Behind the Scenes: Exploring Context and Audience Engagement Behaviors in YouTube Vlogs

Famous video bloggers (vloggers) on YouTube can develop large audiences, which can be related to the gaining of audience engagement (AE), manifested by the viewers’ participation and consumption on YouTube. Studies have unveiled vloggers’ behaviors for engaging audiences, or audience engagement behaviors (AEBs), in their videos, including interacting with viewers via comments, disclosing self-information, giving rewards, and offering other information. Meanwhile, video blogs (vlogs) are produced under “vlogging context” - situational elements involved in vlog production. Studies have shown the effect of context on the content of online media. However, while it can be argued that context can affect vlog content produced, the contextual factors that may shape vloggers’ AEBs within the content have not been explicitly explored. This research aims to propose contextual factors that can condition vloggers’ AEBs on YouTube. A qualitative case study on three popular vloggers was implemented. A thematic analysis was performed on sampled vloggers’ videos to identify contextual factors that can condition the three vloggers’ AEBs. The results propose that personal, environmental, and medium context are three main contextual factors that condition the three vloggers’ AEBs. This research argues that how vloggers’ AEBs are presented to the audience depends on their vlogging context. It expands the understanding of YouTube vloggers or similar streaming media creators’ practices for AE by considering the role of context.