On the innovation of mainstream media’s external communication strategy
Absrtact: China International Television (China Global Television Network) (hereinafter referred to as CGTN) is a new flagship of international communication created by CCTV. As a window to show the image of China, CGTN has made a series of new explorations and attempts. Combing CGTN’s innovative practices and exploratory practices in external communication, the current international communication pattern and the current situation of China’s external communication is of great benefit to how to continue to take the road of external communication with China characteristics.
Keywords: CGTN；; China media; External dissemination
Communication power determines influence, and discourse power determines initiative. Looking around the world, China is still facing a severe international communication environment. In 1942, lazarsfeld put forward three "effective conditions" to improve the communication effect in The Effect of Broadcasting on Public Opinion. In 1948, it was transformed into three concepts: monopoly, channel and supplement. Based on these three conditions, China’s international communication faces three major dilemmas: first, the pattern of "strong in the west and weak in me" has existed for a long time, which is mainly manifested in the normality of "monopoly" and the lack of "anti-propaganda"; Second, China’s media industry is large in scale and has little influence. Eighty percent of the global information comes from the four major English news agencies, while the global information of Chinese media accounts for only 4%, with insufficient voice channels and poor information communication. Third, the awareness, strategies and skills of cross-cultural communication are relatively scarce.
In his congratulatory letter to the launch of China International Television (China Global Television Network), President Xi stressed that China International Television (China Global Television Network) should strengthen its cultural self-confidence, insist on news establishment, be close to the audience in an all-round way, implement integrated communication, tell the story of China well and spread the voice of China well with rich information, distinctive China perspective and broad world vision, so that the world can know a colorful China and show China’s contribution as a builder of world peace and global development. Therefore, although CGTN has just set sail, it has a high starting point and a heavy mission, and its launch will definitely open up a new situation and bring a new atmosphere to China’s external communication.
First, CGTN: the new flagship of China’s external communication
CGTN was established on the basis of the original CCTV NEWS and other foreign language channels of CCTV. At present, CGTN has formed a global TV network covering 6 TV channels, 1 video news agency, 3 mobile clients and self-media matrix built on various mainstream social platforms. In addition, China Global Radio and Television Co., Ltd. has successfully set up an overall operation system independent of CCTV in terms of content production, media cooperation, introduction of professional talents, overseas branch construction and overseas promotion.
CGTN takes "see the difference" as its core concept, aiming to make the world hear China’s voice, and at the same time, it hopes to tell the story of China in a different way from the traditional one, so that the world can pay attention to the situation in developing regions such as Asia, Africa and Latin America that are ignored by the mainstream western media.
The famous German philosopher Cassirer once said: "Symbolic thinking and symbolic behavior are the most representative features of human life, and all the development of human society depends on these conditions." In different language systems, the process of external communication is "coding (by the communicator)-decoding (by the translator)-decoding (by the receiver)". However, at present, there are still some deficiencies in the selection of symbols, the innovation of communication tools and the compilation and assembly of symbol codes in Chinese media. CGTN has made many pioneering explorations and attempts in view of the difficulties faced by Chinese media in external communication.
Second, the new exploration of external communication: building relationships to aggregate audiences and innovating content to attract audiences.
The latest technologies such as big data, cloud computing, mobile communication and artificial intelligence have profoundly changed the current mode of communication, media structure and audience characteristics, and promoted a new round of reshuffle of the international communication structure in a certain sense. This trend is both an opportunity and a challenge for us. If we can build and make good use of new media positions, we can achieve overtaking in corners in the international communication pattern. Since CGTN’s launch, it has given priority to mobile layout, extensively operated new media, innovated reporting methods and content, and made many beneficial attempts in building a new relationship between transmission and reception and enhancing the attractiveness of reporting content.
(A) the layout of mobile clients and the operation of new media to build a new relationship between transmission and reception.
Seize the position of new media and build an organized communication system. When CGTN was launched, it launched three apps based on different terminals and containing different content functions, and launched them on four platforms including Google play and Amazon. At the same time, it has settled in 10 domestic and foreign social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Taking Facebook and Twitter as examples, CGTN has opened several sub-accounts in France, Africa and the United States in addition to the main account, forming a huge social media communication matrix. CGTN mobile news network, news client and social account promote and take care of each other in the daily dissemination and release process, and can be linked to other platforms through any platform. In addition, within the same social platform, there are frequent exchanges and interactions between the main account and each sub-account, and each account has a relatively dense "mutual powder" and a high-density information forwarding frequency, forming a relatively complete organizational communication system architecture.
Divide the functions of various media, and focus communication can meet different needs. In view of the fact that the target audience is young overseas groups, and their cultural background, acceptance habits and information needs are greatly different, CGTN is committed to mass communication and defines its functional orientation. For example, as an information integrated client, the mobile client caters to the audience’s reading habits and meets the audience’s demand for news; CGTNLIVE focuses on meeting the audience’s demand for watching live video. In addition, on the social media platform, CGTN also adopts a differentiated communication strategy to expand the information coverage and satisfy the audience in all directions. Taking Twitter platform as an example, CGTN’s Twitter accounts are mainly divided into two categories, one is the official account, and the other is the private account of CGTN’s anchor or reporter. Official accounts are divided into main accounts and accounts in different languages, mainly to meet the information needs of multinational audiences, and the number of "following" accounts in various languages even exceeds the main account; Private accounts are more flexible and lively, and often publish stories behind the news desk, share the feelings of hosting interviews, and comment on hot events.
Maintain platform activity and continuously enhance user stickiness. CGTN client pushes and updates news from China and other parts of the world to users in real time. The number of daily news updates in the political section is more than 30, and the rest sections are maintained at more than 10 every day. At the same time, the client also sorted out the most important, most read and favorite news rankings for the audience, so as to facilitate the audience to grasp the core news information in time. The number of posts and the number of followers are important factors to measure the activity of social media accounts, from which the audience aggregation ability can be inferred. CGTN’s main Twitter account has 2.69 million followers, and there are about 20 daily tweets. Each tweet is retweeted and quoted more than 50 times, and the proportion of original tweets is high. And also actively participate in the discussion of topics with China’s "Hashtags". Facebook’s main account has reached 48 million followers, 49 million like users, more than 30 daily posts, and more than 10,000 users left "mood" in one third of posts.
(2) Innovating information presentation methods and optimizing news reports to enhance user stickiness.
The way of reporting adopts the means of integrating media to realize multimedia interaction. Judging from CGTN’s recent operation and information released to the outside world, the reporting forms are diverse and rich, and news information is collected at one time, generated in multiple ways and disseminated in multiple ways; A piece of news mostly integrates words, pictures, videos and tables, and interprets the information in an all-round way, highlighting its visualization, enhancing its readability and satisfying readers’ selectivity. Virtual technology is high-end, multi-dimensional and augmented reality. According to reports, CGTN Studio, located on the third floor of CCTV headquarters building, adopts a brand-new plasma splicing large screen with ultra-high definition resolution and ion resolution, which can meet the long-term live broadcast application; Use advanced technologies such as online virtual, AR, virtual tracking, and use big data to present the synchronous interaction between viewers and programs in real time. The technological development at the level of artifacts is the material basis for external communication, and the high-end presentation of content+technology and news information is conducive to attracting young audiences.
The content of the report adheres to the original criteria and actively sets the topic. For the first time, the original interactive page of current affairs reports was set up, and the major current affairs hotspots in China were pushed in the form of thematic classification to realize the characteristic reports of China stories; Integrating political, economic, cultural, social, educational and scientific fields, insisting on originality, enriching content and creating fine products, CGTN’s window to the international market has been fully opened. To publicize and explain the characteristics of China, the key is to make clear the historical tradition, cultural accumulation and basic national conditions. In this regard, CGTN took the initiative to set the topic, and opened many windows such as "Trending Stories of 2016" to describe the true appearance of China to the world: profound cultural traditions, deep spiritual pursuit, far-reaching development path and deep national complex.
In order to pursue the effective landing of external communication, we must first cross the communication barriers, skillfully use explanatory words, make good use of corrective words, dispel doubts and doubts, and respond to rectification. CGTN reports in English, speaks with facts, and provides special live broadcast platforms, including English channel, Spanish channel, French channel and Russian channel. CGTN is committed to the dialectical interaction between "local internationalization" and "international localization", and is committed to the focused communication of "international expression of China news" and "China perspective of international news", which has laid a good foundation for cross-cultural communication.
Third, the new idea of external communication: build a flagship brand, improve the organizational system, pay attention to mass communication and expand media services.
To take the road of external communication well, we should not only proceed from the overall situation, but also proceed from the details. At present, the Internet has subverted the international communication pattern and communication ecology dominated by traditional media. If CGTN wants to become a world-class brand media, it must proceed from reality, make diversified self-creation and self-polishing in concepts, theories, business and management, and constantly meet the needs of international communication competition.
(A) to establish brand awareness, establish a larger logo system.
The international communication ability of domestic media is not that the larger the scale, the better the communication effect; Instead, we must find our own position and establish brand awareness. At present, it is conscious and difficult for mainstream media in China to build brands. It is mentioned that the mainstream media in the world, such as BBC, are models of public service; CNN, positioned as "being the first person to know"; Al Jazeera declared, "If everyone watches CNN, what is CNN watching? They are watching Al Jazeera "; When it comes to the mainstream media in China, the international audience and even the major western communication scholars interviewed, they can’t think of proper positioning words. CGTN puts forward the slogan of "See the difference" in a high-profile way, but on the road of innovation, how to avoid falling into convergence needs to find another way.
In the process of CGTN gradually forming scale, on the basis of cross-cultural communication, it is necessary to accurately locate and design sound logo, text logo, image logo, behavior logo and thinking logo with high "return rate" and low "bounce rate" to form its own unique brand recognition system.
(B) improve the new media communication system to attract more young overseas audiences.
At present, the layout of CGTN’s mobile terminals and social media has been basically completed, and the organizational structure is relatively complete, which has achieved good communication effects. However, compared with powerful media such as CNN and The New York Times, there is still a big gap, which is mainly manifested in the single attribute division of self-media accounts, and the weak ability to predict and plan news hot events.
To this end, CGTN should first strengthen the construction of multi-attribute social media accounts. At present, CGTN’s social accounts are mainly institutional accounts. In order to narrow the distance with the audience, we should also focus on building individual accounts and transactional accounts. The construction of individual accounts should be based on the personal accounts of CGTN’s influential anchors, journalists and commentators, promote and recommend each other through packaging publicity and matrix effect from the media, and then increase the voice of hot topics, enhance their popularity through interaction with internationally renowned media people and media organizations, and gradually cultivate a group of influential "international opinion leaders" to enhance CGTN’s public opinion guidance in the media platform.
The construction of transaction account is closely related to CGTN’s ability to participate in hot events in the international community, especially those involving China. In the new media era when the audience’s attention is increasingly limited, hot emergencies or even public opinion crises are the best time to enhance and show their influence. Therefore, when international hot events happen, CGTN, as the flagship of China’s international publicity, can’t just participate in the discussion of topics with "Hashtags" on the social media stage, but should build relevant accounts, actively release information, set the agenda, guide public opinion, interact with institutional accounts and individual accounts, and truly get involved in hot events in an all-round, multi-level and wide-ranging way.
(C) pay attention to cross-cultural communication and make information products suitable for foreign media communication.
"Media is an extension of human beings", and human understanding of the world depends on all kinds of media. To achieve effective cross-cultural communication, the key is to attach importance to the construction of the discourse system of foreign communication; The key to making information products suitable for foreign media communication is to create new concepts, new categories and new expressions that integrate China and foreign countries, so that "China Voice" can not only be heard, but also put into the brain and heart, and realize the multi-level communication of China’s story by "shaping others". Language is the first priority in building a discourse system with China characteristics, so CGTN needs to assemble a group of outstanding foreign translators, improve the theoretical literacy and media literacy of foreign translators, accurately understand Chinese and Western cultures, and objectively express the original intention of discourse; In terms of language expression skills, in order to attract young overseas audiences, "storytelling" should follow the logical thinking mode of the target audience, innovate the expression mode, narrow the distance with overseas audiences with humanization and closeness, and achieve the communication effect of "salt in water".
(D) Develop media service functions to meet the more professional information needs of the audience.
In the era of all-media, the main body of news communication is gradually generalized, and it is difficult for professional news communication organizations to attract audiences only by news business. Western international communication giants have begun to shift their main business from news business to providing information services to provide more accurate, professional and high-quality information to core audiences. This behavior of western communication giants is driven by market and capital, which is the only way for them to seek economic benefits. However, in this process, they have successfully gathered audiences and expanded their influence and communication power, which is of reference significance to CGTN, which aims to spread China’s voice and strive for the right to speak internationally.
In terms of providing media services, according to the platform characteristics and resource advantages of CGTN, the following services can be developed: First, in terms of content collection, information and data analysis services mainly aimed at the China market are provided by screening news information. To provide real-time financial information, price information and market changes for financial investment individuals and groups concerned about China’s market and policies, and provide information support for investors’ decision-making. Second, in content production, according to the audience’s needs and feedback, we regularly select CGTN’s popular, original and in-depth features, comments and other high-quality content, breaking the current traditional division of political, economic, social and other sectors, so as to aggregate high-quality content and aggregate the audience. Thirdly, in terms of content innovation, soft content is used to dig deep into vertical areas, such as adding channels such as China cuisine, Chinese clothes and China tourism, which will trigger discussion on related topics and stimulate readers’ interest in reading. In the future, CGTN can develop more clients based on media services and related vertical content, because clients with different functions have greater audience demand and stronger user stickiness.
(The author is the editor of the Radio and Television Department of the People’s Liberation Army News and Communication Center)
Editor in charge: Lu Junping
