Framing the travel livestreaming in China: a new star rising under the COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Live streaming has risen as a new force especially in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study adopted frame analysis combining with factor analysis on news coverage to investigate the mechanism of live streaming remedying defects and restoring confidence after the severe blow. Themes including ‘tourism under the COVID-19—supply side, tourism under the COVID-19—demand side, travel live streaming pattern, region revitalization, new travel trend and virtual image-building’ were identified. We also examined the topic distribution of eight stakeholders (tourists, enterprise employees, tourism enterprises, governments, other enterprises, live streaming platforms, media and local communities). These findings provide insights into how new technologies, especially the emerging live streaming, promote the tourism resilience.

KEYWORDS:

• Travel live streaming
• media coverage
• frame analysis
• technology innovation
• tourism revitalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) [grant number 2019QZKK0404].