Building a virtual community: online Mexican vendors, live-streaming, culture and emotions

In this article, I investigated the relationship between live-streaming on social media, culture, and emotions. To explore this relationship, I performed a longitudinal study for two and a half years in which I followed and conducted participant observation and netnographic analysis of two case studies of two small Mexican business owners who perform live-stream broadcasting on social media sites (such as Facebook and TikTok) to make and sell their products. The findings of this study suggest that Mexican media broadcasters shared cultural norms and behavioral expectations among audience members in a bidirectional manner. This also resulted in an exchange of personal stories and cultural practices, which included a range of emotions (positive and negative). These exchanges led to the development of emotional energy, which resulted in social solidarity and loyalty among the live-stream participants and in the creation of a strong virtual community. The strong virtual community built in turn also contributed to the success of the broadcaster.