Covid-19 and the mediatization of the funeral industry in Australia and Denmark

This article focuses on the mediatization of funeral practices and customer relations in a business with human care and contact at its centre: the funeral industry. We analyse the impact of Covid-19 on the use of digital media in a comparative study of the deathcare sector in Australia and Denmark. Using surveys within the national funeral industries, qualitative interviews with funeral directors, and news media archives for 2020-2021, we identify four areas of mediatization: adaptations of specific technologies;interactions with the bereaved;transformations of funeral rites;and communications beyond the funeral service. In conclusion, we suggest that the mediatization process is a negotiation of, on the one hand, the need and growing demand for digital media into a traditions-bound business, and on the other hand, the funeral directors' wish to care for the bereaved families through tactile, in-person relationships and emotional support. © 2023 The Author(s).

How can hesitation in hotel live-streaming payment be overcome?: Examine the role of entrepreneurial performance and viewers' personality traits

After the outbreak of COVID-19, E-commerce lives streaming (ELS) has become popular as a marketing tool to reduce spatial restrictions and control the spread. However, there are concerns about the hesitance to pay after purchasing through ELS. This study examined the psychological factors from a consumer's perspective on reluctance to pay at the end of a hotel reservation through ELS. The conceptual framework of the study integrates the concepts of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework in conjunction with the Five-Factor Model (Big Five). Data were collected from 401 online questionnaires collected by users with no more than three months of ELS experience and causal relationships were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. The study found that promotion (PROM), Content Quality (CTQ) and Content Valence (CTV) played a crucial role in driving viewer interest in booking through hotel live-streaming (HLS). Viewers with the Extraversion personality type (EXT) show interest in booking accommodations through the hotel e-commerce live streaming platform. Financial and privacy concerns influence the assessment of payment options. In addition, finances and dissatisfaction are essential factors that encourage viewers to hesitate to pay after booking. This study is crucial for applying ELS in the tourism and hospitality industry to create new travel experiences post-COVID-19.

Entrepreneurial efforts and opportunity costs: evidence from twitch streamers

With the rise of digital platforms, individuals' possibilities to generate income have increased drastically. In this context, we present digital content creation as a form of (digital) entrepreneurship that is characterized by potentially high but also uncertain revenues. As the cost structure of content creation mostly depends on opportunity costs, it stands in contrast to other popular platform-work options. We demonstrate how a stark and unexpected reduction in opportunity costs affects the actual decision to produce digital content. Exploiting the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we measure how individuals (streamers) who operate on a live streaming platform, respond to a sudden change in external factors while accounting for individual differences in initial conditions. We observe intensified efforts across the spectrum of streamers and find particularly strong reactions from newcomer streamers. We further show that only the most successful newcomers sustain their increased efforts even when opportunity costs start to rise again. Our results are consistent with the initial assumption that an individual's decision on taking up or intensifying entrepreneurial efforts on digital platforms is strongly affected by their opportunity costs. The results further imply that there is a large potential in individuals who might be willing to become entrepreneurs but are restricted by external conditions. As platform-based digital entrepreneurship offers high flexibility and very low entry barriers, measures for lowering opportunity costs could therefore help to unleash this potential. To maintain a steady influx of new talents, content platforms should increase their support for smaller creators and policymakers should provide easily accessible platforms to ease the way into entrepreneurship for these individuals. © 2023, The Author(s).

Enhancing Sales of Green Agricultural Products through Live Streaming in China: What Affects Purchase Intention?

Live streaming of agricultural products can reduce farmer losses caused by unsalable agricultural products and increase the income of farmers. Live streaming can be especially effective for green product sales as it can increase viewer understanding of and interest in the production and attributes of green products. Using the stimulus, organization, and response theoretical framework, this paper explores the influence of agricultural products anchors' characteristics on consumers' purchasing behavior and the mediating effect of green consumption cognition. The data come from surveys distributed online to Chinese shoppers who had participated in an agricultural livestreaming event. A total of 691 valid responses were received. Anchor characteristics of influence, sales promotion, and interactive entertainment were found to positively impact consumers' purchasing behavior. Green consumption cognition, composed of environmental problem perception and green consumption awareness, has a positive impact on purchasing intent. Furthermore, anchor characteristics of influence and sales promotion can positively influence consumers' purchasing behavior indirectly through green consumption cognition.

The Study on People's Live-Streaming Consumption of Fresh Products and Its Influencing Factors-A Data Model Analysis in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic

Against the backdrop of the rapid development of e-commerce and the severe blow to fresh food e-commerce shopping caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, this paper discusses consumers' perceptions of fresh food in the e-commerce live streaming mode using data mining in conjunction with a literature review and a questionnaire survey before presenting research findings that analyze influencing factors and product purchase behaviours. The total consumption and frequency of live-streaming consumption(FLSC) are closely examined in consumer behaviours. We investigate product's cost-performance cognitions(PCC), influencers cognitions(IC), logistics cognitions(LC),discounts cognitions(DC), live-streaming platforms cognitions(LPC), on-line interaction cognitions (OIC), live-streaming disadvantage cognitions(LDC), and impulsive consumption cognitions(ICC) as influencing factors. According to the data model fitting results, merchants can refer to research suggestions and optimize their marketing strategies, improve the problems in the fresh food live streaming marketing strategy, and improve consumer satisfaction, thereby promoting the development of fresh food e-commerce. © 2022 IEEE.

The viewer value co-creation process on sports live streaming platforms

PurposeThe Sports Live Streaming Platforms (SLSPs) have taken centre stage in broadcasting sporting events. This study adopts the value creation sphere (VCS) model and the service dominant logic (SDL) to unpack the value co-creation process on SLSPs.Design/methodology/approachA case study with one of the most representative SLSPs in China, involving the netnographic approach and in-depth interviews, was conducted.FindingsThis study redefines the value co-creation spheres in the context of SLSPs and identifies four actors who contribute to viewers' value perceptions. The findings show that viewers' values can be co-created individually and collectively with other actors in both the customer sphere and the joint sphere.Originality/valueThis study extends the theoretical boundary of value co-creation into the context of SLSPs. The study findings help SLSPs managers and decision makers understand the value co-creation process to gain competitive advantages and enhance the sustainability of their services.

Online interactive face-to-face learning in mathematics in engineering education

Online teaching has come to play an increasingly important role in higher education, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Being unable to be on campus with face-to-face teaching can be challenging. This article provides a possible option of how first-year engineering students at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) adapt to mastering higher mathematics. The purpose of the research is to see whether a more ‘face to face' experienced online teaching technological method will have a positive impact on student engagement, as well as exam performance. We refer to this new method as ‘TeachUs' in this paper for the sake of convenience. This method gives eye contact experience for the students, which has been shown to improve engagement. The surveys of the student groups confirmed the preference of this teaching method as compared to conventional screen sharing methods.

Telepresence for surgical assistance and training using eXtended reality during and after pandemic periods.

Existing challenges in surgical education (See one, do one, teach one) as well as the COVID-19 pandemic make it necessary to develop new ways for surgical training. Therefore, this work describes the implementation of a scalable remote solution called "TeleSTAR" using immersive, interactive and augmented reality elements which enhances surgical training in the operating room. The system uses a full digital surgical microscope in the context of Ear-Nose-Throat surgery. The microscope is equipped with a modular software augmented reality interface consisting an interactive annotation mode to mark anatomical landmarks using a touch device, an experimental intraoperative image-based stereo-spectral algorithm unit to measure anatomical details and highlight tissue characteristics. The new educational tool was evaluated and tested during the broadcast of three live XR-based three-dimensional cochlear implant surgeries. The system was able to scale to five different remote locations in parallel with low latency and offering a separate two-dimensional YouTube stream with a higher latency. In total more than 150 persons were trained including healthcare professionals, biomedical engineers and medical students.

Why ethnic minority groups' online-startups are booming in China's tight cultural ecosystem?

PurposeAlthough most Chinese ethnic minority groups (EMGs) hold conservative thinking to online-startups, the new entrepreneurial model is booming on live streaming platforms. In China's tight cultural ecosystem, the tight cultural control would lead EMG entrepreneurs to keep conservative thinking and avoid challenging careers. Still, it would be helpful for Chinese Governments to issue systematical entrepreneurial policies and improve online-startup environment for EMGs. To discover the relationships among influencing factors and EMGs' online-startup motivation, this paper aims to draw on the tight and loose cultural theory and the capability-opportunity-motivation-behaviour (COM-B) behaviour changing theory and establishes the research model based on China's tight cultural ecosystem.Design/methodology/approachThrough analysing 617 questionnaires from 37 EMGs based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling method, the study proves that environmental opportunity factors and personal capability factors have positive impacts on EMGs' online-startup motivation and EMGs' conservative thinking negatively moderates the relationship between their online-startup motivation and entrepreneurial development behaviour. In addition to testing the hypotheses, the paper also measures the importance-performance map analysis to explore additional findings of influencing factors and provide suitable suggestions for EMG entrepreneurs and related departments.FindingsRegarding the environmental opportunity unit, both policy support and platform support significantly impact Chinese EMGs' motivation to promote online-startups. For the personal capability unit, a platform using skills positively influences Chinese EMGs to develop online-startups. Meanwhile, EMG cultural knowledge is also necessary for EMG entrepreneurs because abundant cultural resources can be applied to live content and attract online consumers' watching interests. Furthermore, influenced by the tight cultural control, Chinese EMGs tend to hold conservative thinking to new careers and it negatively moderates the relationship between Chinese EMGs' online-startup motivation and their final entrepreneurial behaviours. Finally, Chinese EMGs' online-startup motivation positively affects them to develop online-startups on live streaming platforms.Originality/valueThis study uses the tight and loose cultural theory to analyse the Chinese entrepreneurial environment and discover influencing factors based on the tight cultural ecosystem. Meanwhile, based on the COM-B behaviour changing theory, this paper divides influencing factors into three different units, including the environmental opportunity unit, the personal capability unit and the Tight cultural control unit. Considering the inter-relationships among these units, the research model is established based on the tight cultural ecosystem to discover Chinese EMGs' online-startup motivation.

Multi-view Layout Design for VR Concert Experience

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, concerts are gradually being held online. Beyond live-streaming, it has recently become popular to utilize various realistic video technologies to add entertainment value and immersion to online concerts. We conducted a multi-view layout design study in a virtual reality environment with a head-mounted display to help users effectively explore and immerse themselves in multiple videos from various angles. Based on an analysis of an existing user interface for multi-view navigation and the characteristics of virtual reality, we proposed four layouts, i.e., 1) an evenly divided space, 2) an evenly divided designated space, 3) a widget type, and 4) an avatar type. We implemented a prototype by applying Korean pop concerts, where multi-view videos are the most actively utilized, and then conducted a user study to evaluate the usability and preferences of the proposed layouts. The results show that it is adequate to arrange the multi-view videos within a 60° to 110° space and on the left and right side of the main view, which is a range that the users can comfortably access. In addition, when placing multiple videos in a designated space, it is helpful to use visual effects or simple avatars to avoid visual burden being placed on the users. © 2022 ACM.

Live-Streamed Faith: Diffusion of Live Streaming in the Protestant Church

The coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home advisories issued by many states encouraged many houses of worship to begin live streaming or to improve existing capabilities. Even as restrictions on gathering loosened, many people continued to avoid large gatherings out of an abundance of caution, causing many religious institutions to have split congregations: part in person and part virtual. This study examined the motivations and decisions made by U.S.-based Protestant churches of various sizes regarding starting, improving, and continuing live streaming in the face of sudden changes in their ability to reach their congregations. The diffusion of innovations theory was used as a framework to understand how live streaming spread through the Protestant church and how the crisis of the pandemic accelerated that diffusion. © 2023 Brill. All rights reserved.

Influencing factors of livestream selling of fresh food based on a push-pull model: A two-stage approach combining structural equation modeling (SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN)

• A New Framework Based on Push-Pull Theory and People-Goods-Scene Perspective. • Using SEM-ANN two-stage method for live broadcast merchandise sales forecast. • Views have the most significant impact on live broadcast sales. • Average dwell time has no significant impact on page views and live streaming sales. • Clean label has a significant impact on live streaming sales. Under the COVID-19, fresh food e-commerce has acquired new sales channels through live shopping, and the use of live broadcasts has become a hot spot in management and practice. However, there is little empirical evidence of the influence of live streaming on sales. This study combines the perspective of People-Goods-Scene and the push-pull theory, and proposes a two-stage method for forecasting sales volumes using structural equation models and artificial neural networks. It was found that the number of page views was the strongest predictor of live broadcast sales, while the numbers of interactive comments, live broadcasts with goods, and videos with goods, together with clean labels were weakly predictive. A comprehensive neural network model showed an accuracy of 83.76% in the prediction of live broadcast sales. These research results provide a theoretical basis for the prediction of fresh food shopping behavior in live-broadcast e-commerce from the perspectives of the consumers and the goods yard and provide ideas for the design of live broadcast content and optimization of user experience. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Live streaming in pandemic times: informational practices performed by Information Science professionals

Introduction: The study analyzes the live transmission carried out by members of the Information Science community during a covid-19 pandemic, assuming it theoretically as an informational practice that aims to disseminate information on the web. Method: it adopts an exploratory-descriptive, mixed (qualitative-quantitative) approach, with an unstructured observation procedure on the web and content analysis referring to 74 live streaming made by two Instagram profiles. The description allows us to confirm the purposes of the informational practice proposed by the selected Instagram profiles. Results: It infers that the themes address professional and academic issues so that 11 thematic categories emerged. It identifies an expansion of audiences and geographical dispersion regarding the origin of the participants. Conclusions: The live streaming's characterization and the guests for the presentation of the content demonstrate that the informational practices are based on the concept of dissemination of information, which can be identified from the proposed categories. The discussions also point out the need for further analysis in Information Science to expand the interpretations of the investigated object. © 2020 Valerim & Souza.

Creation and Promotion of Happiness in New Oriental Live Store Studio

As the world's second largest economy, by the end of 2020, China had fully solved the problem of food and clothing, and the Chinese people are working hard to improve their happiness level. Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, e-commerce live streaming services represented by Douyin have provided people with various conveniences. People can meet their needs for communication and shopping without leaving their homes. This paper takes the New Oriental live store studio, which is set up on the Douyin e-commerce platform, as the research object. Starting from the basic elements of e-commerce live broadcast, through the typical cases and data in the two and a half months after June 9, 2022, this paper analyzes the sense of happiness built by the content marketing model of the live broadcast room, as well as the wider spread of happiness brought by user interaction and feedback. © 2022 IEEE.

Understanding donation intention in live-streaming from dedication and constraint perspectives

The pervasiveness of live-streaming, especially in the period of Covid-19, has brought ample monetizing opportunities for content creators through viewers' donation. Given that donation is commonly driven by the gained benefits to the donors, voluntary donation in live-streaming is still unstable due to the lack of constraints. Drawing on the dedication-constraint framework, we examined how streamer-viewer interactions, motivational feedback and self-regulation deficiency affect viewers' donation intention in live-streaming. A survey was conducted among live-streaming users in Taiwan, and the collected data were analyzed by partial least squares. The findings show that the motivational feedback (dedication-based mechanism) has a stronger influence than self-regulation deficiency (constraint-based mechanism) in determining viewers' donation intention. Responsiveness is proven as the most important interaction-based antecedent of motivation feedback and self-regulation deficiency, beside personalization and entertainment. In sum, our empirical findings have significant implications for research and practice to deepen the understanding of donation, encourage viewers to donate and maintain the relationship with content creators in live-streaming communities. © 2022 International Consortium for Electronic Business. All rights reserved.

Evaluating the Use of Communication and Technology by High School Athletic Directors to Navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic

High school athletics represents a major segment of the sport industry and is regarded as an important component in youth development in the United States. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges emerged that forced athletic directors to provide essential information to key stakeholders, keep people safe, and identify new ways to bring events to fans. To further understand these experiences, this commentary aimed to evaluate the use of communication and technology by high school athletic directors to address challenges, develop new strategies, adapt to day-to-day changes, and manage the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on interscholastic athletics. Through in-depth interviews with athletic directors, responses demonstrated how enhanced communication with key stakeholders (i.e., athletic programs and fellow athletic directors) and a reliance on technologies (i.e., digital ticketing and online live streaming) helped these leaders successfully navigate the pandemic and develop new strategies that will persist into the future. © 2022 Human Kinetics, Inc.

Towards QoE Management for Post-Pandemic Online Learning : Invited Paper

During the Covid-19 pandemic, most schools had to adopt online learning, which is a special kind of e-learning that provides a virtual classroom via a live session for both teachers and learners. However, studies on education in the Covid-19 pandemic shows that there should be more efforts from researchers as well as governments to effectively support learners. In this paper, we focus on the problem of Quality of Experience in online learning. We discuss the enabling technologies of online learning. Also, we make an extensive review of QoE in video streaming, the key enabling technology of online leaning. Finally, the key challenges and potential solutions of QoE management for future online learning will be discussed. © 2022 IEEE.

What and how driving consumer engagement and purchase intention in officer live streaming? A two-factor theory perspective

To reduce the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, local government officers conducted live streaming to sell and endorse local products. Understanding factors and mechanisms affecting consumer engagement and purchase intention in officer live streaming have a profound effect on local economic recovery and rural revitalization. By integrating the two-factor theory, source credibility model, and Stimuli-Organism-Response (S–O–R) framework, the authors conduct an online survey to investigate how characteristics of officer live streaming drive consumer engagement and purchase intention. The results show that: (1) Motivation factors of officer live streaming include officer streamer physical attractiveness, interaction friendliness, altruism, expertise, product price attractiveness, and product local uniqueness;hygiene factors include product authenticity, officer streamer trustworthiness, and government credibility;(2) Utilitarian benefit, hedonic benefit and risk perception mediate the effects of motivation factors and hygiene factors on consumer engagement and purchase intention;(3) Power distance belief and consumer region (local-shoppers vs out-shoppers) moderate these effects. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Telepresence Video Quality Assessment

Video conferencing, which includes both video and audio content, has contributed to dramatic increases in Internet traffic, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of people to work and learn from home. Global Internet traffic of video conferencing has dramatically increased Because of this, efficient and accurate video quality tools are needed to monitor and perceptually optimize telepresence traffic streamed via Zoom, Webex, Meet, etc. However, existing models are limited in their prediction capabilities on multi-modal, live streaming telepresence content. Here we address the significant challenges of Telepresence Video Quality Assessment (TVQA) in several ways. First, we mitigated the dearth of subjectively labeled data by collecting ∼ 2k telepresence videos from different countries, on which we crowdsourced ∼ 80k subjective quality labels. Using this new resource, we created a first-of-a-kind online video quality prediction framework for live streaming, using a multi-modal learning framework with separate pathways to compute visual and audio quality predictions. Our all-in-one model is able to provide accurate quality predictions at the patch, frame, clip, and audiovisual levels. Our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on both existing quality databases and our new TVQA database, at a considerably lower computational expense, making it an attractive solution for mobile and embedded systems. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Purchase Intention in Agricultural Products Live-Streaming Commerce: A S-O-R Model

Agricultural products live-streaming commerce (APLC), a new form of e-commerce with unique features sinking to villages and towns, has significantly promoted the sales of agricultural products in China during COVID-19. However, limited research has explored how the unique and common live-streaming commerce features affect customer behavior in APLC. Drawing on stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study develops a research framework to examine how the stimuli (practicality, interactivity, preferential, and commonweal) affect consumers’ purchase intention through the mediation of organism factors (perceived trust and perceived value) in ALPC context. 216 valid samples were collected via an online survey. SmartPLS3.0 was used to verify the research model and hypotheses. Findings indicate: perceived trust and perceived value positively affect purchase intention;practicality, interactivity, preferential, and commonweal are positively associated with perceived value;practicality and commonweal positively influence perceived trust;interactivity has no significant effect on perceived trust. Potential theoretical and practical contributions are discussed. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.