The Impact of Network Social Presence on  The Live Streaming Viewer ’ S Social Support Willingness —— an Analysis of Mediating Effect Based on Moderation

With the accelerating process of social network and the popularization of personal intelligent communication devices, live streaming provides flow experiences in time and space for the Chinese people, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Live streaming has enabled the real-time communication and interaction between viewer and live host, and has created a range of live hosts and new forms of business models due to the affordance of virtual currency and gift reward mechanism of the live streaming platform. Based on a questionnaire survey of 515 live viewers, this study examines the impact of the viewer’s network social presence on social support willingness, and also analyzes the role of para-social interaction and emotional response. The study reveals that network social presence has a direct positive impact on emotional, instrumental and economic support willingness. Meanwhile, para-social interaction plays a mediating role in the impact of network social presence on emotional, instrumental and economic support willingness. In addition, the higher the degree of emotional response, the stronger the mediating effect of para-social interaction on the relationship between network social presence and instrumental support willingness. Findings shed light on the deep understanding of the potential intermediate mechanism and boundary conditions of the influence of network social presence on the social support willingness of viewers, which offer new insights on promoting the relationship performance management of live broadcast platform.