Sustainable platform persuasion: A grounded theory of audience persuasion on online film and series streaming platforms in Iran

Rahnamay Chitsaz, Padina; Mohamadpour, Sara; Ezzatzadeh, Mastooreh

doi:10.22059/jcss.2026.421335.1280

Sustainable platform persuasion: A grounded theory of audience persuasion on online film and series streaming platforms in Iran

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original article

Authors

Padina Rahnamay Chitsaz ¹

Sara Mohamadpour ²

Mastooreh Ezzatzadeh ²

¹ Department of Media Management, WT.C, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

² Department of Social Communication, WT.C, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jcss.2026.421335.1280

Abstract

Background: Online film and series streaming platforms rest on a distinctive economic logic: their revenue comes not from a single purchase but from the periodic renewal of subscriptions. Under this logic, audience persuasion is not an event but a condition that must be continuously reproduced. Yet dominant theories of persuasion were built to explain the effect of a single message on a single attitude, and research on subscription continuance has mostly tested predetermined sets of predictors.
Aims: This study explains the components and formation mechanisms of sustainable audience persuasion on subscription video-on-demand platforms in Iran's streaming market.
Methodology: Using a grounded theory design, data were collected through 13 semi-structured interviews with experts in marketing, media management, digital governance and law, and communication, until theoretical saturation was reached. Open, axial, and selective coding yielded 549 initial codes, 10 main categories with 37 subcategories, and a single core category, "sustainable platform persuasion".
Findings: The resulting paradigm model comprises five causal conditions, eight contextual conditions, six intervening conditions, 10 strategy categories, and three sets of consequences. Sustainable persuasion is not confined to message-level tactics but takes shape through the interaction of individual, communicative, technological, structural, and institutional factors. Users' resistance, rooted in their knowledge of persuasion tactics, emerged as a structural condition rather than a temporary obstacle, and institutional legitimacy as part of a platform's persuasive capital.
Conclusion: The model treats persuasion not as an advertising tool but as a strategic mechanism for building a durable relationship between platform and audience.

Keywords

audience engagement

digital trust

grounded theory

Iran

online streaming platforms

sustainable platform persuasion

Subjects

humanities & social sciences

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