Zhang Zheng: How to clarify the boundary between live broadcast and being live broadcast
2024-08-21
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Let's imagine this scenario: you are on your way to work and you are in a hurry to get out of the subway car. When you look up, you find someone on the platform holding up a mobile phone and live-streaming the bustling crowd online, so you have to lower your head and walk by quickly; you and your family are on vacation, climbing mountains, watching the sea and appreciating flowers. While enjoying the beautiful scenery, you suddenly find that you and your family are framed by the tourists who are live-streaming next to you, so you have to regretfully leave the best viewing position with your family; you are eating in a restaurant with friends, and a "food broadcaster" happens to be "exploring the restaurant" and points the camera at your table, so you have no choice but to stop him... Similar scenarios are probably familiar to all of us. As the emerging media form of live streaming gradually generalizes and penetrates into every corner of daily life, each of us may become the object of "live streaming", but as "ordinary people" who are "living", how can we refuse the live streaming that seems to be everywhere, and how can we avoid becoming the "group performers" of the anchor involuntarily?
It must be admitted that live streaming has become an important force in my country's new cultural formats. Through its comprehensive and vertical diversified supply, combined with the algorithms and recommendation mechanisms of different live streaming platforms, it has opened a window for each creator to display their talents, express their feelings, share their lifestyles, and expand their sources of income in multiple fields such as entertainment, education, and e-commerce. It also provides a large number of users with opportunities to increase their knowledge, enrich their spare time, and find like-minded friends. Thanks to these characteristics, live streaming has developed rapidly in my country in recent years. According to the "China Online Performance (Live Streaming and Short Video) Industry Development Report (2023-2024)" released by the China Performing Arts Industry Association, the market revenue scale of my country's online performance (live streaming) industry will reach 209.5 billion yuan in 2023, with more than 800 million users. As of March 2024, the number of domestic MCN institutions will exceed 26,800, and as of the end of May 2024, the cumulative number of anchor accounts in my country's online performance (live streaming) industry will exceed 180 million (multi-platform non-deduplicated data). Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat Video, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, YY, Momo, Huya, etc. are all important live streaming platforms.
With the popularization of mobile media and the subsequent popularization of cultural creation rights and capabilities, people from different groups, professions and regions can perform their own lifestyles in live broadcasts. So, through the small screen, we see mushroom pickers who go into the mountains once a year, long-distance bus drivers running on the highway, boatmen in ancient water towns, takeaway boys on the streets of the city... Through live broadcasts, all kinds of people from far away have become connected to our lives and even created emotional connections. But further, when lifestyles are commercialized through live broadcasts, what the anchors gain through live broadcasts is not only attention or emotional support from netizens, but also real economic income. It is for this reason that live broadcasts, an emerging network application that can best establish a mechanism for direct dialogue between anchors and fans, best form emotional arousal at both ends of the screen, and best match the corresponding scenes and atmosphere, have attracted the entry of many anchors and many audiences. In the final analysis, live broadcasts are a typical epitome of the current traffic economy.
Therefore, we should be more aware that the live broadcasting on the Internet, which is broadcast everywhere, at all times, and in all places, has problems that cannot be ignored or avoided. In addition to the phenomena such as spreading false or inflammatory information, inappropriate words and deeds during live broadcasts, and concocting or hyping topics, which can be regulated by the "hard bars" of laws and regulations, there are also some chaos in the current live broadcasts that are on the "soft edge" that need to be vigilant and regulated. In particular, some anchors mentioned above are overexposed during live broadcasts or suspected of intruding on the lives of ordinary people, and the "entry" without informed consent not only brings psychological pressure or inconvenience to the "live broadcasters", but also infringes on their rights and interests, and is prone to disputes. Setting up live broadcast equipment anytime and anywhere or anchors occupying positions for a long time will also occupy public resources that should be shared by the whole society, leading to obstruction or interference with social public order. These are issues that need to be paid attention to and resolved.
To find solutions to these problems, we need to work together from multiple angles, including the live streamers, platforms, and the industry environment. The anchors should establish a clear legal awareness, respect the portrait rights and right to know of others, legally and reasonably choose the live broadcast scene, and block or inform irrelevant others who may appear in the camera, or use software to render and block them; for the platform, it is necessary to establish a more convenient complaint mechanism, establish a fast processing channel for ordinary people to deal with irresponsible live broadcast content, simplify the complicated process of evidence collection and rights protection, and cite the "safe harbor principle" and "red flag principle" in intellectual property protection, and delete or remove obvious infringements or infringing content with reasonable and clear evidence in advance; for the industry environment, it is necessary to further establish a clear correlation between "legitimate content" and "legitimate benefits", so that the tangible or intangible benefits obtained by "controversial content" or "infringing content" can be rolled back or necessary penalties can be imposed, and the live broadcast content pool can be purified. To borrow the words of netizens, it is to let live broadcast "return to its original appearance." (The author is the vice dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University)
