From Stream to Support : Parasocial and Social Identity Processes Behind Fan Loyalty

Sammanfattning

The growing popularity of esports and livestreaming has created a distinct fan environment where the boundaries between competitive athlete and content creator are increasingly unclear, raising important questions about how fan loyalty is formed and maintained. This study explores how esports fans describe their loyalty toward individual players and teams, and examines the roles of Parasocial Relationships (PSRs) and Social Identity Theory (SIT) in shaping these preferences within livestreaming contexts. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 19 esports viewers across seven European countries, the study employs an interpretivist, abductive thematic analysis guided by PSR and SIT as complementary frameworks. Fan loyalty emerges as predominantly player-centered, driven by the emotional intimacy, perceived authenticity, and interaction opportunities that livestreaming offers. Team-based loyalty appears as a minority orientation that, when present, shows the durability and identity-protective qualities SIT predicts. SIT's strongest contribution lies in the community dimension, where fan groups reinforce both player- and team-directed loyalty through shared belonging. An emergent fragility theme reveals that parasocial bonds are actively evaluated against authenticity and moral alignment, with loyalty withdrawn when these conditions are violated. The findings propose a dual-mechanism framework in which PSR and SIT operate simultaneously, offering a more complete account of fan loyalty than either theory provides alone.