The Effects of Personal Branding, Content Quality, and Digital Interaction on Audience Engagement: The Mediating Role of Parasocial Closeness on Windah Basudara's Youtube Channel
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study investigates how personal branding, content quality, and digital interaction influence audience engagement and examines whether parasocial closeness mediates these relationships among viewers of Windah Basudara’s YouTube channel. A quantitative explanatory design was applied through a cross-sectional survey of 160 eligible viewers residing in Greater Tangerang. Respondents were selected using purposive sampling. The proposed model was analyzed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4 using 10,000 bootstrap subsamples. All direct paths were positive and significant. Parasocial closeness was the strongest direct predictor of audience engagement (β = 0.391), whereas personal branding was the strongest antecedent of parasocial closeness (β = 0.394). Parasocial closeness significantly mediated the effects of personal branding (βindirect = 0.154), content quality (βindirect = 0.120), and digital interaction (βindirect = 0.117), indicating complementary partial mediation. The study is cross-sectional and limited to one creator and one urban Indonesian context. Creators should combine a distinctive identity, consistently valuable content, and meaningful interaction to strengthen perceived closeness. The study integrates three creator-controlled antecedents and positions parasocial closeness as the psychological mechanism linking them to audience engagement in an Indonesian gaming-creator context.
Source: Jurnal Ilmiah Manajemen Ubhara
DOI: 10.31599/ean07g28
Institution: Universitas Islam Syekh Yusuf
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7221939265
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