“A Really Good Network of People”: Knowledge Sharing and Community Amongst Twitch Live Streamers

This paper examines the media production culture on live streaming site Twitch, where creative workers—the live streamers—are not employed by the platform. Drawing on data from interviews with successful live streamers, we outline how these broadcasters exchange and share knowledge with each other through both informal and formal channels, and the significant cultural importance assigned to being willing to support other streamers. We show that supporting others is not just an expected cultural practice but also something beneficial to the streamers offering the advice, and thus furthers both ethical and self-interested goals. By analyzing these dynamics, we shed light on a novel online culture of content creation, and in doing so contribute to scholarship on Twitch and live streaming specifically, and to our understanding of production cultures and practices surrounding digital media more broadly.