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Audience in the Loop: Viewer Feedback-Driven Content Creation in Micro-drama Production on Social Media

Gengchen Cao, Tianke He, Yixuan Liu, RAY LC

TL;DR

Addresses how implicit audience signals drive micro-drama writing on social platforms; uses 28 interviews and thematic analysis to reveal a feedback-driven, multi-role production model. Demonstrates that audience signals, platform governance, and writer agency jointly shape narrative pacing and character arcs in rapid production cycles. Contributes a reframing of authorship as socio-technical negotiation, identifies AI-augmented workflows, and proposes platform design guidelines to balance creative autonomy with market demands. The findings have practical implications for platform designers, content creators, and researchers studying data-driven narrative production in convergent media ecosystems.

Abstract

The popularization of social media has led to increasing consumption of narrative content in byte-sized formats. Such micro-dramas contain fast-pace action and emotional cliffs, particularly attractive to emerging Chinese markets in platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou. Content writers for micro-dramas must adapt to fast-pace, audience-directed workflows, but previous research has focused instead on examining writers'experiences of platform affordances or their perceptions of platform bias, rather than the step-by-step processes through which they actually write and iterative content. In 28 semi-structured interviews with scriptwriters and writers specialized in micro-dramas, we found that the short-turn-around workflow leads to writers taking on multiple roles simultaneously, iteratively adapting to storylines in response to real-time audience feedback in the form of comments, reposts, and memes. We identified unique narrative styles such as AI-generated micro-dramas and audience-responsive micro-dramas. This work reveals audience interaction as a new paradigm for collaborative creative processes on social media.

Audience in the Loop: Viewer Feedback-Driven Content Creation in Micro-drama Production on Social Media

TL;DR

Addresses how implicit audience signals drive micro-drama writing on social platforms; uses 28 interviews and thematic analysis to reveal a feedback-driven, multi-role production model. Demonstrates that audience signals, platform governance, and writer agency jointly shape narrative pacing and character arcs in rapid production cycles. Contributes a reframing of authorship as socio-technical negotiation, identifies AI-augmented workflows, and proposes platform design guidelines to balance creative autonomy with market demands. The findings have practical implications for platform designers, content creators, and researchers studying data-driven narrative production in convergent media ecosystems.

Abstract

The popularization of social media has led to increasing consumption of narrative content in byte-sized formats. Such micro-dramas contain fast-pace action and emotional cliffs, particularly attractive to emerging Chinese markets in platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou. Content writers for micro-dramas must adapt to fast-pace, audience-directed workflows, but previous research has focused instead on examining writers'experiences of platform affordances or their perceptions of platform bias, rather than the step-by-step processes through which they actually write and iterative content. In 28 semi-structured interviews with scriptwriters and writers specialized in micro-dramas, we found that the short-turn-around workflow leads to writers taking on multiple roles simultaneously, iteratively adapting to storylines in response to real-time audience feedback in the form of comments, reposts, and memes. We identified unique narrative styles such as AI-generated micro-dramas and audience-responsive micro-dramas. This work reveals audience interaction as a new paradigm for collaborative creative processes on social media.
Paper Structure (39 sections, 6 figures, 4 tables)

This paper contains 39 sections, 6 figures, 4 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Emergence of Micro-Drama as a Narrative Form
  4. Interactional and Platform-Shaped Practices in Micro-Drama Writing
  5. Audience Participation in Micro-Drama Narratives
  6. The Multiple Constraints on Creative Labor in Micro-Drama Production
  7. Methods
  8. Data collection: Interviews
  9. Participants
  10. Data analysis
  11. Ethical considerations
  12. Researcher positionality
  13. Results
  14. The Evolution of Creative Workflow and Roles in Micro-Drama Production(RQ1)
  15. Iterative Creation Mode Driven by Feedback Data from Audience (Q2)
  16. ...and 24 more sections

Figures (6)

  • Figure 1: Production workflow of "My Sweet Home”, showing how audience comments and engagement were integrated into narrative development, promotional design, and media circulation, illustrating an "audience-in-the-loop” model of micro-drama creation.
  • Figure 2: Distinguishing micro-dramas from short-form videos and general online content in platformized media ecosystems.
  • Figure 3: Example of micro-drama interfaces: top row shows platform-level distribution and promotion; bottom row shows individual creators’ production interfaces.
  • Figure 4: Comparative Workflow of Traditional Screenwriting and Microdrama Creation
  • Figure 5: Evidence-backed feedback handling workflow: from audience comments to script changes and on-screen outcomes(Step1/2) Example source: "Mr. Li, please sign for your twins, a boy and a girl"
  • ...and 1 more figures