The Construction of Virtual Intimacy: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis on the Interactive Mechanism in Virtual Livestreaming

Abstract

The emerging phenomenon of virtual livestreaming has garnered academic attention. However, there remains limited multimodal analysis addressing its interactive mechanisms. Grounded in the interpersonal metafunction of systemic functional linguistics and the interactive meaning framework of visual grammar, the present study employs a corpus-based approach to investigate how virtual streamers on YouTube construct a sense of virtual intimacy through verbal, visual, and their integrated multimodal resources. Results show that: (1) verbally, virtual streamers primarily use declarative sentences, medium-value modality, and probability to demonstrate a highly formulaic pattern of emotional expression; (2) visually, they foster an immersive, face-to-face-like interactive atmosphere through frontal, eye-level close-up shots combined with frequent level demands and smiles; (3) correlation analysis reveals a positive correlation between the offer contact and declarative sentence, also between level demand and low-value modality, but a negative correlation is found between smiles and declarative sentences, downward demands and interrogative sentences; (4) the multimodal coordination enables virtual streamers to effectively transform emotional interactions into sustained consumption engagement with virtual symbols. This study offers a novel perspective for research on the virtual streaming industry and digital consumption culture.