[ Article ]

Journal of Social Science - Vol. 33, No. 4, pp.163-183

ISSN: 1976-2984 (Print)

Print publication date 31 Oct 2022

Received 31 May 2022 Revised 15 Sep 2022 Accepted 15 Oct 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16881/jss.2022.10.33.4.163

Analysis of the Mediating Effect of Social Presence and Social Capital on the Relationship Between Social Viewing and the Enjoyment of TV Dramas

Yi Wang ; Yonghwan Kim^†

Department of Media and Communication, Dongguk University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

TV 드라마 사회적 시청과 시청 즐거움의 관계에서 사회적 현존감과 사회자본의 매개효과 분석

왕이 ; 김용환^†

동국대학교 미디어커뮤니케이션학과

Correspondence to: ^†Yonghwan Kim, Associate professor, Department of Media and Communication, Dongguk University, 30 Pildong-ro 1-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, 04520, Republic of Korea, E-mail : yhkim17@dongguk.edu Yi Wang, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Media and Communication, Dongguk University (First Author)

Abstract

This study examined the mediating effects of social presence and social capital on the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching television dramas. Specifically, we examined whether and how social viewing through a public platform (Weibo) and a private platform (WeChat) differently affect the enjoyment of watching dramas via social presence and social capital. The results of the study provided the following insights: First, social presence and social capital mediate the effects of social viewing on enjoyment when watching dramas. These effects were observed in two cases of social viewing using public and private platforms. The mediating effect of bonding social capital was absent in the case of a public platform, but was observed in the case of a private platform. Second, the mediating effect of social presence on the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of drama viewing was higher on the private platform (WeChat). Third, the mediating effect of bridging social capital on the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas was greater on the public platform (Weibo). Finally, the mediating effect of bonding social capital on the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of drama viewing was more significant on the private platform (WeChat).

초록

본 연구는 사회적 시청과 드라마 시청 즐거움 간의 관계에서 사회적 현존감과 사회자본의 매개효과를 검증하였다. 구체적으로, 개방형 플랫폼(Weibo)과 폐쇄형 플랫폼(WeChat)을 이용한 사회적 시청이 사회적 존재감과 사회자본을 통한 드라마 시청 즐거움에 다른 영향을 미치는지, 어떻게 영향을 미치는지 살펴보았다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 사회적 현존감과 사회자본은 사회적 시청이 드라마 시청 즐거움에 미치는 효과를 매개하는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 매개효과는 개방형과 폐쇄형 플랫폼을 이용한 사회적 시청 두 경우에서 다 나타났다. 결속적 사회자본의 매개효과는 개방형 플랫폼의 경우 존재하지 않았으나 폐쇄형 플랫폼의 경우 나타났다. 둘째, 사회적 시청과 드라마 시청 즐거움의 관계에서 사회적 현존감의 매개효과는 폐쇄형 플랫폼(Wechat)에서 더 크게 나타났다. 셋째, 사회적 시청과 드라마 시청 즐거움의 관계에서 교량적 사회자본의 매개효과는 개방형 플랫폼(Weibo)에서 더 크게 나타났다. 본 연구를 통해 사회적 시청의 효과 메커니즘에 대한 더 깊은 이해를 제공할 수 있다. 사회적 현존감을 비롯해 교량적 사회자본, 그리고 결속적 사회자본 등 다양한 메커니즘을 통해 사회적 시청의 효과가 나타날 수 있다는 것을 밝혔다. 더 나아가 이러한 메커니즘은 사회적 시청을 직접 이용하는 소셜미디어 플랫폼의 기술적 특성에 따라 다르게 작용할 수 있다는 점을 본 논문을 통해 제시했다.

Keywords:

Social watching, Enjoyment of watching dramas, Social presence, Social capital, Public platform, Private platform

키워드:

사회적 시청, 드라마 시청 즐거움, 사회적 현존감, 교량적 사회자본, 결속적 사회자본

1. Introduction

The concept of interacting with others online while watching TV content is known as social viewing (Han & Lee, 2014; Krämer et al., 2015). Social viewing breaks up the physical space and allows viewers to establish effective communication and discussions with others through social media. Through social viewing, people can connect with other viewers, see what others think, comment and talk about TV content in real time (Larsson & Moe, 2012). Social media allows TV viewers to inquire about the programs they are watching, express their views on the programs, and share their thoughts and opinions with others rather than just watching TV (Doughty et al., 2012).

Researchers have investigated what factors influence individuals’ social viewing behaviors such as motivations of social viewing and personality traits (Cohen & Lancaster, 2014; Kim et al., 2018; Krämer et al., 2015). Another line of research has focused on the consequences of social viewing such as the effects of social viewing of news or presidential TV debates on people’s political attitudes and behaviors (Choi, 2018).

While there is some research about how social viewing affects the satisfaction of watching TV programs (e.g., Cho & Choi, 2014), there is a lack of research on how social viewing affects enjoyment of watching TV dramas. TV dramas are important and unique cultural products in terms of economic and cultural values (McElroy & Noonan, 2019). Watching TV dramas not only meets people‘s entertainment needs, but also provides a window for people to understand the world. Considering that enjoyment is the most prominent reason to watch TV series (Lee, 2014), it is important to investigate the influence of social viewing in the context of TV dramas.

In addition, it is important to note that previous studies mainly focused on the direct effects of social viewing rather than exploring the mechanism for those effects. Even less is known about how the mechanism by which social viewing influences the enjoyment of watching TV dramas would differ depending on different social media platforms (e.g., open vs. closed social media).

This paper aims to fill this gap and explore the influence mechanism of social viewing on the enjoyment of watching TV drama by investigating the mediating role of social presence and social capital. Given the core nature of online interaction in the social viewing process, social presence seems to play a significant role in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas. Social presence is an important concept in the mediated communication environment given that it refers to the degree to which one perceives the presence of others in the communication (Biocca et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2016). Audiences can share their ideas on public or private platforms when they watch TV dramas (Krämer et al., 2015). On public platforms, information can be shared with an unknown audience, while private platforms are represented by instant messaging (Krämer et al., 2015). Social viewing on the various social media platforms is conducive to the formation of different types of social capital (i.e., bridging and bonding social capital), which might help people think more about the content what they’re watching (Lee & Choi, 2017) and thus actively promote the enjoyment of TV series watching.

In order to extend the current literature, which has mainly focused on the direct effects of social viewing in the contexts of news, politics, and general social viewing (Ceron & Splendore, 2018; Hahn et al., 2018; Nee, 2013), the purpose of this study to explore the mechanism by which social viewing influences the enjoyment of watching TV dramas by examining the mediating role of social presence and social capital. In other words, if a mediating effect exists, it means that active social viewing will enhance the sense of social presence as well as social capital, thereby increasing the enjoyment of watching TV dramas. Another purpose of this study is to explore whether and how the mediating mechanism by which social viewing affects the enjoyment of watching dramas via social presence and social capital differs depending on the characteristics of the social media platforms used for social viewing (i.e., public vs. private social media platforms). The results can help to better explain how social viewing influences the enjoyment of watching TV dramas in different media platforms as well as suggest possible promotion strategies for TV dramas on social media platforms.

For this purpose, this study surveyed Chinese people about their social viewing of TV dramas. Although using social media for social viewing is popular, there have been very few studies on social viewing in China. China is the largest market for Hallyu, represented by Korean dramas and movies (Shao, 2020). The findings of the current study on social viewing of TV dramas in China are expected to provide theoretical and practical implications for understanding the Chinese and global media market, such as what factors should be considered important in the process of entering the Chinese market.

2. Literature Review

1) Social Viewing and Enjoyment of TV Drama Watching

As Internet technology advances, information-sharing on the Internet becomes more convenient, Internet-based virtual communities spread, and new viewing methods emerge. “Social viewing,” by which traditional TV viewing and online social exchanges take place simultaneously, represents one of these new viewing methods (Kim et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2018; Raney & Ji, 2017).

Traditional TV viewing is difficult to connect with social exchanges. It is a personal activity with space and time constraints. However, with the recent development of social media platforms, viewers can consume TV content in a completely different way from traditional TV viewing. They can watch TV and socially interact with others at the same time, actively exchanging opinions, presenting critical ideas, or evaluating TV programs. This combination of television viewing and social media use is changing the way audiences share the viewing experience and expanding communication objects, rather than being limited to family members and people nearby, as has been the case in traditional TV viewing (Proulx & Shepatin, 2012).

Enjoyment is the most important motivation for watching dramas (Lee, 2014). Enjoyment is a pleasurable response to media use (Raney, 2003; Vorderer et al., 2004) that researchers define as a combination of emotion (Vorderer et al., 2004), attitude (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004), cognition and emotion (Raney & Bryant, 2002), and unspecified positive reactions to media content (Tamborini, 2003). Denham (2004) combines the use and satisfaction approach with social psychological theory, suggesting that “social norms and viewing situations [of a medium] are ultimately as central to enjoyment as content is” (p. 370).

When the viewers can express their opinions without reservation, enjoyment will likely reach its highest point (Denham, 2004). Social viewing provides a place for viewers to express their opinions. In addition, about the positive correlation between social viewing and enjoyment proof has also been a lot of scholars, some scholars prove when watching sports, through the use of social media twitter will greatly enhance the level of enjoyment (Smith et al., 2019) and also, Dolbin (2015) found that “second-screening” during the Super Bowl enhanced viewers’ enjoyment. The positive relationship between social viewing and viewing enjoyment has also been found for watching dramas. For example, Ji (2017) found that tweeting through the social media platform Twitter while watching a TV series inspired viewers to enjoy the viewing experience.

2) The Mediating Role of Social Presence

The concept of social presence was first introduced by Short et al. in 1976. As technology has developed, the concept has also expanded its scope. Social presence is often understood as a feeling of connectedness with other people who are physically far away (Biocca et al., 2003). This feeling is reflected on social media platforms, for example, messaging a person who is not in the same space can feel like being together. The reasons why individuals’ interactions with others using communication technologies affect the sense of social presence include both technical factors and usage factors. At the technical level, the characteristics of technologies that can overcome time and space and communicate quickly with others increase the subjective experience of being present with other people. One of the main goals of network communication systems is to provide a higher level of social presence (Biocca & Harms, 2002).

Furthermore, the communication environment can influence perceptions of social presence. For example, some research has demonstrated that there is a strong positive correlation between the friendliness of the interacting party and the sense of social presence (Verhagen et al., 2014). This suggests that people can feel close to each other as a friendly atmosphere can be created to talk about their favorite dramas together.

In addition, studies have also shown that when people actively participate in media activities, they tend to experience a strong social presence (Witmer & Singer, 1998), and social presence has been identified as an important factor in social viewing (Han & Lee, 2014; Kim et al., 2018). Therefore, actively initiating interactions with others about viewing programs through social media may also contribute to an enhanced sense of social presence given that viewers can use social media to immediately and actively talk to other viewers who are far away about what they are watching.

The impact of social presence on user psychology has been demonstrated. For example, social presence affects people’s viewing satisfaction and viewing enjoyment (Kim et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2018). Most importantly, the mediating role of social presence in the context of social viewing has been explored. For example, Kim et al. (2018) examined the mediating role of social presence in the context of social viewing and showed that social presence mediates the relationship between extraversion and social television enjoyment. Choi and Kwon (2015) found that social presence not only mediates the relationship between the frequency of social viewing usage and viewing satisfaction, but also mediates the relationship between social viewing network homogeneity and viewing satisfaction. Likewise, Lim et al. (2015) found that social presence mediates the effect of social viewing engagement on social TV experience. Taken together, social presence plays an important mediating role in promoting the audiovisual experience including viewing satisfaction (e.g., Kim et al., 2018).

While there are previous studies showing the relationship between social presence and viewing satisfaction, little empirical research has been done on the effect of social presence on viewing enjoyment as well as the mediating role of social presence in the relationship between social viewing and viewing enjoyment in the context of watching dramas. Nevertheless, social presence is likely to positively influence viewing enjoyment given that enjoyment has a very high correlation with satisfaction, and enjoyment is a significant predictor that has a great influence on satisfaction (Lee, 2020). In sum, social viewing, in which viewers talk about dramas they are watching with other viewers, would create a feeling that both parties in the conversation are in the same space and sharing each other’s thoughts and emotions, which will further promote a positive audience experience for users such as enjoyment of watching dramas. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

∙ H1: Social presence will mediate the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas.

3) The Mediating Role of Social Capital

Social capital is the characteristics of social organizations that promote coordination and cooperation to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results, such as networks, norms and social trust (Putnam, 1993). Social capital is based on the network of interpersonal and inter-organizational relationships that exist in the social environment (Putnam, 2004). Scholars generally believe that social media strengthens the formation of social capital through online relationships as well as bridging social capital in people and communities with diverse social backgrounds. For example, the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, contributes to the construction of bridging social capital (Ellison et al., 2011). Vergeer and Pelzer (2009) argued that through social media, communication activities support the construction of bonding social capital because of the addition of offline networks to online networks. In this respect, social media can strengthen new relationships and offline ties through online communities.

Some researchers have examined the relationship between using online communities and social capital (Lee, 2013; Lim, 2013). Specifically, an online community not only contributes to bridging social capital but also helps build bonding capital. Considering online communities as the core feature of social viewing, we predict that social viewing will also actively promote the formation of social capital.

The establishment of social capital may expand the audience’s communication objects and groups of people. With whom and in what context TV viewers communicate when they watch a drama matters a lot. Apparently, social viewers not only share their opinions online with unknown people, but also engage in conversations with close people, such as friends. Conversations with people close to them or with strangers may promote people’s thinking (Lee & Choi, 2017) and enable them to learn more details about the program, thus improving their enjoyment of watching.

Therefore, we can expect that active social viewing contributes to the construction of social capital, expands people’s communication objects, promotes people’s thinking about the viewing content, and thus improves people’s viewing enjoyment.

∙ H2: Social capital will mediate the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas.

4) Social Viewing Platforms: Public Platform vs. Private Platform

Since social viewing is a means of exchanging opinions and information with others online, social viewing and social media use are directly connected. With the development of Internet technology, people can exchange opinions and get information through social media easily while watching dramas or other genres on TV. The social media platforms viewers use for social viewing need to be considered. Krämer et al. (2015) divided social media into private platforms and public platforms. A private platform is a place where individuals can share content for a specific, known audience. In some studies, private platforms have been identified as mobile communication devices (Vermeulen et al., 2018) and instant messaging applications (Krämer et al., 2015). On the other hand, public platforms are places where individuals can share content with a large number of potentially unknown audiences, such as on Twitter and Facebook. Some public platforms may also offer the features and services of private platforms. For example, Facebook users can choose to privately publish to a small target audiences through instant messaging, or publicly publish to a large audience. On private platforms, there may be fewer communication objects (Barasch & Berger, 2014), while on public platforms, individuals are more likely to participate in broadcasting or communicate with more than one person. In other words, a public platform like Facebook makes it easier to establish new relationships with strangers, while a private platform is more intimate, autonomous, and for friends and acquaintances only.

The motivation for using public platforms varies from that for using a private platform. Information-seeking motivation is higher in public platforms, while private platforms establish simple, discrete relationships and protect privacy. Private platforms feature talk with real-time and close friends, therefore, compared with a public platform, a private platform with the main purpose of talking to close friends more easily promotes the formation of a sense of social presence (Lee et al., 2013).

Lee and Chung (2014) explored the relationship between public and private platforms and social capital, observing that a public platform strengthens bridging social capital, while a private platform helps construct bonding social capital. This means that the characteristics of social media platforms could influence the types of social capital formed among social media users. Therefore, the mediating effects of social presence and social capital in the relationship between social viewing and watching enjoyment may vary depending on the characteristics of the social media platform (i.e., private platform vs. public platform).

In China, the mobile revolution that began in 2008 has led to the rapid development of mobile infrastructure with the advent of smartphones. There are Chinese versions of a public platform, Weibo, and a private platform, WeChat. Like Twitter, Weibo has a built-in retweet feature, and users often use hashtags to make Weibo accessible on public search feeds that can actively disseminate information to an external audience. In addition, Weibo accounts allow for one-way following, and public Weibo accounts have highly permeable boundaries and higher connection possibilities, which means unlimited audiences. WeChat, by contrast, is more like Facebook, limiting audiences to only those approved by the account owner, evoking clearer ownership and fewer opportunities for borderline connections, even though people can be invited by approved people into chat rooms where strangers may also be present.

During social viewing, publishing content related to TV dramas or expressing opinions on private channels with stronger boundaries is more likely to stimulate interaction from strong relationships with friends and relatives compared with public platforms. As a result, stronger bonding social capital is formed. In addition, the factual voice call function unique to WeChat as a private platform may also allow both parties to form a stronger sense of social presence. By contrast, because of its strong openness as a public platform, when publishing content related to watching TV dramas on Weibo, the feedback received may come from strangers who care about this topic, and there are more opportunities to discuss and communicate with people with weak ties. Compared with private platforms, bridging social capital may be formed more easily and play a larger role on public platforms.

Hence, we state the following hypotheses:

∙ H3: The mediating effects of social presence in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas will be greater on the private platform (WeChat) than on the public platform (Weibo).
∙ H4: The mediating effects of bridging social capital in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas will be higher on the public platform (Weibo) than on the private platform (WeChat).
∙ H5: The mediating effects of bonding social capital in the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas will be greater on the private platform (WeChat) than on the public platform (Weibo).

3. Method

1) Sample and Data

This survey was conducted from November 7, 2018, to November 17, 2018. Our research data were collected from online questionnaires administered on WeChat and Weibo. At the beginning of the questionnaire, we confirmed whether respondents had social viewing experience. We then asked them which platforms they used for social viewing among three options: WeChat, Weibo and others (multiple choice). Respondents who used both WeChat and Weibo or more than one social media platforms for social viewing were excluded, and we chose a group that only used WeChat for social viewing and a group that only used Weibo for social viewing for comparison, following previous studies (e.g., see Syn & Oh, 2015).

After excluding responses from people who did not participate in social viewing, who did not use a public (Weibo) or private platform (WeChat), and who gave false answers, we were able to use 513 of the questionnaires, with 262 people using Weibo and 251 using WeChat. Among the respondents who used Weibo for social viewing, the distribution of men (47.3%, 124) and women (52.7%, 138) was similar. The final academic qualifications are university graduates (45.4%, 119), university students (29.4%, 77), graduate school and above (21.4%, 56). Among the respondents who used WeChat for social viewing, the distribution of men (51%, 128) and women (49%, 123) was similar. The final academic qualifications are university graduates (44.6%, 112), university students (30.7%, 77) and graduate students or above (19.9%, 50). The age distribution of the respondents was mostly in the 20s (377, 73.5%), followed by the 30s (76, 14.8%), and finally in their 18 and 19 (48, 9.4%).

2) Measures

Unless otherwise noted, all concepts in the questionnaire were measured on a scale of 1 = not at all to 5 = very much.

(1) Social viewing

Reviews of social viewing activity have mainly divided online opinion exchange into writing and reading (Kim & Kim, 2008; Choi & Lee, 2013). However, as the Internet has developed, ways of communicating through social media have evolved. For example, exchanging photos or videos are also acts of communication. Therefore, this study refers to Seo et al. (2017) to define active social viewing as posting photos, videos and sharing information while viewing television dramas. In this study, we measured social viewing with four questions, including “Comment on other people’s opinions or information related to the drama”, “Retweet the opinions or information of the program you are watching or other people related to the actor”, “When watching dramas, upload reports about the dramas”, and “Upload photos or videos related to the program” (Cronbach’s alpha = .88, M = 3.46, SD = 0.92).

(2) Social presence

We defined social presence as the feeling of being with other people who are watching the same program while using social media (Choi & Kwon, 2015). we measured social presence with four questions, including “I felt like talking to someone next to me while social viewing”, “I felt like I was watching TV together with the participants”, “It feels like meeting and chatting directly with each other”, and “Feel the conversation participants around me or in front of me” (Cronbach’s alpha = .89, M = 3.61, SD = 0.89).

(3) Social capital

Choi and Lee (2013) defined social capital as emotional and practical support that one may obtain. They divided social capital into bridging social capital and bonding social capital. In this study, bridging social capital is defined as the emotional and substantive support that individuals with different backgrounds receive through mutual connections, bonding social capital is the emotional and practical support that individuals in a social group can gain through their interconnections. We modified Choi and Lee’s (2013) measure to meet the purposes of this study.

We measured bridging social capital built through social viewing with five questions, including “Communicating with people through social viewing makes me want to try something new”, “Communicating with people through social viewing is about people who think differently from me”, “Communicating with people through social viewing will make me interested in many kinds of things”, “Through social viewing and communication with people, I feel that I am part of a larger community”, and “Communicating with people makes me feel connected with all kinds of people” (Cronbach’s alpha = .89, M = 3.59, SD = 0.87).

We measured bonding social capital built through social viewing via statements like “Some people who communicate through social viewing can comfortably talk about my personal issues”, “Through social viewing, some people can talk when I feel lonely”, “Through social viewing, some of the people who communicate fully understand me and I can hand over important things to them”. hrough social observation, some of the people who communicate fully understand that I can hand over important things to others”, “Some of the people who watch and communicate through social viewing can help solve my problems” and “Among those who communicate through social viewing, when I make a very important decision, some people can seek advice” (Cronbach’s alpha = .91, M = 3.50, SD = 0.94).

(4) Enjoyment

We used Oliver and Bartsch’s (2010) measure to assess the enjoyment gained by social viewing dramas with four statements: “It was fun to watch the drama”, “I had a good time watching the drama”, “I was moved by the TV drama” and “I had a lot of feelings and thoughts watching the drama” (Cronbach’s alpha = .89, M = 3.70, SD = 0.92).

(5) Control Variables

We controlled for the effects of basic demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, education and income. Considering that the use of general media may also have an impact on social viewing, in this study, the use of general media is also used as a control variable.

3) Statistical Analysis

We performed path analysis using AMOS 21 to investigate direct effects among the variables. We used Hayes’ PROCESS Model 4 (Hayes, 2013) to examine the mediating effects of social presence and social capital (i.e., bridging and bonding social capital) in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching drama.

4. Results

We conducted path analysis to examine the effects of social viewing on social presence, social capital, and viewing enjoyment. The result for the public platform Weibo is presented in Figure 1.

Results for the relationships between social viewing, social presence, bridging social capital, bonding social capital, and enjoyment of watching dramas (Weibo).Note. Chi-square = 529.137, Degree of freedom = 277, p-value = .000, Normed chi square = 1.910, GFI = .87, AGFI = .83, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .06, NNFI = .93, IFI = .94 **p < .01, ***p < .001.

We found that social viewing had a positive effect on social presence (β = .47, p < .001). The effect of social viewing was significant on bridging social capital (β = .38, p < .001) and bonding social capital (β = .43, p < .001). However, social viewing did not show a significant direct effect on the enjoyment of watching dramas.

The tests of the effects of social presence, bridging social capital, and bonding social capital on enjoyment of watching dramas showed that social presence significantly affected enjoyment (β = .24, p < .01). We discovered that bridging social capital had a significant positive effect on the enjoyment of watching dramas (β = .34, p < .001). However, the bonding social capital established through social viewing did not have a significant effect on the enjoyment of watching dramas.

We employed the bootstrap method to test whether the mediating effects of social presence and social capital are statistically significant in the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of drama viewing. Table 1 shows that the mediating effects of social presence (b = .08, SE =. 04, CI = .03 to .17) and bridging social capital (b = .09, SE = .04, CI = .04 to .18) are statistically significant. However, there was not a significant mediating effect of bonding social capital. In other words, when people use a public platform (Weibo) while watching TV dramas, social viewing can promote social presence and bridging social capital, thus indirectly enhancing their enjoyment of watching dramas.

Indirect effects of social viewing on enjoyment of watching dramas through bridging social capital, bonding social capital, and social presence (Weibo).

As shown in Figure 2, the analysis of the effects of social viewing for dramas via a private platform (i.e., WeChat) demonstrated that social viewing promoted social presence (β = .56, p < .001), bridging social capital (β = .45, p < .001), and bonding social capital (β = .49, p < .001). However, it did not directly affect the enjoyment of watching dramas. Social presence (β = .40, p < .001), bridging social capital (β = .23, p < .001) and bonding social capital (β = .18, p < .01) had significant positive effects on the enjoyment of watching dramas.

Results for the relationships between social viewing, social presence, bridging social capital, bonding social capital, and enjoyment of watching dramas (WeChat).Note. Chi-square = 540.081, Degree of freedom = 277, p-value = .000, Normed chi square = 1.950, GFI = .85, AGFI = .82, CFI = .92, RMSEA = .062, NNFI = .91, IFI = .93. **p < .01, ***p < .001.

The bootstrap method was employed to test whether the mediating effects of social presence and social capital are statistically significant in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of viewing dramas.

Table 2 shows that the mediating effects of social presence (b = .15, SE = .04, CI = .08 to .26) and of bridging social capital (b = .07, SE = .03, CI = .02 to .15) were statistically significant.

Indirect effects of social-viewing activities on drama-watching enjoyment through bridging social capital, bonding social capital, and social presence (WeChat).

It is worth noting that the mediating effect of bonding social capital (b = .06, SE = .03, CI = .01 to .13) was also statistically significant in the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas. That is, when people engage in social viewing through WeChat, social viewing not only indirectly promotes the enjoyment of TV dramas by increasing social presence and bridging social capital, but also indirectly facilitates the enjoyment of TV dramas by increasing bonding social capital.

In summary, H1 and H2 posited that social presence and social capital (differentiated into bridging social capital and bonding social capital) will mediate the effects of social viewing activity on enjoyment of watching TV dramas. Our findings indicate that when people engage in social viewing through a private platform (i.e., WeChat), social presence, bridging social capital, and bonding social capital mediate the effects of social viewing on the enjoyment of dramas. However, when it comes to social viewing through public platform (i.e., Weibo), only social presence and bridging social capital mediate the effects of social viewing on the enjoyment of dramas.

H3 and H5 posited that the mediating effects of social presence and bonding social capital in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of viewing a drama will be greater on the private platform (i.e., WeChat). H4 posited that the mediating effects of bridging social capital in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas will be stronger in the public platform (i.e., Weibo). These hypotheses are supported.

5. Discussion

This study focuses on the mediating roles of social presence and social capital (i.e., bridging and bonding social capital) in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching TV dramas. In addition, the current study explored whether and how this relationship differs depending on the type of social media platform (i.e., public vs. private) used for social viewing. The main findings are as follows.

First, social viewing did not directly affect the enjoyment of watching dramas for either Weibo or WeChat. This finding suggests that social viewing itself may not influence individuals’ viewing enjoyment, but it could work through mediating mechanisms. That is, the effects of social viewing on the enjoyment of watching TV dramas are mediated through the cognitive and emotional responses individuals obtain by interacting with other viewers including social presence and social capital. These results extend the current literature that has mainly focused on the direct effects of social viewing (Cho & Choi, 2014; Dolbin, 2015) by demonstrating the effect mechanism of social viewing.

In addition, analysis of the relationship between social viewing and social capital showed that social viewing contributes to the construction of social capital. Specifically, social viewing not only positively affects bridging social capital but also helps build bonding social capital. These findings are consistent with studies that explore the relationship between online community use and social capital (Lee, 2013). In short, the findings of this study confirm that social viewing can both help build relationships with strangers and foster closer relationships with people one knows already.

Second, the results of the mediation analysis showed that social viewing facilitates social presence and social capital and thus indirectly promotes enjoyment of watching dramas. Several studies have shown that social viewing activities and online interaction with others increase social presence (Ahn & Park, 2017; Lee, 2014; Choi & Kwon, 2015). Similar to these findings, our findings indicate that social viewing of TV dramas positively influences social presence. However, we acknowledge that existing studies have mainly focused on the direct effect of social viewing on social presence and there has been insufficient attention to the mechanism of how social viewing affects the enjoyment of watching dramas through social presence. One exception demonstrated that social presence played a mediating role in the relationship between social viewing and viewing satisfaction (Choi & Kwon, 2015). Choi and Kwon (2015) focused on general social viewing and viewing satisfaction rather than a specific genre of TV programs such as news and TV dramas. The current study, therefore, extends the existing research by revealing a mechanism by which social viewing indirectly influences the enjoyment of watching TV programs via social presence in the context of TV dramas.

Likewise, some researchers have showed that social media affects social capital (Lee, 2013; Lim, 2013), but none has examined the mediating role of social capital in the context of social viewing and the enjoyment of watching TV dramas. Our study provides empirical evidence that social viewing increases social capital, which in turn positively affects the enjoyment of TV dramas.

Third, we further demonstrated that the mediating effects of social presence and social capital in the relationship between social viewing and the enjoyment of watching dramas differ depending on whether social viewing is done via a public or private social media platform. Specifically, the mediating effects of social presence and bonding social capital were greater in WeChat than in Weibo. This is closely related to the nature of social media platforms. On a private social media platform, users usually talk to people they are close to. In the process of social viewing with a private social media, compared to public platforms, it is easier to interact with people in close relationships such as friends and relatives by publishing TV drama-related content or expressing one’s own opinions, which thus makes people feel a greater sense of social presence and form stronger bonding social capital. In particular, the unique real-time video and voice call functions of WeChat provide a space similar to face-to-face conversation between the two parties, so the sense of social presence plays a greater role in social viewing through WeChat. The increased sense of social presence and bonding social capital ultimately allow users to feel greater levels of enjoyment of watching dramas.

On the other hand, the mediating effects of bridging social capital were higher in the public platform Weibo when considering the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas. This finding suggests that interaction in Weibo, which has a relatively higher level of publicness and anonymity, is more advantageous to constructing bridging social capital than that in WeChat, which has a relatively lower level of publicness and anonymity. Since it is possible to exchange information about the dramas being watched conveniently, social viewing using the public platform (i.e., Weibo) provides wider opportunities for contact with various cultures and people, which in turn increases individuals’ enjoyment of watching dramas.

Finally, although social viewing can promote both bridging and bonding social capital, bonding social capital did not play a role in promoting viewing enjoyment on the public social media platform (i.e., Weibo). It is important to note that the analysis of a private social media platform shows different results. On private platforms, both bridging social capital and bonding social capital played mediating roles between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas. Interestingly, the mediating effect of bridging social capital is slightly greater than that of bonding social capital even on the private platform. These results suggest that no matter which platform people use for social viewing (i.e., using a public platform or private platform), the mediating effect of bridging social capital is greater than that of bonding social capital in the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas.

Some studies have shown that different social media platforms promote different kinds of social capital—that is, for example, the use of public social media platforms tends to promote greater levels of bridging social capital while private platforms are more likely to promote bonding social capital (Lee & Chung, 2014; Shin & Lee, 2012). However, such findings have not been applied and validated in the context of social viewing. To expand the existing research, we explore the role of bridging and bonding social capital in the relationship between social viewing and enjoyment of watching dramas on public and private social media platforms. This study provides empirical evidence that public and private social media platforms may not always increase the role of bridging social capital and bonding social capital, respectively; the effect may vary depending on the specific context.

6. Strengths and Limitations

This study has several strengths. First, we verified the mediating effects of social presence and social capital in social viewing on the enjoyment of watching dramas. Social viewing included uploading photos or videos related to programs to share opinions with others. Although there are some studies on the mediating effects of social presence, most are on viewing satisfaction. In addition, there are few comparative studies on how mediating effects differ depending on the characteristics of social media platforms. Moreover, there are few studies on the mediating effects of social capital on social viewing. Therefore, this paper contributes to the literature on social capital and social presence.

Second, previous research has confirmed that public platforms strengthen bridging social capital and private platforms strengthen bonding social capital. However, these studies cannot answer whether active social viewing will also form different types of social capital through different platforms and whether different social capital will more easily promote enjoyment of watching programs. This study divided social media into social viewing platforms that were either public or private and analyzed the mediating effects of social presence and social capital. These results provide a deeper understanding of the mechanism of social viewing and reveal that the effects of social viewing could be achieved through various mechanisms, such as social presence, bridging social capital, and bonding social capital. Furthermore, the findings suggest that this mechanism may work differently depending on the technical characteristics of the social media platform that the social viewer utilizes.

The results of the current study also have practical implications. Given the findings that the social viewing indirectly increased individuals’ enjoyment of watching drama via social presence and social capital, producers of TV program or various media content can think of strategies to increase users’ enjoyment of media content by focusing on marketing using social media. Because media users’ satisfaction including enjoyment positively influences their continuous use of the media and word of mouth (Kim, 2022; Kim & Park, 2019; Li & Park, 2016), it is likely that more people will talk about the dramas and continuously watch them after social viewing influences their enjoyment of watching dramas via social presence and social capital. When using social media as a means of marketing, therefore, it is necessary to make the users interact with other users in the social media sphere. For instance, marketing managers can hold a contest in which the users of media content can win a prize if they post their thoughts and feelings about what they watch and share them with others on social media. Actors who appear in dramas can join the event and communicate with viewers using social media platforms such as a chat window or comment section, which could help to connect large group of people and keep a strong relationship among them, which would increase the enjoyment of watching dramas.

We compare the difference in the mediation effects of social capital on different platforms as well as on the same platform. These comparisons have brought new findings that have not been confirmed by previous studies. For example, although private platforms promote stronger bonding social capital, in terms of social viewing through closed platforms, the mediating role of bridging social capital is stronger than that of bonding social capital. From this, we can draw a new view that the interaction between weak ties plays a more important role between social viewing activity and viewing pleasure than the interaction of strong ties.

Considering that enjoyment or gratification may be an important determinant of sustained viewing, these findings could help drama producers and promoters improve viewers’ enjoyment of TV shows and thus increase ratings. Although the content of dramas is very important, considering the important positive impact of social viewing on viewing enjoyment and satisfaction, drama producers and promoters need to consider how to promote interaction between audiences to help enhance the viewing enjoyment of watching dramas.

In addition, judging from the results of social viewing on the public platform, although its function of promoting audiences to form bonding social capital is weak, it is obviously stronger in promoting bridging social capital than private platforms. Therefore, publicity and promotion on public platforms should promote audiences’ communication with weak ties to enhance their viewing enjoyment. For example, creating TV drama discussion hashtags and topics on public platforms to attract more drama viewers to generate interaction may be an effective strategy.

On private platforms, promoting the interaction between strong relationships is the main strategy of publicity at present (e.g., providing shared reward mechanism). Compared with public platforms, this strategy is effective. However, we find that the role of bridging social capital is stronger than that of bonding social capital on private platforms. That is, even on a private platform, we should emphasize interaction of not only strong ties but also weak ties. Therefore, an effective promotion strategy on private platforms may be to encourage communication not only between two familiar people, but also between users and more strangers, such as in user group discussions (in chat groups, there may be many strangers, gaining more new perspectives, building stronger bridging social capital).

Despite the above implications, this study has some limitations. For example, the sample of this study is mainly university students and graduate students. The nature of the sample limits consideration of various demographic characteristics such as income or income level. Next, this study focused on one genre, drama. The genres of TV programs in social viewing are diverse, including news, sports, and comedy. It is unclear whether researchers can apply or generalize the results of this study to these different genres. Subsequent researchers must pay attention to other genres of programs. In addition, this study did not consider factors such as what genre the drama is, what the viewing time is, and what the region is. For example, the genres of dramas that a particular audience group likes might be different. Therefore, it is necessary to consider these various factors in subsequent studies. We used data from 2018. With the emergence of new social media platforms, it is necessary to revisit social viewing on new platforms in the current environment.¹⁾

Despite these shortcomings, this paper goes beyond the previous perspective of audience-program interaction to provide a direction for thinking about the effect of audience-audience interaction as well as theoretical support for understanding social viewing mechanisms.

Acknowledgments

This article is based on a thesis completed by Yi Wang.

Notes

1) As of July 2022, the number of active users of WeChat and Weibo is still increasing without decreasing. WeChat has 1.268 billion monthly active users, and Weibo has 573 million monthly active users. WeChat and Weibo are currently the most-used media platforms in Chinese society, but there are other platforms as well. For comparison, Wechat had 1.08 billion monthly active users, while Weibo had 462 million monthly active users in 2018.

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