Ten requirements for improving the effectiveness of news public opinion work in the era of all-media
Author: Ni Wan, vice president, professor and doctoral supervisor, School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University
Since the party’s symposium on news and public opinion work was held in 2016, marked by a series of important speeches by the Supreme Leader General Secretary, our understanding of news and public opinion work has entered a new stage. At present, the ecology of public opinion, the pattern of media and the mode of communication have undergone profound changes, and the work of news public opinion is facing new challenges. In 2020, the epidemic in COVID-19 made us deeply realize the importance of the news and public opinion front. At the deployment meeting of coordinating the prevention and control of epidemic situation and economic and social development in COVID-19, the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader particularly emphasized that it is necessary to "improve the effectiveness of news and public opinion work", which is also the inevitable path for China to realize the modernization of national governance capacity in the field of public opinion. In the all-media era, the whole process of news gathering, production, distribution, reception and feedback has undergone tremendous changes. Generally speaking, improving the effectiveness of news public opinion work should meet ten basic requirements.
One of the requirements: effectively judge the information environment.
In the era of all-media, new features have emerged in China’s information environment. First, in terms of international information environment, western media, represented by the United States, still have a monopoly position in the international public opinion field, and they do everything they can to strengthen the leading position of information technology and stabilize the monopoly of information field. Second, in terms of social and ideological environment, it is facing a great change that has never happened in a hundred years. The ecology of public opinion and the ideological situation of the public in China are more complicated and changeable, and the collision of ideas is more intense. There are different social ideological trends behind it, and capital forces representing different positions are involved in different degrees. At the same time, with the in-depth application of emerging media, the opinions of netizens show a typical trend of group polarization. Thirdly, in the aspect of media application environment, media application shows the core characteristics of socialization, mobility, intelligence and data, media content presents the mainstream expression of audio-visual, and media forms converge into a platform operation mode.
To effectively judge the international information environment, we must fully understand the ideological struggle behind the information environment and the long-term and difficult struggle for international discourse power; To effectively judge the social ideological environment, we must fully understand the characteristics and influence of the changes in China’s social ideological trend in the new era, and lay an ideological and cognitive foundation for the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity; To effectively judge the media application environment, it is necessary to have a deep understanding and control of the ecology of information content production and dissemination under the background of high-speed iteration of media technology.
Requirement 2: Grasp the communication opportunity effectively.
Time effect is the yardstick to test the work level of news public opinion. Whether it is theme propaganda, typical propaganda, achievement propaganda, or emergency reporting, hot spot guidance, and public opinion supervision, we must focus on time and efficiency and reflect the requirements of time and efficiency.
First, effectively grasp the opportunity from the law of news and public opinion communication. Grasping the opportunity is an inevitable requirement to follow the law of news public opinion dissemination, which depends on the different attributes of different events: some need to speak out immediately and be tit for tat; Some need to release public opinion and gradually guide; Some need to plan as a whole and move at the right time.
The second is to effectively use the opportunity from the operation law of the communication platform. From a global perspective, a diversified head platform matrix with obvious advantages has been formed, and the operating characteristics of each head platform are different, forming different communication characteristics and laws. The systematic use of cross-platform communication chain is an important guarantee for effectively grasping the communication opportunity.
The third is to effectively grasp the opportunity from the time law of user behavior. As far as the media resources used by all kinds of users are concerned, there are significant differences in the distribution of usage time, duration and type among different user groups, and at the same time, it also shows obvious regularity. Grasping the law of users’ use time is the practical basis for effectively grasping the communication opportunity.
The third requirement: effectively plan communication strategies.
How to plan the communication strategy effectively? We should seize the opportunity, grasp the rhythm, pay attention to strategies, be good at setting topics, and let the hot heat up and the cold cool down through the continuous supply of high-quality content.
First, the timing is accurate and the information is true. In the era of all-media, the network information from major media platforms is complex and has strong communication, but the content is inevitably biased and difficult to trace and verify. On the one hand, news media workers are required to pay more attention to the timeliness, authenticity and accuracy of information dissemination; on the other hand, higher requirements are put forward for the construction of the guiding force of new mainstream media: we should not only grasp the communication opportunity, but also always uphold the principle that authenticity is the life of news.
The second is to reflect the overall situation and grasp the rhythm. "What to report, what not to report, what to publicize more and what to publicize less must proceed from the overall situation and reflect the requirements of the overall situation." In the dialectical relationship between quantitative change and qualitative change, we should set topics, grasp the rhythm, and stress the systematic and effective balance between national reports and local reports, first reports and follow-up reports, news reports and in-depth reports.
The third is to enrich the content and respond to concerns. For the principles and policies of the party and the government and the issues that the people are concerned about, we should not stop at the simple presentation of information, but fully consider the people’s understanding ability and concern when formulating communication strategies, and fully interpret the major policies and specific policies of the party and the government.
Requirement 4: Effectively construct internal and external relations.
From the perspective of organizational communication, building a new mainstream media and shaping an all-media communication system requires the effective construction of a coordinated internal relationship among all components within the organization and a benign interaction with the external environment, which is the organizational guarantee for improving the effectiveness of news and public opinion work.
In terms of internal relations construction, the new mainstream media, as a special social organization, adheres to the party’s leadership over news and public opinion work, which is the premise for the operation of this news and public opinion organization. In specific work links, it is necessary to have an effective internal work coordination operation mechanism, an effective upper and lower communication management control mechanism, and an effective emergency management decision-making mechanism.
In terms of the construction of external relations, the media, as an integral part of the social system, is bound to face the problem of dealing with the external environment. Specifically, it is necessary to effectively coordinate the relationship with party and government organs, enterprises and institutions, social organizations, the general public and other media.
As General Secretary of the Supreme Leader requested, "We should establish the concept of propaganda, mobilize all fronts and departments to do it together, and more closely integrate propaganda and ideological work with administrative management, industry management and social management in various fields." The coordination of internal and external relations is the basis for completing this requirement.
Requirement 5: Effective production of media content
Under the background of all media, we should adhere to the advanced technology as the support and content construction as the foundation, and implement the requirements of the Supreme Leader General Secretary "to build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leading force, so that all the people can be closely United in ideals, beliefs, values and moral concepts".
Facing the new development situation at home and abroad, the effective production of media content should be presented strategically on the basis of implementing the "four self-confidences". For content production, we should be especially good at expressing, and the profound truth should impress and convince people by telling stories.
In terms of domestic communication, keeping integrity and innovation is the core of telling a good story. Keeping the right is to consolidate the foundation and cultivate the yuan, and always keep the direction, position, root vein and bottom line; Innovation means pioneering and innovating, and solving new problems with new ideas, ideas, methods and means. This requires news media workers to change their style of writing, bend down, calm down, examine the truth, tell the truth, move the truth, and strive to create works with thought, temperature and quality.
In terms of international communication, storytelling is the best way of international communication. We should make great efforts to strengthen the construction of international communication ability, including building a foreign discourse system and consolidating the semantic foundation of telling China’s story; Integrate new concepts, new categories and new expressions at home and abroad to lay a pragmatic foundation for telling China’s story well; Promote media integration, create key media for external publicity, and build a channel foundation for telling the story of China, so as to accelerate the promotion of the international influence of China’s discourse, so that the whole world can hear and hear China’s voice clearly.
Requirement 6: Effective use of communication skills.
In order to make the policy of giving priority to positive publicity achieve good results, we must effectively improve communication skills. A condescending, empty and tasteless news report with blunt language and rigid form can’t really touch people’s hearts, even if the content is no matter how good. Good ideas, concepts and contents should be expressed through vivid forms and various means in order to achieve the best publicity effect. It is necessary to adopt more popular forms, constantly enhance the vividness and visibility of news propaganda, and strive to improve the quality and level of news propaganda.
First, under the requirements of the in-depth development of media integration, with the help of the opportunity of all-media development, we should give full play to the advantages and characteristics of emerging media such as "two micro and one shake", various news clients, websites and forums.
Second, news, summary, sidelights, editorials, comments, charts, diagrams, short videos, H5, cartoons and other forms should be comprehensively used to enrich news language and creative skills.
The third is to improve interactivity, especially to innovate discourse forms and enhance the user stickiness of new mainstream media while ensuring positive publicity, so as to enhance the publicity effect.
The fourth is to be good at creating and exploring hot spots, while not blindly chasing hot spots. We should not only pay attention to the hot spots that netizens pay attention to, but also keep the seriousness, accuracy and politics of mainstream media.
Requirement 7: Effectively analyze user data.
With the continuous development of media technologies such as 5G, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, etc., mobile media with socialization, intelligence and data as the main line has entered an accelerated development stage. From audience to netizens to users, every individual on the Internet can be accurately digitally portrayed.
Effective user data analysis is of great practical significance to the development of news public opinion work. By analyzing the data, we can not only know user attributes, user preferences and user influence, but also modify the communication strategies of media organizations according to the analysis results, and predict user behavior and guard against a series of ideological risks.
In recent years, domestic journalism has paid more and more attention to the measurement and use of user data. The data analysis function of byte system platform can capture real-time hot spots and predict possible hot spots in the future based on massive behavior data and article data of user groups, and provide data analysis of hot events for media organizations. It does not collect news in the real sense, but through the capture and analysis of data such as user attributes and reading behaviors, it re-integrates and finds users’ concerns in the massive content published on the platform, so as to reproduce news.
Requirement 8: Effectively distribute accurate information.
At present, cross-platform and intelligent information distribution mechanism is gradually taking the lead. First, multi-platform linkage communication: under the trend of platformization, the same news event and the same content material are distributed on different media platforms after processing, resulting in linkage resonance effect. Second, intelligent distribution: personalized content push led by algorithms has become the mainstream of news distribution, especially artificial intelligence technology including robot writing is changing all aspects of news topic planning, information collection, content generation and product distribution, leading to increasingly blurred boundaries between news production, distribution and consumption.
Accurate distribution of information is not only a problem of technology and market, but also a guidance and control problem that needs to be effectively solved in news and public opinion work. Therefore, the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader specifically pointed out that "it is necessary to explore the application of artificial intelligence in news gathering, production, distribution, reception and feedback, and comprehensively improve the ability of public opinion guidance" and control the "algorithm" with mainstream value orientation.
Requirement 9: Effectively evaluate the communication effect.
For news opinion workers, the pursuit of effect and actual effect should be the starting point and the end result of public opinion guidance, so as to effectively enhance the ability of public opinion guidance.
The evaluation of communication effect plays an important role in improving the effectiveness of news public opinion work. Its premise is to judge from the ideological level whether the news and public opinion work has adhered to guiding people with correct public opinion, and that all work is conducive to upholding the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s leadership and China’s socialist system, promoting reform and development, enhancing the unity of people of all ethnic groups throughout the country, and maintaining social harmony and stability. From a practical point of view, on the one hand, an effective evaluation of communication effect should be able to directly reflect the concrete results of news public opinion work at home and abroad, society and individuals, organizations and groups from three overlapping dimensions of cognition, attitude and behavior; On the other hand, through the evaluation of communication effect, we can effectively sum up the experience and lessons of news public opinion work and better guide future work.
Requirement 10: effectively shape the ecology of public opinion
To effectively improve the communication, guidance, influence and credibility of news public opinion is to effectively shape a good public opinion ecology.
First, there must be a scientific top-level design. It is necessary to adapt to the trend of differentiated communication and accelerate the construction of a new pattern of public opinion guidance. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central government has rearranged the ecological pattern of public opinion in China from a strategic perspective, and now it has achieved remarkable results.
Second, we must grasp the relationship between online and offline. Nowadays, more and more people are used to expressing their demands and opinions through the Internet. The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader stressed that it is necessary to "respond to social concerns, especially the concentrated demands of the masses in a timely manner, not avoid contradictions, and actively promote problem solving", and listen carefully to well-intentioned criticisms, opinions and suggestions. To do a good job in online public opinion monitoring, we should accurately grasp and effectively respond to people’s concerns and demands expressed through the Internet, properly solve the problems reflected as soon as possible, and realize the benign interaction between online and offline.
Third, we must run on the track of the rule of law. Effective news public opinion work should not only stimulate positive energy and promote truth, goodness and beauty in the whole society, but also resolutely crack down on malicious spreading of false information and creating panic, so as to ensure that a good public opinion ecology runs on the track of the rule of law.