Media Observation｜"Talking about News", Ordinary People "Return" to News Production in the Digital Age
2024-08-18
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The transformation of media technology not only profoundly affects all aspects and the entire process of news production, distribution, and dissemination, but also brings about a variety of news production activities. In addition to the traditional professional, specialized, and organized news production activities, the news production practices participated by ordinary people are also increasingly worthy of attention and research. In recent years, a kind of user-initiated news production and sharing practice has emerged on video social platforms such as Bilibili, Douyin, and Kuaishou. This is different from simple news transfer and forwarding, and is also different from general news comments. It is based on the analysis, interpretation, integration, and extension of news reports from professional media, and usually produces and disseminates content in the form of "telling you the news", showing a distinct personal style of the communicator. This study calls this type of ordinary news production activities "telling news". The main research questions include: First, what are the general forms and characteristics of this type of ordinary news production activities? Second, what are the reasons for the relatively active news production activities of ordinary people on digital platforms, especially video social platforms? Third, what is the significance of ordinary news production activities in the overall news production landscape?
1. The Pattern and Characteristics of “Telling News” as a News Production Activity for Ordinary People
1. Extension of professional news production: ordinary people as the subjects of news reports
After the advent of the digital age, the importance and significance of users in news activities have long been highlighted. The "news-telling" accounts that appear on social platforms and their content production practices are not only users' interactive sharing of news, but also a kind of in-depth news processing and content production behavior that is different from professional journalists and is mainly participated in by ordinary people (or ordinary people). After hundreds of years of professionalization, the news industry has formed a set of professional knowledge systems, which has marginalized news production activities in the daily life world. When we change our perspective, we can find that "specific people are first of all actors in the life world, and the most core actors in news activities are professional journalists and non-professional ordinary people/ordinary people."
In general, "telling the news" on video social platforms as a kind of ordinary news production activity is mainly manifested in the following ways: first, bloggers deeply integrate news content from multiple professional media, summarize and refine the overall appearance of a news event; second, bloggers split and reorganize one or more news events, and refine the dissemination points in the comparison and connection; third, bloggers also supplement the content of news reports based on historical or real data, which is a "secondary creation" of the original news reports. Studies have shown that the audience's participation in the news production process includes five stages: obtaining and observing information that can be conveyed, selecting and filtering the information, processing and editing stories, distributing stories, and explaining stories. This dissemination activity can be regarded as an extension of professional news production.
Different from professional news texts, the "news" produced by ordinary people is characterized by: from the perspective of content sources, it is mainly based on news content that has been reported by professional media, and there is less content in the sense of news sources; from the perspective of the content itself, it revolves around specific news topics, and most of them are narrative texts, emphasizing the storytelling and interpretation of news, and have a distinct personal style; from the perspective of news symbols, most of them use sound + image/video symbols, in addition to the original news pictures, they will also be supplemented with other video pictures; from the perspective of the production cycle, the frequency of content production and updating is relatively stable, maintaining a certain production rhythm. To a certain extent, this kind of ordinary people's news production activities based on in-depth processing and re-creation of professional news texts also have a stable news community.
2. “What to Talk About”: The Significance of News in the Daily Life World
This study selected and analyzed 7 representative "news-telling" accounts on the Bilibili platform (table omitted) and found that:
First, the topics that "news talk" accounts focus on are mainly "hard news" such as current affairs and finance. This type of news content has high attention, a wide range of followers, and a large space for processing and production. Secondly, the audience of "news talk" can be divided into functional and interest-based groups. Functional groups refer to specific groups such as business people and candidates, while interest-based groups are for users who are interested in specific news topics or specific bloggers. Third, a relatively stable sharing relationship has been established between "news talk" bloggers and their users. Users' "attention", "subscription", "like", "coin", "reprint", "comment", "reward" and other behaviors are the driving force for bloggers to produce content, and user groups gather together because of specific types of news topics, which also generates information sharing, interaction, experience exchange and other behaviors. It can be said that in the content production process of "news talk" bloggers, in addition to the pursuit of content quality, the consideration of traffic and economic benefits is also very clear, which is a clear difference from the general news sharing and forwarding behavior.
In general, the content production of "news-telling" accounts is mainly based on news interpretation, analysis, and commentary. They not only focus on the news facts themselves, but also focus on in-depth analysis and multi-angle interpretation of news events to explain the significance and value of news events to the daily life world. This form not only meets the user's demand for superficial information about news events, but also responds to the user's desire to deeply understand the logic and meaning behind the events, so that they can quickly obtain the significance and value of news in an era of information overload.
3. “How to Speak”: Integration of Topics, Emotions, Social Interactions and Life
"News-telling" bloggers on video social platforms generally do not have the right to edit and report news. Therefore, it is not a professional news editing and production activity, nor is it the first disclosure of a news event, but rather a secondary production and processing of professional news reports.
Compared with professional media's news production activities based on news value and other standards, under the guidance of traffic goals and the influence of news communities, the "news" topics of "telling the news" production activities not only focus on publicity, but also pay special attention to topicality. The narrative method that combines emotional expression with rational, objective and accurate narration of facts is one of the characteristics of "telling the news" content production.
The "news-telling" activity on video social platforms is a non-professional type of news oriented towards daily life. It does not take the public interest as its direct goal, but focuses more on the information demands and interest expectations of individuals and groups. Users establish connections with "news-telling" bloggers through watching, liking, commenting and other behaviors, showing the characteristics of a socialized relationship between production and consumption.
Compared with professional news activities centered on stating facts, "news-telling" activities generally sort out the causes and consequences of news events, aiming at value interpretation, and "translating" them to users in a colloquial way. "News-telling" activities not only include factual statements of known news events, but also include value judgments, meaning interpretations, and even macro-trend predictions, serving the daily life needs of users.
II. The History and Present of “Telling the News” as a News Production Activity for Ordinary People
1. People as the intermediary of news dissemination: the ancient history of “telling news”
Looking at "telling the news" from the history of news activities, we will find that it is not a new phenomenon. The sharing of news between people has a long history: in the era of oral communication, face-to-face information exchange and sharing between people mainly resorted to oral and auditory means, which is the oldest "telling the news" activity. In the era of handwritten news, people screened and refined the information after reading the news, and shared it with other people in need. "Telling the news" is an extension of oral and auditory activities of text communication. In the early days of print media, European coffee houses were important information distribution centers at the time. Customers would often stand up and read aloud an article, stopping from time to time to explain or discuss with others. "Telling the news" became an integral part of people's participation in public life.
Since the rise of penny newspapers in the 1830s, journalism has entered a new stage of popularization, industrialization, and commercialization. Professional media control the screening and screening of information through collaborative production. The increasingly professional news dissemination system presents a one-way, centralized, and mass approach, and interpersonal news communication activities gradually fade out of the field of professional news activities. Since the 1990s, the rapid development of Internet media has enabled interpersonal news communication activities to have more convenient and efficient technologies and platforms. The development of video social platforms and the digital, intelligent, and platform-based communication environment have brought new possibilities for interpersonal news communication, interaction, and dissemination, and strengthened interpersonal connections. The ancient news practice of "telling the news" has been revitalized in such a technological and social context.
2. The return of interpersonal news communication: the “news minimalist” lifestyle
Video social platforms provide material, technical and platform possibilities for the personalized news needs of multiple subjects. This is both the objective condition for the emergence of "news-telling" accounts and the direct reason for the emergence of "news-telling" activities. Further analysis shows that there are three other influencing factors:
From the perspective of user behavior, users seek a self-controlled "news life" and pursue a news consumption attitude of "not holding unless necessary". The news landscape that exceeds the upper limit of individual information processing capabilities no longer brings people satisfaction but burden, triggering users' fatigue, resistance, and anxiety about missing out. Therefore, some users have begun to choose to "disconnect" from the news in a moderate way, seeking a purified, minimalist, self-controlled news life.
From the perspective of news knowledge, the fragmentation and superficiality of news production in the digital age do not help readers grasp the relationship between factual information, understand the value behind the news, and cope with the needs of real life. The generalization of news has given rise to the demand for precision such as news screening and value extraction, and the demand for news reception has expanded from factual knowledge to value knowledge.
From the perspective of the relationship between news communicators and recipients, the rise of video social platforms has made it possible to return to direct relationships between people, and news communities based on interest and trust have gradually formed. The "news-telling" activity is an individual communicator's integration, reporting, and re-dissemination of news in a certain professional field or category, serving to meet the specific knowledge needs of a certain group of people. Some active users build their own "media library" in the process of news consumption, and select, classify and manage this media library. Communicators and recipients refer to each other and form specific news communities based on common interests and topics.
3. Return to daily life: Media technology makes news production possible for ordinary people
The rapid development of digital technology has a profound impact on news communication practice, including news collection, production and processing, dissemination channels and news consumption habits. In each link, digital technology "empowers" ordinary people's participation in news and makes ordinary people's news production activities possible.
Technology has changed the way news information is collected. After Bell invented the telephone, journalists were able to interview and collect news information remotely. Today, with the popularization of the Internet and mobile communication technology, especially the increasing transparency of government information, business data, and census data on the Internet, it has become a real social order that ordinary people can easily obtain factual information.
Technology has influenced the way news information is processed. The popularity of smartphones and other recording devices has made it easier to record high-quality video and audio, greatly lowering the technical threshold for news production, which means that even non-professionals can quickly process and generate content.
Technology has broken down the barriers to news dissemination. Compared with the standardized news production dominated by industrial logic in the era of mass communication, digital technology has spawned a variety of news, making news production and dissemination by multiple actors possible, thereby further expanding the subject of news production from professional subjects to social subjects.
Technology has shaped users' new habits of news consumption. On video social platforms, information exchange between people has entered a new stage, and the way of news consumption has also changed. Users can receive news independently based on news consumption scenarios and news usage habits, and can also apply news to daily life based on interests and needs. In other words, the technical logic of video social platforms has reshaped the social relationship between people and news. With the intervention of platform technology logic, the production, distribution and consumption of news are no longer linear and single modes in the mass media era, but have become a process of multiple interactions and participation. Users' news consumption is also an indirect "production". It is in this sense that the "traffic" problem is a key issue in digital journalism.
3. The future of “telling the news” as a news production activity for ordinary people
1. “Speaking about the News”: News Production from Everyday Knowledge and Everyday Actions
The core of the previous discussion is to regard "telling the news" as a kind of ordinary news production activity, outlining the basic forms and characteristics, and reviewing the history and present of interpersonal news communication. In the digital age, how to view ordinary news production activities including "telling the news" from the overall news landscape?
News production in the digital age has transcended the practical context of professional news activities and has a richer and more diverse perspective. Editors and journalists in the mass communication era unilaterally decided which information was valuable and should be seen by the audience in a closed news production system. Today, social platforms have greatly enhanced the subjectivity of users. Every member of society produces and uses news in his or her own way and participates in public life through it. Ordinary people's news production activities are becoming more and more common.
Robert Park of the Chicago School of Sociology proposed the knowledge attribute of news earlier, believing that news is a kind of knowledge, between "familiar knowledge" and "understanding knowledge". In the era of mass media, the main task of news is to record and explain an isolated event at this time and place. It is neither committed to summarizing and refining experience from the past nor trying to predict things that have not yet happened. "Telling the news", an ordinary news production activity, is different. In addition to describing the event itself, it will also reflect on the event itself, explore the reasons, impacts and long-term significance behind the event, and enhance users' systematic understanding and deep cognition of important political, economic, social and other issues. For a specific audience group, "telling the news" bloggers do not provide fragmented facts or fragmented knowledge, but construct a logical connection between news and the world of daily life. In this sense, news is the daily knowledge of users, and users use it to understand the changes in the order of the world of daily life and adjust their daily actions.
2. From “making news” and “telling news” to news communication in the digital age
To be honest, professional news production activities are still of irreplaceable importance. First, professional news reports are still professional and authoritative. Professional journalists have undergone professional knowledge training and have high news literacy and professional ethics. The professionalism and standardization of the news production process ensure the quality and authority of the news. Secondly, professional news organizations have abundant resources, such as funds, equipment, technical support and a huge information network, which can provide in-depth, extensive and continuous reports, and are more significant in terms of resources and platform advantages.
In the future, users' spontaneous sharing of news information will become more common, and the content will be more diverse and personalized, covering many details that professional news cannot cover. It will also be able to quickly reflect social hot spots and the voice of the masses with the advantages of wide participation and interactivity, and enrich the content and perspective of news reports. Therefore, the organic combination of professional news activities and ordinary news activities constitutes the overall appearance of the digital news ecology. As Professor Yang Baojun pointed out, "The preliminary judgment we can make now is that the characteristics of professional news communication subjects will become more professional and specialized, and the media quality and news literacy of non-professional news communication subjects will continue to improve. Interaction, complementarity and contradiction game are always the basic relationship between different types of communication subjects."
IV. Conclusion and Discussion
The "telling news" activity studied in this paper is a type of ordinary news production activity. This news production activity based on interpersonal communication has a long history. In the digital age, it has re-emerged with the development of new media technologies such as video social platforms. It is a "supplementary" news production activity for professional news production, and can also be seen as a "return" to the ancient interpersonal news communication. Of course, if we examine it from the overall news communication landscape of society, compared with professional news production activities, ordinary news production activities such as "telling news" also face risks and challenges, such as lack of public value, news dissemination ethical risks such as false news, and excessive pursuit of "traffic" may cause communication disorder. Therefore, ordinary news production activities should also grasp the laws of news dissemination and pay attention to the correct public opinion orientation and news value orientation. In the modern social operation system, professional news dissemination activities still have an important position and role. The dissemination, guidance, influence and credibility of professional news dissemination are difficult to replace by current non-professional news dissemination activities. The more complex and diverse the news ecology is, the more the public expects the responsibility and commitment of professional media.
Source: Xinhua Night Returner WeChat Official Account
Editor: Zeng Min
Second trial of Feng Luyu
The third trial of Chen Fawen
