A crisis in COVID-19 has aroused the social responsibility and communication potential of different types of media actors, and a modern communication system led by national policies, based on mainstream media and involving market forces has taken shape. The construction of media integration of mainstream media is entering the stage of deepening integration. Five aspects, such as technology-driven production transformation, short video client construction and operation, local media integration center construction, Internet international communication and Internet platform governance, will become hot issues that need to be innovated and explored in the practical field of applied news communication.
Keywords: the application of news communication innovation cases, anti-epidemic reports and integrated communication
Since 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak, a sudden and far-reaching global public health emergency, has tested the governance capacity of countries all over the world, and also brought challenges to the news communication industry which is accelerating the process of media integration. In China and COVID-19, after the outbreak, different types of media communication actors focused on anti-epidemic communication, highlighted their responsibility, and handed over vivid answers to innovative anti-epidemic reports.
With the goal of "prospering the research of journalism practice and promoting the development of applied communication", the Applied Journalism and Communication Research Association of China Journalism History Society has selected innovative cases of applied journalism and communication for four consecutive years since 2017. Ten innovative cases of China’s application news communication in 2020 include: major event fusion report (news new media center of Central Radio and Television General Station), report on fighting COVID-19 epidemic (report group in front of Xinhua News Agency in Wuhan), Hubei Daily Media Center (Hubei Daily Media Group), "Changjiang Cloud" (Hubei Changjiang Yunxin Media Group), "Sichuan Watch" Tik Tok (Sichuan Radio and Television Media Group), Sina Mobile (Sina News Client), Content paid exploration (Southern Weekend), original digital content products (Sanlian Life Weekly), Aauto Quicker live e-commerce to help farmers (Aauto Quicker Science and Technology), "Lilac Doctor" (Hangzhou Lianke Meixun Biomedical Technology Co., Ltd.).
The 2020 Innovation Case Awards Conference was hosted by the School of Journalism and Communication, Minzu University of China. At the conference, a new book, Ten Innovative Cases of Applied Journalism Communication in China (Series III), was also released, which introduced in detail the analysis of the top ten innovative cases in 2019 by the industry and academic circles and the development trend of applied journalism communication in technology, emotion, channels and operation. The 2020 China Applied Journalism and Communication Forum also held three sub-forums, with the themes of "New Paradigm: Media Transformation and Integration Practice", "New Path: Technological Change and Communication Strategy" and "New Ecology: Platform Society and Digital Survival".
Anti-epidemic reporting and integrated communication by multiple communication actors
In the news reporting and media communication against the epidemic, the professional media represented by People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, the vertical institutional media represented by Dr. Lilac, and the Internet platform media such as Sina, ByteDance and Aauto Quicker have demonstrated the active innovation and frontier exploration of the deep integration of different types of communication actors.
The mainstream media of the central government and provinces and cities adopt the method of integrated reporting, release authoritative information and interpret anti-epidemic policies, and play a cohesive role with positive publicity. In response to Wuhan’s fight against the epidemic, the News and New Media Center of the Central Radio and Television General Station launched the live broadcast of "Common War Epidemic" all day for 73 days, and broadcasted more than 300 national and local key press conferences throughout the whole process, fully mobilizing UGC resources such as reporters, medical staff, volunteers and international students in front, and inviting experts such as Zhong Nanshan and Zhang Wenhong to open more than 50 issues of "War Epidemic" and slowly broadcast "Two Gods Mountain". In less than a month and a half, the cumulative viewing volume of "Common War Epidemic" on various platforms reached 7.475 billion. Previously, "slow live broadcast" was mainly used for live broadcast in scenic spots, and the representative CCTV "Panda Channel" was mainly about shooting the national treasure panda. During the epidemic, slow live broadcast was involved in the report of major emergencies for the first time and became a new form of hard news communication.
Xinhua News Agency set up a front reporting headquarters, and dispatched key reporters and editors from the head office and branches across the country to form a reporting team of more than 90 people together with Xinhua News Agency reporters from Hubei Branch. In Hubei, especially Wuhan, the front line of prevention and control, through all-media coverage, brought the audience to the core site. News, Vlog, in-depth reports and other forms have built an all-round and three-dimensional reporting matrix, among which the highest number of views of a single group of new media reports is close to 2.5 billion. In addition, the "Xinhua Commentary" was published in time to effectively help fight the epidemic. As a national news agency, Xinhua News Agency has shown its main role in this anti-epidemic report.
As the media in the "storm center", Hubei Daily integrates all resources, strengthens the power of new media, and takes the initiative to launch the battle of integrated communication. Hubei Daily Media Center arranges special personnel to take charge of special columns, pays attention to setting topics on platforms such as Tik Tok, Weibo and WeChat WeChat official account, selects topics in hot spots, and guides the public to participate in discussions. Set up the Tik Tok Collection of "Uniting as One, Overcoming the Epidemic", with 10 Weibo topics with a reading volume of over 10 million, and realize the "broken circle" spread of high-quality content on the short video platform.
Hubei Radio and Television Station, led by the "Yangtze Cloud" APP, gradually upgraded the Yangtze Cloud from a media service platform for Hubei Radio and Television Station to a comprehensive mobile new media platform for the whole province. While providing epidemic news, Changjiang Cloud has also built an epidemic mutual aid system to conduct real-time public opinion monitoring and play the role of an anti-epidemic information hub. During the epidemic prevention period, "Changjiang Cloud" advocated and launched the "blockchain editorial department" together with 16 provincial platforms across the country to explore innovative mechanisms in the content sharing and communication cooperation of epidemic reports. At the same time, it helps the national news release work by means of remote video connection+radio and television 5G live broadcast, which is the first practical application of 700MHz+4.9GHz radio and television 5G in the front line of epidemic prevention and control.
Some market-oriented media also sent reporters to the scene in the early stage of the epidemic, presenting a complex picture of major issues with investigative reports and explanatory reports, so that the audience can understand the epidemic crisis more comprehensively and complicatedly. Sanlian Life Weekly attaches importance to depicting the anti-epidemic actions of ordinary people and paying attention to people’s hearts under the epidemic situation, which is inseparable from its orientation of emphasizing "life". Manuscripts such as "My 69 Hours and 33 Minutes under the Ruins of Quanzhou Isolation Hotel" and "Oral Notes by First-line Doctors in Wuhan Emergency Department: I wish the winter would pass earlier" use the first-person oral method to restore the scene of news events, show the inner activities of the characters delicately, and achieve good communication effect with strong story and high readability. Based on the original content, Sanlian refined IP, developed a series of products and knowledge services such as books, audio and video around IP, and gradually built an integrated media communication ecosystem based on WeChat WeChat official account, paper magazine, Weibo, Tik Tok, Chinese Reading client and brands such as "Pinecone Life" and "Panda Tea Garden".
Southern Weekend adheres to the concept of "content is king", deeply cultivates original content, and establishes a quantitative soft news pay walls, which has achieved staged success, which can be described as a double harvest of social and economic benefits. At the same time, it also launched knowledge paid products such as "non-fiction writing", "critical writing" and "new media creative empowerment class", which were favored by young netizens.
"Doctor Clove" shows its unique advantages in professional information service and knowledge dissemination, taking the lead in launching epidemic maps, setting up rumor columns, disseminating health information and knowledge, adding original reporting teams and publishing a series of in-depth works. After the occurrence of major public events, the vertical domain institutional media intervened in public affairs and served public communication with a more mainstream attitude and role.
In addition, the Internet platform media, characterized by digitalization and infrastructure, has further strengthened its role as a hub and service in epidemic prevention and control. From accurately dispelling rumors to exchanging material information, from extracting health data to tracking group migration, the platform media has increasingly become a "catalyst" for improving national governance capacity. For example, in recent years, Sina Mobile has taken "smart+"mobile information media as the core, creating a full-scene, full-link intelligent media ecosystem. During the anti-epidemic period, Sina News provided real-time epidemic data, visual epidemic map, practical epidemic inquiry, epidemic prevention knowledge popularization and other services in one stop, and linked epidemic prevention and control resources by relying on help-seeking, fund-raising channels and material information, and integrated social forces to cooperate in fighting the epidemic.
While releasing the technical potential, Internet platform media also pay more and more attention to social responsibility in public communication. Aauto Quicker launched the "100-city county magistrate live broadcast to help" activity, and jointly launched public welfare live broadcast to sell goods and other activities with CCTV news, so as to help economic recovery with the explosive growth of live broadcast e-commerce format. Previously, Aauto Quicker’s short video closely followed the national precise poverty alleviation strategy, and used live e-commerce to promote consumption and help agriculture, thus realizing the organic combination of platform development and social welfare.
When the Internet platform becomes the communication "stage" for multi-media actors, professional media continue to look for "spotlight" on the platform media. With "short video+live broadcast" as its core product idea, "Sichuan Watch" Tik Tok has updated short videos with the most diligent attitude since 2020, attracting more than 40 million fans and becoming the most influential provincial mainstream media video number. "Watch the 24-hour uninterrupted slow live broadcast" provides a network sharing space for accounts and users to empathize, and the number of viewers at the peak period exceeded 22 million. Through effective resource integration, "Sichuan Watch" realized the effective docking between professional media and platform media by virtue of quality, speed and network sense, and improved the coverage and arrival rate of mainstream public opinion communication.
Generally speaking, a crisis in COVID-19 has aroused the social responsibility and communication potential of different types of media actors, and a modern communication system led by national policies, based on mainstream media and involving market forces has taken shape. It is not difficult to foresee that if these multi-media actors can perform their duties and play a good cooperation mechanism, the energy of the media to help modernize national governance will be released to a greater extent.
Innovative path of applied news communication in the process of deep integration
Grasp major issues and strengthen the production and distribution of original content. In this sudden public health crisis, it is very important for the public to obtain relevant information in time. Focusing on this important issue, the media should present valuable facts, significance and truth from multiple levels and angles, and try their best to satisfy the public’s right to know.
Original content is the basis for the media to form a "1+N" pattern of media production, distribution and communication. It is a call of duty for journalists to go to the news scene, directly attack and report on the scene. Only when they arrive in Wuhan, the center of the epidemic storm, can they witness the construction of the hospital, record the process of treating diseases and saving lives, and report the joys and sorrows of the people who have experienced the test of life and death. Only by insisting on the production of original content can the report have exclusive value.
Pay attention to visual form and reflect the public value of mainstream media. No video, no transmission. Content visualization has become an essential form of media reports, and the group size of consuming online audio-visual content has also increased rapidly.
There are four main visual forms of anti-epidemic reporting and dissemination. One is live broadcast, including the innovative application of "slow live broadcast". The construction of Raytheon Mountain and Huoshenshan Hospital, and the growth process of Wuhan newborn "Little Pomegranate" were slowly broadcast by the Central Radio and Television General Station, and related topics frequently appeared on hot search. The second is short video. "Changjiang Cloud" fragmented and unpacked the key information of the epidemic situation, such as case diagnosis and rumor dispelling, and distributed it on major audio-visual platforms by means of "live broadcast+Tik Tok" to provide timely, true and concise information for the audience. The third is visual chart. "Lilac Doctor" and Sina Weibo have made full use of epidemic data, launched epidemic maps and real-time broadcast services, and provided intuitive and dynamic epidemic information. The fourth is comics, posters and other visual creative products. Changjiang Cloud joined forces with the national mainstream media platform to launch a creative poster "Face to Face", calling on "Face" from all over the country to cheer for Regan Noodles in Wuhan, so as to represent the people of the whole country and fight the epidemic together with the people of Wuhan and Hubei.
Highlight emotional communication and pay attention to improving the effectiveness of public opinion guidance. From the top ten innovative cases of applied news communication, we can find that emotion has become a particularly obvious content element and expression form. Xinhua News Agency’s report on fighting the COVID-19 epidemic pays attention to the use of emotional communication to enhance the emotional tension of the works and achieve the communication effect of "connection-substitution-empathy". For example, the micro-video "A letter to my father" describes the deep affection between father and son, and "Today, unreachable love is everywhere" records the deep affection between husband and wife. Sanlian Life Weekly is also good at using personal perspective to carry out emotional narration, strengthen the sense of substitution and launch explosive products.
Generally speaking, emotion plays an increasingly important role in the spread of major events. In the past media reports, emotions also existed, such as the feelings of characters in objective reports. Today’s report, in addition to the emotion as a factual element, is strengthening the emotional rendering and emotional presentation of the whole work. In this regard, on the one hand, we should effectively grasp the emotional role in the overall reporting form and use these reports with emotional tension to attract and impress readers and stimulate emotional resonance; On the other hand, we should pay attention to avoid covering up the facts or truth because of the excessive amplification of emotions, and pay attention to the "degree" of emotional processing.
Adhere to professional quality and enhance the multiple functions of information dissemination. To report major public health events, journalists should not only have the basic ability of news gathering and writing, but also need to learn and accumulate certain medical professional knowledge. In this respect, as an Internet medical information platform, "Lilac Doctor" embodies the professional advantages that the general mass media does not have. From "Lilac Garden" to "Lilac Doctor", this vertical field of institutional media produces a lot of knowledge, attitude and temperature content. The professional authority of popular science articles, indicating the experts and references at the end of the article, has become the key to attract readers. "Doctor Clove" also founded "occasional cure" products, and hired professional journalists for in-depth reporting, reflecting stronger professional media functions and public service awareness. The connection function of Internet platform media has increasingly played the service value of public welfare assistance and resource integration.
The general enlightenment of applying innovative cases of news communication
The selection of the top ten innovative cases of applied news communication in China not only pays attention to the production innovation of news or pan-news content, but also pays attention to the communication innovation of news-related technologies, products and distribution. These cases were nominated and recommended by academic and industry experts, and the results were selected. ① They represent the practical frontier in the field of applied journalism and communication in China. Combing these 40 innovation cases selected from 2017 to 2020, we can get the following four inspirations:
Strengthen integrated reporting and mobile distribution. On the surface, fusion reporting is a cross-media narrative by using multimedia media such as words, audio and video, data charts and interactive animations, but in fact it points to choosing the best way to present news content, that is, according to the characteristics of news events or topics, choosing the method that is most suitable for their time and space bias to express and spread. After doing a good job in original production and integrated reporting of news content, we should actively use the Internet platform for mobile distribution to realize the continuous spread of original content from media release to platform diffusion and social distribution. At the same time, we should be good at making original content twice to match the spread laws of other super Internet platforms such as Weibo, WeChat and Tik Tok, and continuously improve the coverage and influence of our works.
Pay attention to technological change and innovation adoption. The transformation of media integration is a media transformation led by technological innovation, including professional media such as zhejiang daily press group Media Cube, which is self-renewing and technology-driven to reform the whole process of "planning, editing and publishing", and platform media such as Today Headline, which has taken technological innovation as its core power since its birth. Different types of media actors can become the core nodes of information transmission in a specific region or a specific field in the era of information explosion and information overload, and it is inseparable from the embrace and adoption of new technologies.
Encourage user participation and effect evaluation. At present, more and more media not only insist on institutional production content (PGC), but also encourage the public to produce content (UGC), and provide platforms for different types of institutions such as the government to produce content (PUGC). For example, the information material of pear video comes from photographers all over the world, which is verified, edited and published by a professional editing team. While absorbing massive content creation materials, it also accurately touches the "things around" of users. In daily operation, Pear Video will provide professional guidance to photographers to help them improve their information sensitivity and shooting quality. The production of crowdsourcing information, combined with professional checks, is an organic integration of openness and professionalism. In addition, the media should also evaluate the effect of content dissemination and public opinion guidance, so as to establish a "closed loop" from production to feedback. In this regard, the exploration of Xinhuanet Future Research Institute is worth looking forward to. They are good at data collection and innovative applications, and evaluate the communication effect in many scenes such as theaters.
Insist on in-depth reporting and public value. Although the network information is emerging and spreading in a massive blowout way, it is still the responsibility and value of the media to insist on original, in-depth and quality content investigation and reporting. The mainstream news media still insist on original in-depth reports, either in major public practices, or through the "news+data" approach to explore new original content. Some influential self-media or vertical institutional media have also gained a lot of public trust by virtue of "random news action".
Prospect of the development trend of applied news communication
In the past four years, the selection of the top ten innovative cases of applied journalism communication has promoted the exchange and dialogue between the academic circles and the industry, given incentives and contrast to multiple communication actors, and also helped the academic circles to broaden the research objects of journalism practice and improve the theoretical level of applied communication research. These 40 innovative cases provide an important window for observing and grasping the innovative practice of news communication, and also help us grasp the development trend of integrating news communication innovation.
The mainstream media has stepped up efforts to build short video clients. With the acceleration of deep media integration, some central and provincial mainstream media have accelerated the layout and operation of short video clients, such as "Central Video" of CCTV, "Tianmu News" of zhejiang daily press group and "N Video" of Southern Newspaper Media Group. It can be predicted that the competition of mainstream media in short video content production and short video client operation will focus more on content innovation, technological innovation and organizational innovation.
The acceleration of technology affects the transformation of news production and communication. Intelligent technologies such as hotspot tracking, virtual anchor, user portrait, sensitive identification and digital copyright are innovating news production in all directions, processes and processes. At the same time, negative problems or risks such as privacy leakage, algorithm bias, deep forgery, platform manipulation and value deviation are gradually exposed. The Research Report on the Use of Intelligent Media in China in 2020 shows that the positive impact of artificial intelligence technology in the media form dimension is significantly greater than that in the media content dimension. ② In the future, the media should still adhere to the correct content service orientation, enhance humanistic care, and realize technical rationality and mainstream information values.
County-level financial media construction helps improve the communication system. From 2018, the construction of 600 county-level media integration centers will be started first, and by 2020, the county-level media integration centers will achieve basic full coverage throughout the country. With the help of government departments, provincial media platforms and market forces, we will gradually find a development model tailored to local conditions. However, most county-level financial media still have problems such as rigid mechanism, lack of talents, weak technology, lack of funds and limited influence. At present, the construction of county-level integrated media is entering the stage of improving quality and increasing efficiency. Solving the profit model and the effect of public opinion guidance is the key point of breakthrough. Only by truly identifying the multiple roles and values of "news+government service business" proposed by the central government can we play a fundamental role in the construction of modern communication system.
Network communication will become the main channel of external publicity. Experts from the World Health Organization have pointed out that with the global epidemic, the information epidemic has also occurred on a large scale, and rumors, misunderstandings and even smears have frequently appeared in the field of international communication. China has also encountered these challenges and pressures. During the anti-epidemic period, government departments at all levels in China continued to hold press conferences, invite medical experts to be interviewed by foreign media, arrange mainstream media to speak overseas, spread real voices and convey China’s ideas. In the post-epidemic era, China’s international communication ability needs to be strengthened. The practice of telling China’s story well requires not only the participation of mainstream media and government departments, but also the participation of experts and scholars, self-media, online celebrity, foreigners in China and overseas students. The main channel and space of its international communication should be the world-renowned overseas social media platform.
The governance of Internet platform media is the focus of content supervision. Online consultation, network rumors, live e-commerce, online classroom and mobile office, the COVID-19 epidemic has comprehensively promoted the integration of offline and offline life, and also strengthened the public’s high dependence on various types of Internet platforms. The social platform represented by WeChat, the e-commerce platform represented by Taobao, the short video platform represented by Tik Tok and the life service platform represented by Meituan are showing the characteristics of infrastructure, connecting a wide range of diverse social groups and being deeply embedded in national and social governance. Internet platform has the leading advantages in content aggregation, intelligent technology and user stickiness, which is why the problems of platform monopoly, user privacy, digital labor, content orientation and data security are increasingly prominent. Since the beginning of this year, the state has successively issued a series of regulatory regulations and policies for Internet platforms. It is foreseeable that the governance of Internet platform media will be the top priority in the field of content supervision in the future.
To sum up, major public emergencies test the internal ecology of the media and the social function of the modern communication system, and the flowing characteristics of liquid journalism give different types of communication actors the opportunity to get out of the circle or break through. In the networked society where technological changes are changing with each passing day and the value of public interests is prominent, media practitioners and media actors should continue to embrace changes and take positive actions, promote the deep integration of media, explore the innovation of applied communication, and make new contributions to the news communication industry for the times, the people and the country.
This paper is a series of achievements of Guangdong province’s teaching quality and teaching reform project in 2020-provincial teaching team’s "Integrated News Report" and Guangdong province’s curriculum ideological and political construction reform demonstration project in 2020-provincial teaching team’s "News Interview and Writing".
(The author Zhang Zhian is a professor at the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University, and the president of the Applied Journalism and Communication Research Association of the Chinese Society of Journalism History; Li Jiahui is a master student at School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-sen University)
Editor in charge: Wu Yanzhen
Notes:
① Zhang Zhian: Benchmark, Path and Code of Media Integration and Innovation, News Front, June 2018 (I).
2 Huang Boyuan: "Heavy! Media Integration Research Center of Zhejiang University released Research Report on the Use of Intelligent Media in China in 2020, School of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University,
http://www.cmic.zju.edu.cn/2020/0701/c35554a2161242
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