Unlocking Advertising Potentials of Live-Streaming Platforms: Investigating the Impact of Telepresence and Flow on Advertising Avoidance on Twitch

Twitch provides a unique opportunity for exploring how users’ experiences on live-streaming platforms, characterized by immersive virtual environments full of sensory richness and real-time interactivity, intersect with their perceptions of intrusive ad interruption. Given the frequent exposure of Twitch users to in-stream video advertisements, this research aims to unlock the psychological mechanism of advertising acceptance on Twitch. Expanding the psychological reactance framework, the researchers have developed a comprehensive theoretical framework that examines the intricate interplay between users’ telepresence, flow experience, their reactance toward in-stream video ads, and the subsequent outcomes of such reactance (i.e., ad avoidance) within the context of live-broadcasts. The results of an online survey (N=297) show that having a high flow status on Twitch appears to intensify users’ reactance toward ad invasiveness and ad avoidance. Notably, anger emerges as a dominant cause for reactant users’ avoidance of advertising. This study’s key findings are discussed in-depth, along with theoretical and practical implications. Keywords: live streaming platforms, telepresence, flow, reactance, ad avoidance, Twitch