Guangming Daily article: Don’t let webcast become a hotbed of vulgar culture

Webcast is the development of the Internet The hotness of the new things it brings is not accidental. Webcasting conforms to the development law of Internet communication: Webcasting without geographical restrictions realizes cross-regional communication; intuitive and convenient ways of participation allow webcasting to have a large audience; low threshold, high interactivity, openness, and real-time characteristics allow Participants are more sticky. In the process of webcasting, participants gradually cultivated a sense of belonging and value identity through likes, bullet screens, and rewards, and the dissemination of culture and values ​​was completed imperceptibly in this process.

In recent years, with the rise of Internet short video platforms, webcasting has entered the “3.0 era”, and the economy behind the platform’s promotion, live broadcast rewards, and traffic monetization Driven by interests, webcasting ushered in a new round of outbreak. More and more anchors have joined in, making the group of live webcasts become increasingly large. According to the statistics of “China’s Online Performance (Live Broadcast) Industry Development Report 2020”, the current live broadcast industry has over 130 million anchor accounts and 617 million users, and there are even “live broadcast villages” dedicated to live broadcasts in many places. The popularity of the live broadcast and the low barriers to entry have resulted in a mixed crowd of anchors today. The quality of the anchors is uneven, some anchors education level is not high, the cultural quality is low, the awareness of laws and regulations is weak; in order to be in the live broadcast To attract more viewers, get more rewards, and achieve traffic realization, some anchors start to do everything.

Early webcasting mainly focused on talent shows, game live broadcasts, and life-based live broadcasts, with special skills. And entering the current live broadcast room, exaggerated filters, strange makeup, twisted performances, and boring and vulgar language continue to impact people’s aesthetic perception, making people suspect that they have entered another human space. Many anchors use a variety of vulgar methods that break through the conventions to gain attention and gain positions. “Ugly, weird, fake, and vulgar” has gradually become a trend. Various live broadcasts involving obscene language and pornography and crimes not only break through the moral bottom line, but also violate laws and regulations. Outside of the live broadcast room, the pursuit of traffic also has a very bad impact. “Brother Coat” has become popular, and a group of anchors who don’t work hard and spy on other people’s privacy live all the year round at the door of the house, making life unpleasant. “Brother Ramen” was on fire. Netizens from all over the country crowded the village. Hundreds of mobile phones almost The same content is being broadcast live at the same time. The pursuit of traffic has caused many broadcasters to abandon the bottom line of values. There are reports that, in the face of such a live broadcast, “villagers dare not let their children watch it, for fear that they will be biased”.

In this way, the webcast has “changed its taste”. Click on any live video platform. Vulgar live broadcast has become a trend of spread, and people have to arouse people’s vigilance and attention. What is shocking is that a large number of fans in the live broadcast room are paying for these vulgar live broadcasts, not only rewarding and supporting these anchors, but even praising these vulgar anchors as stars. When an inferior anchor is banned, there are still a large number of fans complaining about it. It can be seen that this kind of live broadcast of vulgar culture has seriously polluted the network environment and network culture, and its negative impact on society is also profound.

It is understandable that webcasting itself has a certain degree of entertainment, but webcasting cannot become a hotbed of vulgar culture, allowing it to grow wildly. In view of the huge audience and influence of webcasting, webcasting should have become a platform to promote the main theme and promote the core values ​​of socialism; webcasters should be a medium for spreading truth, goodness and beauty and positive energy. The live broadcast eventually becomes a malignant tumor with harmful values, which in turn endangers the healthy growth of young people, forms an undesirable demonstration effect, interferes with the correct aesthetic judgment of society, impacts the bottom line of human values, and produces extremely serious negative effects.

After all, grandstanding and ugly appraisal are not the future of the development of webcasting. In the face of the current situation, webcasting platforms should increase their efforts to crack down on vulgar anchors, raise the barriers to entry for the live broadcast industry, guide the live broadcast industry to a more professional development, and promote a new round of reshuffle of the industry. Tilt traffic to high-quality content, and let excellent anchors who conform to the core values ​​of socialism become traffic influencers. The network must create a clean and vigorous cultural ecology; the network culture must promote the main theme, spread positive energy, the tone is elegant, the style is fresh, the pursuit of nobility, and the realm of high. We must be vigilant, and the task of opposing vulgar culture has a long way to go.

(Author: Zong Bo, assistant researcher at the Institute of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

“Guangming Daily” (2021 September 29th Edition 16)