A micro analysis of digital discourse, this proposal addresses trolling situations in the context of online video game live streaming sessions. Our paper studies the activities of people who experience live streaming trolling and offers a description of the strategies and skills deployed to deal with it. We refer to a pragmatist sociology, aware of the way in which different categories of participants can experience video games, the latter being understood in this perspective as "practical accomplishments" (Reeves, Greiffenhagen & Laurier 2017). Using ethnomethodological and conversation analysis (EMCA) methods, we consider live streaming video game sessions as texts that can be analyzed with digital discourse approaches. First, we describe sequences of two Swiss streamers broadcasting their game sessions on Twitch, confronted with trolling situations crystallized around gender and ethnicity issues. The first streamer stopped her activity following repeated harassment. The second considered stopping his broadcasts following regular racist attacks, but finally maintained his activity. We then analyze the reactions of these streamers and describe the "situational properties" (Goffman 1963) of video game live streaming, so as to emphasize that the audience interaction participates and contributes to the unfolding of such live streams (Perret 2021). We also discuss the "relational skills" (Jammet 2019) deployed by streamers that try either to cool participants who use trolling techniques or to socially degrade them, assuming that playing a game and trolling during it are "practical accomplishments" that fully contributes to the accountability of the interaction.
References:
Goffman, E. 1963. Behavior in Public Places: Notes on Social Organizations of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press.
Jammet, T. 2019. Calmer le râleur. Contribution à l'étude de la relation client sur le Web 2.0. Terrains & travaux 34, 137‑61.
Perret, M. 2021. Expériences d'un problème public: de l'interdiction des jeux vidéo violents à la réglementation des contenus. Social sciences Thesis. Lausanne: University of Lausanne.
Reeves, S., Greiffenhagen, C., & Laurier, E. 2017. Video Gaming as Practical Accomplishment: Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, and Play, Topics in Cognitive Science 9(2), 308‑42.
