.
