Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
AI-mediated self-presentation
livestreaming
masking
agency
sociotechnical assemblage
Assembling, Breaking, and Refusing the Mask: Agency in AI-Mediated Self-Presentation in Livestreaming
🤖 AI Summary
This study examines how Chinese female livestreamers construct idealized personas and navigate multifaceted pressures within AI-mediated environments. Employing a mixed-methods approach—comprising the analysis of 627 recruitment posts, livestream observations, and 26 in-depth interviews—it introduces the innovative concept of the “mask” as a sociotechnical assemblage. The research reveals how streamers assemble these masks through technology, embodiment, and social relations, subsequently negotiating or breaking them under pressure to preserve their subjectivity. It argues that agency emerges from relational reconfiguration rather than control over singular interfaces, and that “breaking” the mask is essential for exposing invisible labor. Ultimately, this work elucidates the gendered and commercial tensions inherent in AI-mediated self-presentation, offering theoretical foundations for designing negotiable systems that better support user agency.
📝 Abstract
Our mixed-method study examines how Chinese women livestreamers use masking to construct idealized mediated personas while navigating gendered, commercial, organizational, and platform pressures alongside personal agendas. We built on the concept of masking, analyzed 627 recruitment posts, and conducted livestream observations and interviews with 26 Chinese women streamers. We found that streamers assembled masks across bodies, AI-mediated technologies, spaces, performances, and social relations to become recognizable while protecting personal boundaries. These masks were continually negotiated, and participants sometimes broke, resisted, or refused them when demands became misaligned or unsustainable. We conceptualize masking as a sociotechnical assemblage in which agency lies in preserving, disrupting, and reconfiguring relations rather than controlling a single interface. We further theorize breaking as a consequential part of masking that exposes hidden labor and unequal costs of visibility. We offer theoretical and design directions for more negotiable, contestable, and agency-supporting AI-mediated self- presentation.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
AI-mediated self-presentation
Sociotechnical assemblage
Agency
Masking
Livestreaming
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