Using Twitch for politics? The role of personality across five countries

Twitch is a popular live-streaming platform primarily used in the context of gaming. Streamers tend to be very sensitive to the content shared in their streams, often eschewing political content. At the same time, the platform is increasingly used by political actors, activists, journalists and political influencers. In this study, we offer insights into the extent to which Twitch is used for political purposes using a five-country (US, UK, France, Canada, and Germany) survey collected in 2023 (n = 7,500). With this large sample, we are able to focus on a subset of respondents who use Twitch (n = 1,552). We examine the role of the Big Five personality traits in explaining exposure to political information and posting of political content on Twitch. Extraversion positively relates to political information and posting on Twitch, whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness negatively relate to both. This study is important because citizens are diversifying their platform use and little is known about Twitch and its political uses. Already, Twitch content reaches a significant group, particularly those who are young, male, politically interested, and identify as right-wing. Understanding this user group helps explain political behaviors on a widely used but understudied platform.