jiang qiaolei: to manage the chaos of risky live broadcasts, we should start with internal and external factors
2024-09-09
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
recently, typhoon makar landed in wenchang, hainan and xuwen, guangdong, causing serious disasters. while the super typhoon attracted the attention of the entire network, a few people chose to risk live broadcasting just to win the likes and attention of users and earn traffic. there was even a crazy move of "like the anchor and go to the rooftop". although most of these live broadcast rooms were quickly banned by the platform, this kind of risky live broadcast chaos of "traffic first" is worthy of vigilance.
this is not the first time that such risky live broadcasting has occurred. in the past, there have been many cases of people refusing to evacuate during rainstorm disasters, insisting on staying in the disaster area to live broadcast, which resulted in missing the evacuation opportunity, bringing additional burdens to rescue workers and even causing danger. this kind of risky live broadcasting that chases traffic not only threatens the life and safety of the anchor, but also affects the rescue work, and will also lead to bad guidance and cause serious social harm. why is there such a risky live broadcast that harms others and oneself?
behind these behaviors are the results of the combined effects of internal push and external pull. the internal push mainly includes the pursuit of excitement by some anchors and their desire to gain attention and fans on social media. on the one hand, the adventurous behavior of live-streaming extreme weather or climate disasters can indeed satisfy the audience's curiosity, quickly attract attention, and meet the anchor's psychological needs to pursue traffic. in order to stand out from the fiercely competitive live-streaming industry and gain more attention, likes, rewards, and advertising cooperation, they constantly test the bottom line of risk to obtain unique content, increase the number of views and topic of live broadcasts. on the other hand, some anchors are motivated by the pursuit of social recognition and belonging. in the era of social media, personal image and identity often need to be constructed through the recognition of others. for some anchors, showing their "bravery" and "uniqueness" in extreme weather is one of the ways to gain social recognition and belonging, thereby satisfying their self-worth realization. this is also an extreme manifestation of alienation from social media.
the external pull is mainly related to the network environment. compared with the real environment, the network environment shows less restraint and higher self-disclosure in behavior, which may lead to the rapid spread of risk information and bring hidden dangers to social stability. at the same time, major events such as natural disasters such as typhoons often attract widespread social attention and become hot topics for public discussion. the two together constitute the background for disaster-related live broadcast content to become the "traffic password". in addition, the recommendation mechanism based on the algorithm of the live broadcast platform will also push high-heat and high-interaction content to more users, which invisibly encourages anchors to pursue more exciting and topical content, and the incentive mechanism such as rewards and sharing of live broadcasts also prompts some anchors to blindly pursue higher traffic and attention. in the rapidly developing online live broadcast industry, there is a certain lag in the regulatory system, and the norms and constraints on live broadcast behavior during disasters are not clear enough, which also provides space for some anchors to take risks to a certain extent.
to effectively manage this chaos, we need to take a two-pronged approach to address the internal and external motivations behind risky live streaming.
first, in terms of legal norms, my country has currently passed a number of laws and regulations, such as the "cybersecurity law of the people's republic of china", to regulate live streaming behaviors. however, the definition of responsibility and consequences of such behaviors as anchors' risky live streaming still require clear governance boundaries and continued efforts to increase publicity and education.
secondly, live broadcast platforms should also adjust the algorithm's recommendation and supervision function modules in a timely manner, continuously improve and enhance the efficiency of content review and management mechanisms, and promptly discover and deal with live broadcast content suspected of violating laws and regulations. for example, the banning of live broadcast platforms this time was relatively timely, and to a large extent controlled the adverse effects that illegal live broadcasts might cause. at the same time, platforms should strictly implement relevant live broadcast content regulations, take corresponding punishment measures against illegal anchors, and make them public, so as to strengthen the guidance and management of anchors and form a professional anchor team with sufficient safety awareness, high media literacy, and strong sense of social responsibility.
finally, the media should work together with the platform to form a correct understanding of disasters and adventures in society. during disasters, anchors should pay attention to disaster prevention, mitigation and rescue work, disseminate relevant knowledge such as personal protection, and convey positive social energy; the public should also watch live broadcasts rationally, avoid blindly pursuing excitement and curiosity while ignoring safety, and more professional media with better safety protection are more trustworthy sources for reporting disasters. (the author is a tenured associate professor at the school of journalism and communication, tsinghua university)
