Recently, e-commerce livestreaming has seen a sharp increase in commodity consumption in Chinese society. From the perspective of media researchers, this e-commerce platform that can consume goods is the birth of a "new media", and it also witnesses t...
Recently, e-commerce livestreaming has seen a sharp increase in commodity consumption in Chinese society. From the perspective of media researchers, this e-commerce platform that can consume goods is the birth of a "new media", and it also witnesses the phenomenon of this new media spawning a new consumer culture.
Therefore, I would like to understand what kind of new consumer culture e-commerce livestreaming is creating as a consumer media from the perspective of McLuhan's "media is message" and "the birth of a media has opened up another model of human life". That's what my research was all about.
I set up several research questions based on the purpose of the study.
What are the media characteristics of e-commerce livestreaming in consumer perception?
How does e-commerce livestreaming disseminate product information?
What are the consumer behavior characteristics of e-commerce livestreaming?
What kind of new consumption concepts have been formed by e-commerce livestreaming? And what kind of social ideology does e-commerce livestreaming reflect as a new consumption space?
In order to solve the above research questions, I mainly use the method of in-depth interviews to conduct investigations. I selected 5 consumers from the top 30 users who had the longest online time in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room according to the background data to solve question 1 and 2. These people been involved in live broadcasts for a long time and have more experience observing e-commerce livestreaming than other consumers, so their interview materials are more objective for question 1 and 2. And also an interview with e-commerce livestreaming anchors was added to enrich the research perspective for question 1 and 2. To solve question 3 and 4, I selected 8 consumers from the top 30 users who have the most consumption times in Li Jiaqi's e-commerce livestreaming according to the background data. These people consume relatively more frequently and have more experience in the e-commerce live consumer experience, so their interview materials are more accurate for research question 3 and 4. I also interviewed research experts of sociology for the second question of question 4, hoping to summarize the social ideology reflected in the e-commerce livestreaming through the experts' interpretation of China's social ideology and combined with my previous research on e-commerce livestreaming.
The research results are as follows.
The media characteristics of e-commerce livestreaming in consumer perception are the The commerciality of live content, the real-time transmission of information, the two-way interaction of the communication process, and the Immersive sense of presence. These characteristics make consumers feel real and relaxed, and have access to a large amount of information, which makes up for the lack of c exchange in real life. So people are willing to spend time in e-commerce livestreaming.
The way e-commerce livestreaming disseminating information is the way it persuading consumption. The live broadcast room and anchor of e-commerce livestreaming will spread a large amount of product information to consumers in a short period of time by creating an atmosphere and controlling the rhythm. In this process, consumers' emotions will change due to the atmosphere in the live broadcast room and the guidance of the anchor, thus affecting the consumption behavior.
The consumer behavior of e-commerce livestreaming is mainly guided by consumer sentiment. Consumers are affected by a large amount of information in e-commerce livestreaming, generating positive emotions and negative emotions. Positive emotions stimulate consumer behavior, and negative emotions sometimes stimulate consumption behavior but sometimes discourage consumption behavior. Consumers become the core of the whole consumption. They do not take the quality of goods as the criterion for judging, but personal feelings.
The new consumption environment of e-commerce livestreaming has enabled consumers to form new concepts of consumption. In e-commerce livestreaming, consumers are eager to be concerned, pursue an equal consumption environment, they hope to obtain a relaxed and pleasant consumer experience and low prices. The purpose of consumption during e-commerce livestreaming is sometimes not to buy goods, but to obtain emotional value. A new consumer culture was formed by new consumption environment, consumption persuasion methods, and consumption concepts. e-commerce livestreaming shifts the focus of consumer culture from commodities to consumers. This consumer culture has rapidly landed in China, which is related to the ideology of Chinese society's history, culture, political economy and so on. China’s management concept has always been “people-oriented” and “great harmony”, which is the same with some of the e-commerce livestreaming consumer concept. e-commerce livestreaming, meanwhile, reflects people's desire to alleviate the pressure of life through consumption because of the survival pressure of contemporary Chinese.