Viewing mechanism of lonely audience: Evidence from an eye movement experiment on barrage video

Media use can be explained by either the deficiency paradigm or the global use paradigm. The former states that people use media to fulfil needs whereas the latter holds that media use is more generic. To examine the validity of these perspectives, we chose to study the needs of lonely people to test these contending claims. An eye tracking experiment was conducted to explore the mechanism of lonely viewers using barrage video, with a 2 (audience: lonely vs normal) × 2 (appeal: emotional appeal vs rational appeal) × 2 (video type: barrage video vs non-barrage video) mixed design. The results showed that there was a significant loneliness and emotional appeal interaction, participants paid more attention to the barrage area, with longer gaze time and more fixation to barrage area. Taken as a whole, however, results did not lend support to either the deficiency paradigm or the global use paradigm. Instead, results supported the activation and match satisfaction model proposed in this study. Implications are discussed. © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.