Live Streaming

Overview

Video or audio content that is recorded and directly uploaded to the internet is known as “live streaming,” and is sometimes referred to only as “streaming.” Because live streaming allows for an uncut presentation, it is viewed as an authentic and immediate way to present news, information, and cultural productions. The ability to produce live stream recordings has been enhanced by the proliferation of affordable audio recording equipment, along with the availability of smartphones, computers, and tablets that are able to both record and stream. Live stream recordings also occur in professional settings, including the use of security cameras and body cameras worn by police officers.

A variety of social media platforms, such as Facebook Live and Periscope, have been developed to support live streaming. These platforms are widely used for a range of purposes, ranging from grandparents digitally attending a child’s birthday party to speakers at political events. These technologies are popular and nearly universal because they are inexpensive, easy to use, and generate immediate viewer feedback through shares and commentary. They also allow videos to be shared quickly, often moving across social media platforms. While some platforms such as Facebook Live keep copies of videos for later use, others are ephemeral. For example, Snapchat allows for live-streamed videos that will be deleted within a few days or months depending on the settings assigned by the user. In 2023, an estimated 27 percent of internet users watched a livestream at least once a week. Worldwide, the business had grown to $1.49 billion in 2023 and was predicted to reach $3.2 billion by 2027.

Periscope, which is owned by Twitter, (a company known as X since 2023) allows individuals to produce a live stream, during which audience members can ask questions, make comments, or otherwise participate. There are many applications for live-streamed media. These include the use of live-streamed surgeries for anatomy students who want to understand the practice of dissection and the role that it plays in a surgery. In a study by Shiozawa, Butz, Herlan, Kramer and Hirt (2017), two groups of students were assigned to attend a lecture, with one group further assigned to watch the live stream of a surgery. The researchers found that those students who engaged in the live stream had much better recall of the clinical anatomy lesson than those who only attended the lecture. These live stream, interactive surgeries allow students to understand the details of surgery, without crowding an operating room. This type of educational tool could allow students from around the world to witness and ask questions about rare and complicated procedures.

Live-streamed media has had a radical impact on local and national politics. Some scholars trace live streaming’s impacts on the Occupy Wall Street Movement (Penney & Dadas, 2014). They argue that live streaming’s impacts can be measured and understood in the ways that social movements, particularly student social media, have been organized through this form of media (Thorburn, 2014). Others argue that the first international event to be live streamed was the 2016 attempted military coup in Turkey. During this event, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan took to Facebook Live and called Turkish citizens to resist the coup. This maneuver encouraged even more live streaming throughout Turkey. Yanardagoglu (2017) dubbed it a networked coup experience. In this report, Yanardagoglu recounts how the coup may have failed because it did not block internet access, despite its attempt to shut down both private and public television service. For example, after CNN Türk was taken off the air, reporters continued to live stream content across Facebook, reaching an estimated 8.5 million people. President Erdogan also utilized live streaming media on his smartphone to call protesters to the streets.

In the United States, Diamond Reynold’s live streaming of Philando Castile’s death in 2016 had significant implications for discussions of racial profiling, the Black Lives Matter movement, and questions of ethics regarding police training and behavior. This live stream did not show Castile’s shooting, nor did it show the altercation between Castile and the police officer who shot him. Castile’s lawyer would later assert that Castile had informed the police officer that he had a firearm and was reaching for his permit to show to the police officer. The officer alleged that Castile was reaching for his gun. The Facebook video has been used in many ways. First, the live streaming of the event called attention to Castile’s death, and put pressure on the police department to immediately respond and defend its actions. It was later shown at the court hearing of Officer Jeronimo Yanez, who was charged with manslaughter for shooting Castile. Officer Yanez was later acquitted by a deadlocked jury. Added to the dash cam video and testimony from Officer Yanez, the Facebook Live video provided a view of Castile’s death from a different perspective, enabling prosecutors and jurors to examine Castile’s death from multiple angles. While this did not prevent Castile’s death, it did produce a more complex understanding of the roles of race, class, and policing at play in this shooting (Tibbs, 2016).

Further Insights

Video game players make up one of the largest live stream demographics, who use platforms such as Twitch.tv to watch individuals and teams participate in online gaming events. In 2022, Twitch had 9.2 million active streamers per month. There were also an estimated 161 million viewers of Twitch. The events sponsored and broadcast through Twitch are so popular that there are now professional streamers who make a living off of subscriptions from their audience members, who pay in advance to watch games streamed on Twitch. Twitch has garnered international attention for its ability to promote game play and communities that support game playing, and has carved out a large place in video game culture. For example, Johnson (2018) has examined the ways that broadcasters on Twitch are able to enter conversation about emotional, physical, and mental health issues. Johnson found that for some users, Twitch can serve as an “emancipatory space,” or a location in which they are freely able to present themselves in the best possible light and are able to display skills and successes that might not be as respected or understood by individuals who do not play games or watch Twitch. In these ways, Twitch has made a significant impact on communicative practices and emergent communities.

Burroughs and Rama (2015) have argued that Twitch is of special interest because it blurs the lines between real and virtual worlds. Through the use of gaming and discussion platforms, Twitch allows users to forge international networks and communicate about a wide variety of topics. Unfortunately, Twitch also allows for users to engage in criminal activities. One malicious activity that has been live streamed over Twitch is known as “swatting.” In this hoax, an anonymous call is sent to emergency responders, often the police, reporting a bomb threat, kidnapping, or other violent crime. During this report, the name and address of an individual known to be playing a game on Twitch is given to the police. The police frequently then organize a battalion of police officers, fire department officers, and emergency responders. Together they arrive at the Twitch user’s house, frequently ready to encounter a violent event. The Twitch player is often unaware that anything is happening until their house is raided. The entire event is often live streamed along with the game that the Twitch user was originally broadcasting, so that the hoaxers are able to view the entire swatting event.

Swatting is a criminal offence—making a false report to emergency services—and the hoaxers face fines and potential prison sentences, if they are ever caught. There have been attempts to reclassify this type of crime as a terrorist event. Wachhaus (2018) argues that reclassifying swatting is necessary, because current laws offer little guidance for how law enforcement should respond to and prosecute these events. However, Wachhaus further notes that, although police departments have so far been unable to effectively respond and punish those that arrange swatting events, internet-based networks, such as groups of Twitch fans, may be able to make a change in this type of behavior. This is because there are often signs that someone might be swatted, evidenced through bullying, taunting, and sometimes threats made over a live stream.

Issues

While many events can be live streamed, there are debates about the ethical limitations of live-streamed media and what social media platforms should do when those limitations are exceeded. Rapes, suicides, kidnappings, mass shootings, human rights violations, and other violent crimes have all been live streamed. Some were live streamed by the victims, making it possible for rescuers to find them or later prosecute their assailants. Others, however, have ended in deaths, which were live streamed to a sometimes unsuspecting audience. For some viewers, witnessing these deaths and crimes has proved to be a motivating force to engage in activism, citizen journalism, and other tactics in an attempt to prevent future crimes from being committed (Gregory, 2015).

To analyze the ways that seeing these deaths effects viewers, Stratton (2018) examined the ways that mass murder, suicide, or beheadings by terrorist groups have been displayed, often through live stream, on social media. For example, in 2017, a mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, was live streamed during a Madden NFL 19 tournament. Viewers of the game on Twitch were able to watch the event unfold live and could hear gunshots even when they were being fired off screen. In 2022, the mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket was live streamed by the shooter on Twitch, but the company shut it down several minutes into the massacre. Experts contend that some viewers have come to expect that they will see violent deaths on media such as live streams, and those viewers give special meaning to the violence and resulting death, which they are able to view across social media platforms.

Additional questions have been raised regarding the use of live streaming devices by police officers and security guards. These body cameras are designed to record encounters between police officers and the public, thereby deterring unethical behavior and storing evidence where police actions are challenged. The footage captured by body cameras is not streamed directly for public consumption, but it is on occasion streamed back to a supervisor.

The question for ethicists and policy makers regarding body cameras and live streaming is the point at which such resources qualify as a search. Citizens expect to have protection from unwarranted searches, but some police offices have experimented with the use of facial recognition on body cameras. They argue that in a tense event, where the cameras are working and are streaming information back to a commander or office, the ability to identify members of a crowd, for example, could be very useful. Blount (2017) has examined the various ethical, constitutional, and practical concerns regarding this use of facial recognition during live streaming. Many different organizations are also working to determine how they can best support both the public and law enforcement, in an attempt to assure transparent policing while also maintaining citizen’s constitutional rights.

The many types of media, and the types of messages that they convey via live stream, makes it difficult for law makers to regulate what can and cannot be live streamed. However, as Twitch has shown, it is necessary to hold live streamers and their audiences accountable for their actions. Much of the work being done by live streamers is for the greater social good, and those live streams that are nefarious may end up providing legal evidence that can eventually bring justice where a crime is committed.

Bibliography

Blount, K. (2017). Body worn cameras with facial recognition technology: When it constitutes a search. Criminal Law Practitioner, 3, 61.

Burroughs, B., & Rama, P. (2015). The esports Trojan horse: Twitch and streaming futures. Journal for Virtual Worlds Research, 8(2).

Dinsdale, R. (2022, June 27). Streaming Ibai obliterates Twitch record for highest concurrent viewers. IGN, https://www.ign.com/articles/streamer-ibai-twitch-record-highest-concurrent-viewers

48 Live Streaming Stats You Should Know in 2024. (2023, December 12). Restream. restream.io/blog/live-streaming-statistics/.

Gregory, S. (2015). Ubiquitous witnesses: Who creates the evidence and the live(d) experience of human rights violations? Information, Communication & Society, 18(11), 1378–1392. Retrieved January 1, 2019 from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=109539518&site=ehost-live

Johnson, M. R. (2018). Inclusion and exclusion in the digital economy: Disability and mental health as a live streamer on Twitch.tv. Information, Communication & Society, 1–15.

Penney, J., & Dadas, C. (2014). (Re)Tweeting in the service of protest: Digital composition and circulation in the Occupy Wall Street movement. New Media & Society, 16(1), 74–90. Retrieved December 23, 2018 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=asn&AN=93923490&site=ehost-live

Shiozawa, T., Butz, B., Herlan, S., Kramer, A., & Hirt, B. (2017). Interactive anatomical and surgical live stream lectures improve students’ academic performance in applied clinical anatomy. Anatomical Sciences Education, 10(1), 46–52.

Thorburn, E. D. (2014). Social media, subjectivity, and surveillance: Moving on from occupy, the rise of live streaming video. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 11(1), 52–63.

Tibbs, D. F. (2016). Racial profiling in the era of black de-constitutionalism. Washington & Lee Journal of Civic Rights & Social Justice, 23, 181.

Wachhaus, T. A. (2018). Network governance as a mechanism for responding to internet violence. International Journal of Public Administration, 41(11), 888–898. Retrieved January 1, 2019 from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=130626685&site=ehost-live

Yanardagoglu, E. (2017). The media and the failed coup in Turkey: Televised, Tweeted and FaceTimed, yet so twentieth century. Global Media and Communication, 13(2), 195–199.