Impact of Social media on the Chinese Traditional Media
Abstract
CCTV 13 is the only operating and broadcasting channel of China with worldwide presence. This channel has been operating in China since 2003 with its headquarters in Beijing, China. Social media is a technological discovery which has changed the lifestyle, traditions, culture, daily operation and other activities of every human being. Social media has many positive as well as negative aspects which have got worldwide acceptance. With the development of social media practices CCTV has been receive the negative aspects which are changing the traditional news practices. Thus CCTV is losing its quantity of viewers. The author has identified this area as an important factor which needs to be studied upon and formed the research question as “To what extent can it be argued that CCTV-13’s social media practices devalue what we understand as ‘news’?”.
The paper has been divided into five into parts to find out which helped in the study of the extend of impact of social media on CCTV 13 which has changed the practice of traditional news in China. The first part gave the research question that the paper will try to answer with this research along with the background, significance, aim and objectives. The second part is the collection of various literatures by past researchers about the social media it’s positive and native impacts on the news channels and CCTV 13. The third part helped the paper in the formation of correct process of secondary data collecting and data analysis to provide answers for the research question. The fourth part analyses the secondary data with the help of deductive approach in order to derive results. While the fifth part provides the conclusion of the research and answers the main question which is raised in this research. Certain specific recommendation and future scope for the study is also given in the last part of this paper which will help in future studies.
Table of Contents
1.1 Background of the Study. 6
1.2.2 Objectives of the Research. 8
1.2.3 Sub Research Questions. 8
1.3 Significance of the Research. 9
Chapter 2 Literature Review.. 11
2.2 Social Media Concept and Development 11
2.4 Integration of Social Media with CCTV 13. 16
2.5 CCTV Expansion in Global Communication. 18
2.5 Audience Reaction to the Integration. 20
2.5 Transitory Role of Government of China. 21
Chapter 3 Research Methodology. 25
3.6 Data collection Process. 30
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Findings. 33
4.2.1 Impact of Globalization on Chinese Media Industry. 33
4.2.2 Social Media and CCTV 13. 34
4.2.4 Social Media and Governmental Influence. 39
4.2.5 Factors encouraging CCTV to undertake social media transformation. 40
4.2.6 Transformation made in CCTV 13 with respect to social media development 42
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Recommendation. 44
Chapter 1 Introduction
According to Weaver, D. H., & Willnat, L. (2016) the development of social media and new media along with their integration with each other has created a threat to the traditional mode of media. The habits of the readers have been changing and the consumers are more inclined towards news from the internet as it is available easily for free (Masterson, 2020). The news that is available via social media and other online channels are available to the consumers faster and they are able to gain knowledge about the news within few hours of the actual incident. These are the few reasons why the development of social media has taken place and the consumers have accepted it worldwide. The online news and information available in social media are given from the events taking place globally and therefore consumers are able to have an idea about the world instantly which the traditional media is unable to provide (Sun et al., 2018). The use of social media has been developing in a such a manner online news is available at any point of time while on the other hand in traditional media the news and other information is available at a specific time period and takes a longer time to reach the consumers. It is due to this fact that social media has created a grave impact on the performance of traditional media and the same can be observed in the global use traditional media (Luo, 2020). The development of the online age has led to various threats and opportunities towards the traditional media (Chubb, 2019). The same has been observed in Chinese traditional media industry as the development of social media has led to the Chinese traditional media to change their strategies and undertake new roles with the help of which they are able to gain a position in the market. The advent of social media has an impact on the traditional media in various manners. The use of traditional media has reduced significantly in the Chines market and it can be observed by the fact that the use of television has effected badly (Wang, 2017). It is due to this fact that this paper has been prepared with the help of which the impact traditional media has been facing with the development of social media can be understood and the transitions the traditional media has been undertaking in order to make their presence in the market can be known in a detailed manner.
1.1 Background of the Study
The use of media has been working since ages and the consumers are in need of media so that they remain updated with news around them. Print media has been one of the oldest media process and it has been seen that print media has been a one way communication method and with the advent of time it has given way to the development of new media which assists the consumers to become the news producers and the transmitters (Shulin, 2016). The revolution in technology has changed the way of news reporting with the implementation of Web 2.0. Additional according to the report released by the government of China 802 million i.e. 57.7 % of the total Chinese population are using internet actively (McCarthy, 2020). These changes have changed the gatekeepers of news like the government giving asses to the common people about the true news (Lawrence et al., 2018). In the country China the mainstream media in order to deliver more effective and efficient news are integrating the news broadcasting with the platforms of social media. Thus integration is called as the transformation of traditional media with social media and was possible with the help of policies formed by the broadcasting communist party. Huang, & Lu, (2017) named this transformation as the ‘‘social media transformation of traditional media”. China is a country with serious level of contradictions which are going in various different directions and are also responsible for pawing the path way for social media to influence and affect the society. The development of new media has been helpful in giving out solutions towards the needs of the consumers (Yanfeng, 2016). The process initiates in a humble manner and thereafter the process provides broad preferences with the help of which the consumers are able to maintain a better lifestyle and can have a better future. The development of print media had taken place at the time when development of internet was a dream and this was the process with the help of which the consumers would be able to gain any kind of news instantly (Jang, & Kim, 2016). This process includes a hefty process as it is seen that the for the development of providing news via paper, the information had to be stored and thereafter printed and the news that was available to the consumers will be an old news. This process is considered to be passive with respect to the process that is in use in the current time period with the development of social media and new media. There have been various reports that have indicated the fact that the percentage of news publications via newspaper has declined alarmingly as the consumers at the time current time period are attracted towards the news available online (Mirosa et al., 2018). The consumers have the ability to personalize their consumption of news as their own interest and have the ability to receive updates about news several times a day. Thus the companies providing traditional media like the Radio, Newspaper and TV are using the social media platforms for the advantage of reaching, influencing and affecting the local and abroad audiences (Yang, 2019). It is due to this fact that this dissertation is critical as it would give out a key idea about the impact of social media on the traditional media which has changed our understating about news.
1.2 Research Question
The question on the basis of which the paper would revolve and look to explore answers is as follows:
Q1. To what extent can it be argued that CCTV-13s social media practices devalue what we understand as ‘news’?
1.2.1 Research Aim
CCTV-13 is a traditional news channel of China which used to give various trust worthy information to the Chinese population. Before the introduction of social media CCTV-13 was responsible for news generations, making campaigns and its presentations and also gives political views. Media communication was the only sole medium with the help of which common populations received information and same was in the case of China with CCTV. However with the introduction of social every aspect of media communication changed which also impacted the communication information process and operation of CCTV. Thus in order to understand the social media and its effect on CCTV the author of this paper has decided on doing research on the topic of impact of social media on the Chinese traditional media and one media channel was selected which was CCTV-13.
CCTV-13 being a renowned channel that is operational in China and owing to its social status and representativeness in the market understanding their impact with the development of social media will help the research to meet its goal. It is due to this fact this paper aims to analyze the impact of social media on the traditional media and CCTV-13 is the case study on the basis of which the paper would be prepared.
1.2.2 Objectives of the Research
The research objectives are:
- To determine the negative impacts of social media over CCTV-13
- The determine the positive effects of social media on CCTV-13
- To understand the relationship between social media and CCTV-13
- To understand the governmental role in the changes that take place in the traditional media in China
- To determine the consumer reaction towards the development of social and new media
1.2.3 Sub Research Questions
The analysis will even look to have an idea about the questions that have been given as follows:
- How CCTV-13 embraced social media has and what reasons can we find for this?
- What are the positive impacts of social media on CCTV-13?
- What changes CCTV-13 have made in order to stay active in the market in the current time period?
- What is the relationship between the social media and CCTV-13?
- What is the governmental role in the changes that have taken place in the traditional media in China?
1.3 Significance of the Research
It has been observed that China records the highest population in the world and therefore the number of internet users is the highest. This had an impact on the media development in China. The transition that has taken place in traditional media has been possible with the development of social media in China. The Chinese consumers are not satisfied with the concept of waiting to receive news and therefore they opt not to make use of traditional media but have looked to gain news from the social media as they can watch news at their own convenience (Li, 2016). The consumers with the use of social media become very active and therefore even share their own views and exchange the news in social media. The development of social media has given a voice to the consumers and they are able to even raise their voices and challenge the businesses and the government.
The development of Chinese social media has become a grave force and therefore it has been essential to figure out how the traditional media companies like CCTV-13 communicate with social media (Hood, 2016). By determining the association that is existent between traditional media and social media, this research will look to highlight whether traditional media is still accepted in the society and the actions traditional media is undertaking in order to stay active in the market. CCTV-13 is one of the well-known media companies of China and analysis of this organization will provide an extensive idea about the Chinese media industry.
It is even essential to assess the feedback of the consumers with regards to the new media channels so that the traditional organizations can understand the need of the market and accordingly prepare plans and actions with the help of which they can stay active in the market.
Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This section of the paper will have a review on understanding a brief concept of social media and its various usages. As stated by Akram & Kumar (2017), social media has conferred positive and negative impacts on youth, society, culture, traditions and Country .Keeping in mind the impacts. This section of paper will study the relationship between CCTV 13 and positive and negative impact of social media on it. The section will give an idea about how CCTV-13 is coping with the challenges posed by social media. How it is going to survive and prove its competitiveness in this changing scenario where social media is overpowering the lives of people. This section will also give an insight upon how Government is playing an important role in the transition of traditional Media in China and how is the audience accepting and reacting to the news presented on Social Media.
2.2 Social Media Concept and Development
Social media has become an indispensable part of a person’s routine life. It is the lungs of today’s society and has become crucial for living in today’s era. From business to relationship, teaching to internship ,fashion to food, news to lifestyle people are completely dependent upon social media .As quoted by Greenwood, Perrin & Duggan (2016), platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest etc. have extensively proved their usage in the real world. Social Media has opened a wider world for the people sitting even in remote areas, in the serenity of their houses. They are easily exposed to happenings of their own region to the far off places in the world. The world has shrunk and has become global village where irrespective of their culture, religion, country they are well acquainted with people around the world (Fuchs, 2017).
From children to adults everyone finds stuff related to their age, choice, preferences readily available on Social media. As stated by Kasemsap (2019), from sensible and knowledgeable facts to hi-tech technological developments, from top rated list of restaurants and tourist places to eating joints in your vicinity. From promotion of business to establishment of a startup, social media plays an incredible role in every situation, from needle to an elephant it can make available anything. Not only this, people stay connected with each other through texting, posting their locations, pictures, videos, audios and travelogues. Social media has covered nook and corner of every their people, country, culture, lifestyles, traditions, news and contracted the whole world in just click of few keys. Computers laptops, smartphones, and iPads all the technological gadgets have user friendly ways to provide an easy access to these platforms. Social Media has become the unbelievable source of communicating and spreading news, information feasibly around the globe, around the clock (Swart, Peters & Broersma, 2019).
The development of the social media has been able to offer various kinds of benefits and opportunities and thereby a change has been made in the global communication aspect (Chiang, 2019). The development of digital technologies and theories has led to radical transformations that would have an impact on the social developments and technical innovations.
The development of internet was mainly with the advent of globalization and therefore consumers at this point of time mainly look to communicate with various parts of the world and even try to gain news from various parts of the world with the help of which they are able to stay one step ahead of the others (Stefanone et al., 2019). The development of new media and social media has assisted the consumers to communicate via blogs, websites and in this manner social media has been taking the place of the traditional media process. CCTV 13 at the time of advent of social media and new media platforms faced a downfall in their sales as it was observed that the viewing rate of the channel fell (Nan Bi, 2017). Consumers preferred the use of social media with the help of which they could catch up with news and information much faster.
The development of technologies with respect to media is incorporated in order to promote economic development of a country. The advent of social media and new media in China looked forward to the fact that the country would be able to increase their knowledge economy and intercultural communications would increase (Margolis et al., 2019). At the initial stages the same was observed as with the rise of globalization the extent of intercultural communication increased by a significant margin.
2.3 CCTV and CCTV news
In the 1955 Beijing Television was developed in the country China which in the year 1978 was named as CCTV. This news channel was considered as the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party and has influenced most of the Chinese into considering it as the major source of information (Keane, 2016). The development of CCTV had three phases which are initial phase, stable phase and fast development phase. Currently the company has 0.7 billion customers all over the world as a daily audience. CCVT is broadcasting 935 h every day with 452 programs and 43 along with 19 digital channels and ground channels respectively (Huang, & Lu, 2017). This broadcasting news channel is not only famous in China but has audiences in some of the western countries as well. Since the starting of 21st century various strategies have been undertaken by CCTV in order to gain international presence and competitive advantages. These strategies have led to the development of 31 stations of CCTV in China along with 70 reporter stations in other parts of the world (Zeng, Burgess & Burns, 2019). Currently this company has two divisions located in foreign countries like American and Africa. These overseas divisions are named as CCTV America and CCTV Africa. Along with these in the company has 5 centers broadcasting reginal news in Beijing, Nairobi, Doha, Washington DC and London. CCTV is being producing news in 7 international language and channels named as CCTV4 (the international channel of China), CCTV French, CCTV Russia, CCTV Arabic, CCTV Spanish, CCTV English (CCTV-NEWS) and CCTV Documents (Pavlik, 2019). The company along with its development has been broadcasting programs in order to spread Chinese traditional culture in western countries (CCTV-English, 2020). Some of these include ‘‘The Chinese Character Dictation Conference”, ‘‘The English Version of China Spring Festival Gala”, ‘‘A Bite of China”, ‘‘The Forbidden City” and others these programs are named as ‘soft power of CCTV (Jirik, 2016). These programs have been recognized by the global audiences as they give insight into the tradition, culture and stories of China.
In the year 2003, a news channel was language by CCTV which was aimed at broadcasting news 24 h every day. This channel created a milestone in the Chinese history of news media production and China’s TV industry (Kanyeki, 2017). The main aim of this channel is to broadcast the up-to-dated news to the general public of China and other nations. Again in the year 2008 a snow storm affected the country which was taken as an opportunity by the Chinese news channel to start their LIVE broadcasting mechanism. This new mechanism in news transmission attracted a huge number of audiences as it gave them opportunity to watch live the effects of the strong by the various journalist covering the storm LIVE in various parts (Voci & Hui, 2018). This event and acceptance of LIVE broadcasting allowed the media channel to give LIVE broadcasting of other events like Beijing Olympic Games and Wenchuan earthquake. All these events led to the formatting of ‘‘Live News Room” program with specialized LIVE news only (Obalanlege, 2017). Again in the year 2011 ‘‘Mid night News” program was launched by the channel and simultaneously became an integral part of the CCTV.
All the above discussed events led to the development strategies of CCTV stating from the initial phase to stable phase and finally to rapid development phase which led to the acceptance and global audiences of CCTV. All these led towards the development of CCTV13 to become a news channel with professional outlook (Xu et.al, 2018). Along with the image of professional news channel CCTV 13 is also considered as a channel which tells stories of China along with giving insight of China with a global perspective. Again in the year 2009 CCTV developed a new strategy which implemented news reporting as the main and important source of CCTV. CCTV along with its news reporting added the idea of telling stories. With the help of new reporting in the form of stories CCTV was able to provide the true perspective of Chinese ordinary people along with their livelihood in plain and simple language. Thus CCTV led the foundation for the change in reporting language from old- fashioned formal language to common and simple language (Kanyeki, 2017). Another strategy adopted by CCTV was the “go to grassroots units” which transformed the process of news writing. This strategy was supported by the central government of China which revolutionized the reporting of news and the presentation of opinion.
In one of the stories CCTV showed the tough and hard life of children who had to take the pain of mountain climbing and paddling through rivers in order to go to school. This story drew the attention of the local government which helped in the setup of schools in the mountain areas and provided convenience to the students (Ma, 2019). This story made the pathway for CCTV to receive the top award given to the journalism of China the ‘‘China News Award” for the year. Along with this award CCTV gained the preference of the Chinese audiences and provided an image of CCTV as the true reflector of the lives of ordinary people and the stories broadcasted being trust worthy by the global audiences (Bilu, 2019).
All these aspects and strategies of CCTV led to the foundation of CCTV of becoming the most popular along with broader and deeper influential news channel of the society of China along with the foreign countries.
2.3.1 CCTV- 13
CCTV 13 was formerly known to be China Central Television News Channel and the channel was established in the year 2003. The channel mainly focuses on delivering news to the Chinese consumers and has been known to be one of the main and biggest news channels in all over China (Fletcher & Neilsen 2019). The channel broadcasts news and specifically live news at every hour of the day and even undertakes programs on current affairs and events (Watson et al., 2017). The broadcasts are made in Mandarin Chinese and they have their own satellite with the help of which the broadcasts are made in an extensive manner. The viewing rate of this channel is pretty high and the company has been taking and measures in order to ensure that the viewing rate remains high.
The channel increases their level of broadcasts mainly during the time of any events like Chinese New Year and programs that take place during the eve of the New Year (Kumar et al., 2017). It is during this time that the viewing rate increases for the channel. The increased use of internet and mobile communication has made way to various new ways with the help of which the viewer’s screen any news and events and this has an impact on the TRP rate of CCTV 13.
2.4 Integration of Social Media with CCTV 13
With the help of policies formed by the broadcasting communist party the integration of platforms of social media with traditional media was made possible (Masterson, 2020). This integration resulted in “@CCTV NEWS” a new media account which is presently the most influential news medium in China. @CCTV NEWS contains three platforms for the transmission of news which are Weibo, WeChat and CCTV News applications or apps. This expansion of CCTV 13 to @CCTV NEWS is the best example of social media transformation of traditional mainstream media.
In the August of 2014 the concept of media transformation can into existence in China and led into nation-wide acceptance (Feng, 2016). The information and news from traditional media was simply used and copied to new digital platforms, mobile news apps and websites. In the dynamic environment of social media where everyone carrying a mobile phone can create content and make it viral very feasibly, and these platforms have become a connecting thread between the virtual and real world (Guo, 2016).
Availability of mobile news apps, search engines, portal based mobile app have added inevitably to the spread of citizen journalism. Collaboration between social media and CCTV can attract more audiences. People using news app to disseminate news is no longer a rocket science in China (Song & Chang, 2019). It has become a more common behaviour of people obtaining information from social media through these news apps. As stated by Tang, Huang & Liu (2017) these news apps are a complimentary outcome of traditional and new media as per media convergence trend like People’s Daily news, Pengpai News. Website based news app with portal and search engine proclaiming its presence in journalism industry of new media like Sohu News, Tencent News. With the availability of video-like news apps, the news collecting has become more dynamic. Pictures, texts, videos have diversified the whole process thus making it more interactive, communicative and presentable.
Chinese Mobile news app depends on different categories of operating entities. Some depend on commercial websites, some traditional media and some on non-media organization (Jiang and Yin, 2015).
According to Tang, Huang & Liu (2017), CCTV-13 has also modified itself according to the perception of its users by accelerating the convergent, growing a well-constructed a mainstream media.
Emergence of social media has brought major changes in the scope of journalism. As explained by journalists now should not only be trained to gather traditional print news but also to handle online videos, operations and to merge in conventional newsrooms to online field teams (Chen, 2018). Recycling of the content of traditional newsrooms and publications can be done by using digital based technology and make it readily available on social media.
Wu (2017) explained how the news channels have seen a diminishing revenue and many journalist changed their job profile to earn more to sustain their life but the changing trend and rapid interactive social media environment they have turned up to varied digital platforms as professional journalist (Li, 2019). To improve their revenue and condition many state controlled Channels like CCTV purchased online programming and started partnerships with new media (Zhang, Du & Wang, 2019).
2.5 CCTV Expansion in Global Communication
In the year 1990 the first step was taken by the Chinese mainstream media to plan its expansion in global territories. Thus the importance of social media came into existence which gave an in international base to the Chinese media. The media companies led to the massive investments which led to the formation of project which implemented the use of electronic media and named as ‘go-global’ in the year 2001. Again in the year 2009 ‘going-out’ policies were made which led into further expansions of Chinese media into international market (Hu, et al., 2017). These strategies led to the formation of better communication infrastructures and increase access to the markets. Thus in the year 2017 @ CCTV NEWS was changed into @CGTNOfficial as China Central Television News was changed into China Global Television Network. However this expansion and international image is very slow compared to other news channels. As described by Norman, (2018) the expansion of Chinese media into the international boarders are moving slow if moving at al.
Meraz, & Papacharissi, (2016) described that Twitter is one of the social media platform which is used by the news media and its audiences in order to communicate and share their views. Among all the retweets in Twitter news media are the most retweeted. However research on the use of Twitter by CCTV has been neglected by most of the researchers while only few have studied on the influence of Twitter on the Chinese news media. Guo et al., (2017) is one of such researchers who discovered that in the year 2011 to 2014 the tweets about the South China Sea had a negative influence on the Chinese government. Along with this it was discovered that the influence of US newspaper was more than the Chinese newspaper about the bilateral relationship regarding the disputes of South China Sea on Twitter.
Morales Ferrero & Zaitceva (2018) has explained that China’s aspirations to media expansion globally has resulted in preparing many multilingual platforms for different regions of the world in order to create its worth worldwide. It is targeting towards Latin America with CCTV’s Spanish language. The main aim of China’s international media strategy is to directly be in dialogue at international platform to review its image rather than being filtered and misinterpreted by various international news media. There are three images of any country:
- The real image
- The virtual image
- The image as seen by the public (Morales Ferrero & Zaitceva, 2018).
The image as perceived by the general public is te image which is created through media. The public image of China is ill portrayed by the international media therefore it want to use its own domestic media CCTV on international basis to give a true picture of its image.
2.5 Audience Reaction to the Integration
According to Delisle, Goldstein & Yang (2016) Introduction of new media has subsequently changed the political, social and cultural scenario of China affecting the civic political life. The restrictions that were faced by the people if China no longer imply and thus now they enjoy free cyberspace where they can register their grievances, political views. The official media in China is known for its biasness, censorships, party propaganda that lowers the trust of people in it. Neither the people nor even the journalist believes in lowered credibility of Chinese official media.
The audience using internet has increased remarkably because of multiplying number of computers, smartphones, mobiles thus allowing SMS, MMS and other messaging services weixin to be used widely. The government has followed the policy of freedom but with control. Delisle, Goldstein & Yang (2016) further extend that despite if all these restrictions and minimum platform of social networking still the audience in China is using this new media to express their ideas, rage, opinions with a view to affect government policies and decisions, thus making an authoritative environment into democratic liberal vicinity.
Blogs, postings, reposting’s, text messages, videos, We Chat groups have exceedingly become a platform for the public to discuss foreign policy, legal cases, misbehavior of government officials, consumer grievances and raising many other political and social issues. Despite of authoritative freedom social media in China has overwhelmingly brought positive transformation. Still the cyberspace, is limited, controlled, monitored, regulated and censored Wang & Mark (2013) have quoted that Chinese people are online rebellion and political activists.
The audience engages itself by messaging, in online videos, music, blogs, search engines, blogging and social networking still not so loyal to political views still they like to drop their opinion in political debates and policies. The Government monitors sensitive content received from various local social media sites and filter and censor them. They hinder any content that contains name of government officials, news related to political events, historical events from the reach of the audience. Chiang (2019) advocates the use of new media by people as their urge to get freedom of speech, still a subtle technical censorship is faced by the platforms. The government still retains its power to manipulate these platforms but their success shows the power of government is dwindling and losing its value. The greater engagement of audience on these platforms, their raised voice towards one party state; CCP knows it’s difficult to suppress the voice of its people and has to decide on whether it can have growth in the new media as well as its political status, or both, or anyone as debated by Chiang (2019).Government to prove its repression have targeted some news app to be temporarily closed down in the month of April, 2018.
Majority of netizens feel social media had a positive effect especially females saw it as best solution to their purchasing problem, helped them to relive pressure and boost up their confidence. Others saw new media as a platform to showcase their talent, presence and raise voice.
2.5 Transitory Role of Government of China
The government of China has always been a controlling media’s liberty and using CCTV as its voice. CCTV is the only authorized broadcaster throughout the nation maintains a close knit to CCP. To keep people away from the outside world and carried away by the views of global platforms like Facebook, twitter etc.in September 2015 it blocked 3000 websites where in google was also a part of it. Government controls the user generated content. China has given a lot of platforms to the world but themselves restricted to user generated platforms. They have recruited internet commentators who post everything related to image building of the Party to affect public opinion (Wang & Mark, 2013)
Jinping, being the most powerful leader of China has controlled economic reporting with a view to check market panic and irrelevant criticism of policies of government. The president even tried to tighten his access on CCP media.
The youth of China critically dislike the CCTV’s political content because of its puppet like behaviour in the hand of State. According to a national survey in China the people are more prone to monitor the behaviour of government during emergency and contingent events in the country. Social media among the netizens has become a soft weapon to highlight, criticize and analyze the policies of government at the time of public emergencies.
But later the government also realized importance of internet freedom for its people and pointed out importance of disseminating news laws and out breaking role of media in strengthening people’s virtual thinking. It stressed on the complementary role of traditional as well as social media. From August 2014, the government adhered to the convergence of media in China (Li, 2019).
In 2018, in 13th National’s People’s Congress an important decision was passed that CCTV with other mainstream media groups will CMG, China Media Group becoming voice of China. Thussu (2018) explained that China Government in order to reconstruct its reputation world-wide followed a transitional policy “going global”. The government has realized that Social media in China not only doors to public opinions and gives free space ,is also a means of getting government attention towards, social and civic issues. Although with the complexities and authoritative control over the social media it’s difficult to gain the freedom. Still the government went into transition by allowing Chinese social media substitute of WhatsApp, Facebook, twitter, YouTube .The main’ motive of the government was to create a much clearer cyberspace where only Party’s voice has to be the supreme and holds a overall control over the cyberspace.
According to Jirik (2016) Government wants CCTV to improve Chin’s image internationally .It was developed as a 24 hour globally, English-language telecaster to increase its viewership. For its global broadcast it uses material from CNN sources. In the global scenario of BBC, CNN, Sky, CCTV is also been seen as a global option.
2.6 Conclusion
The above sections open the further pace of study how social media can contribute to the competitiveness of CCCTV whether its social media, i.e. citizen news or CCCTV official news both have their own advantages and disadvantages’ as a news broadcasting channel is respected even by the young generation of China, who are the most relevant users of social media but they have lower or no trust in the news that are related to government when broadcasted by CCTV.
Social media has influenced lives of people more impactful than traditional media. Although, social media had an adverse effect in Chinese philosophies, culture, language, and symbols but still today is the era of social networking so it is important to understand that its impact is not totally negative. Social media has made people acquainted to a vast world of information, strengthening all the people of the society. Hidden identity in this media gas given them courage to raise their voice and feel free to express their views against cruelties, mishaps or injustice done around them.
Chinese culture is definitely going to experience a new dawn by incorporating new media with the traditional media. China has used CCTV as its most trustworthy platform in languages like Spanish, Arabic, French and Russian. Also, China’s go global strategy to create its soft image.
The merging of CRI, CNR (China National Radio) and CCTV into a one outlet known as voice of China. Withacceleratingeconomicgrowth, China is emerging as a threat to world economy. Due to worldwide threat of China it feels it has been misquoted by other countries of the world. It has understood that by targeting local characteristics worldwide through its domestic news channel it would be able to create a soft niche for it.
Although the youth is more engaged to the online world, social networking, and social media and audience not so keen in receiving direct news broadcast still its domestic channel CCTV is focusing on the local by depicting local culture, traditions and using local language with their respective reporters will be able to create a worldwide platform for itself and will be able to Compete with Social Media.
Chapter 3 Research Methodology
3.1 Introduction
Research methodology is the procedure that helps in determining various aspects of data analysis which is important for any research in order to achieve its required results (Tabak, & Avraham, 2018). Thus it can be said that the framework of data collection procedures and techniques are important. This part of the paper will be help in deciding the parameters that will be used in to address techniques that will find out the gaps in the literature review. This part of the paper will discuss the various ideas that will find out the impact of various platforms of social media on the traditional media of Chinese. This part of the paper will help the author to collect the data samples in an organized manner so that these data will be ethical and analyzed to give desired results.
3.2 Research Onion
The procedure that help to generate a proper and quality research are in combination is known as research onion (Sahay, 2016). There are three types of research onion which are mono-method, multi-method and mixed-method. Mono-method is the type of research onion which is based on data collection of only one type of data i.e. either qualitative or quantitative (Schot, 2017). On the other hand multi-method as the name suggests is the type of research onion where the research methodology includes collection of data from the multiple ways or methods. These methods are interviews, surveys, case studies or critical research (Dong et al., 2018). While the mixed-method is the type of research methodology where both the quantitative as well as the qualitative data re combined together in order to achieve desired results.
Thus as per the requirement of the study the mono-method of research onion will be used in the research on this study. It is has been observed that in order to study the various elements that social media that effects the traditional Chinese media mono-method is the most effective approach. Thus this method will provide the author with appropriate procedures that will help the author to achieve the desired results.
3.3 Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is basically a guideline for researcher in order to have the proper and effective analysis and understanding of paradigm and its importance. In other words research philosophy is the belief that guides that researcher towards effective collection and analysis of required data. This data will be related to the research topic and will help in result generation and formulation. Žukauskas, et al., (2018) defined research methodology into four different types which are pragmatism, realism, interpretivism and positivism. It has been observed that the various characteristic and features of research philosophy is very important for the proper completion of the paper. Each of these philosophies has its own features and characteristics which help in achieve the objectives of the research. The choice of an appropriate research supports the researcher with establishment of research objectives. Pragmatism approach helps the researchers with the ideology and proposition of the study (Dong et al., 2019). This concept allows researchers to use practicality in the research and avoid unpracticality that might occur during the research. The realism concept of research philosophy allows researchers to have human realism in their study which are completely based on the scientific methods and approaches. While the interpretivism theory of research helps the researchers to investigate and interpret collected qualitative data. This theory is used in research with qualitative data only as this theory’s concept cannot be applied to the qualitative data. Finally the positivism concept helps in understanding the true nature and behaviour of society with the help of scientific evidence and factual data. These results of scientific evidence and factual data are gained with the implementation of statistical tool used in experiments and observations.
In order to understand the research philosophy three different strategies are suggested by various authors. These strategies are ontology and epistemology (Yang, 2018). Epistemology is a concept that helps researchers to understand the various challenges that can occur during a research. This concept also provides with the various process that will be useful to overcome these challenges. On the other hand ontology helps the researchers with the sense of relativity of the paper. Thus provide the researchers with an understanding of proper ways to collect the data. This concept is mostly appropriate for research work that is done on primary data in a qualitative approach. This method requires translation of data collected from the survey by individuals (Grossman et al., 2018). These qualitative collection of data is done through primary data and not secondary as incorporation of secondary data might result in research failure.
The study of this paper is to determine the factors of social media which are affecting traditional Chinese media. Thus based on the requirement the positivism philosophy of research will guide the author towards the true aspects of changing social behaviors that is accepting the social media rather than Chinese traditional media.
3.4 Research Approach
The research approach of research methodology is done on the basis of the type of data that needs to be collected. This helps researcher to find out appropriate steps or actions that will be useful in research completion. Thus it is important to understand the type of data that needs to be collected for the research before selecting the research approach. With the help of research approach proper steps and actions are highlighted for various activities that are required by researchers in order to complete the research and obtain desired results. Woiceshyn, & Daellenbach, (2018) differentiated research approach into two types which are inductive and deductive. The first type of research approach of inductive research helps in forming new theory for research. Thus formation of new theories requires a huge amount of research and understanding on the research topic (Saejang, 2019). This concept of research approach is mainly used in topics that do not have enough literature or not many researchers have conducted studies on the topic. Thus due to lack of secondary source of research material the researcher using this concept need to apply his/her own knowledge and understandings. Thus creation of researcher’s own theories and ideas takes place in order to complete the requirements of the study. However the concept of deductive approach for research is different than the concept of inductive research. In the case of deductive research the frameworks of models that the researcher uses are already used by other researchers in previous studies (Klöter, 2016). These previous studies could be in the form of primary or secondary study.
The study that the author of this paper has chosen has been done by researchers in the past. The previous studies might be in the form of social media and/or its impacts or the studies related to the traditional Chinese social media and/or its impact or the combination of both. Thus the data, concept and models will be collected from these studies in other to complete this paper’s study and achieve desired results. Thus it can be concluded that the author of this paper will be using the deductive approach for the research of this paper.
3.5 Research Design
A research design of a research paper is described as a blueprint that helps researchers to have a proper frame of their research. In order words this concept helps researchers to find out the various techniques and arrangements that are useful for the formation of data analysis (Yin et al., 2018). This concept is mainly based on the research’s aim and objectives along with the approach of the researcher that guides towards the completion of the research. There are three pillars of research design which are explanatory research design, descriptive research design and exploratory research design (Creswell & Creswell, 2017).
The first pillar of research design i.e. the explanatory research design helps the author to generate theoretical or hypothetical ideas for a research study. The concept of this pillar helps researchers to generate ideas and connected them with each other. These connected ideas are then explained using the concept of first pillar of research design (Huang, 2016). The second pillar of research design explains the concept of describing data and its traits. With the help of these ideas researchers describes the situation of the research along with the size of the population used for the research and the occurrence of the research. This concept also makes sure that the descriptions are accurate and systematic in nature. The third and the last pillar of research design i.e. the exploratory research design helps the researchers to in examination and investigation of collected raw data. These data’s examination and investigation results are then used for the purposes of learning and teaching with the help of the third pillar’s concept (Blundell, 2020). These acquired teachings and learnings are then used for generation of relationships with concepts and theories which are unknown to the researchers along with the known background knowledge.
Thus based on the understanding of these three pillars and the requirements of the study the author of this paper will choose the third pillar i.e. the exploratory research design. With the help of this research design the author will use the gathered knowledge form the literature and implement this knowledge with his own background knowledge about the topic. Thus it can be said that with the help of this concept the author will integrate his own knowledge about the social media and Chinese traditional media with the knowledge acquired in the literature of various other researchers. With the help of this concept the author of this paper will understand the unknown knowledge about social media and Chinese traditional media. Understanding these two media platforms along with the present trend of Chinese population the author will be able to generate effects of social media.
3.6 Data collection Process
The data collection process guides the researchers towards the correct path in order to collect data. This procedure can be explained as the accumulation of information in the correct and technical manner in order to analyses the problem that that been identified by the researchers (Blasko, 2019). Thus this section is an important part of any research as with the help proper collection and assimilation of data the analysis of data is done that generated results for the study. Various researchers have described two types of data sets which are primary data set and secondary data set. Primary data set are the types of data which are collected from in the form of surveys, direct interviews or questionnaires i.e. they are collected from the source that is fresh or first hand or in other words are the actual responses of survey samples or people. On the other hand secondary source of data are those data set which are collected from the past work of other researchers and authors. The ideas and concepts of other researchers are implemented in the study. There are many sources that help in the accumulation of secondary data these sources are articles, journals, websites, google scholar, magazines, newspapers and others (Rohm et al., 2017). Thus from the above explanation it is clear that the primary set of data is collected from individuals or in a research work are known as samples in the form of direct interviews or surveys or questionnaires or can be the mixture of the two or the three ways. While secondary sets of data are collected from various article and journals which are published by other researchers in platform of various newspapers, business magazines, google scholar or website.
On the basis of the requirement of the current study the author of this paper has chosen the secondary set of data that will help to generate desired results. Thus all the researchers who have discussed or published their work on social media, Chinese traditional media and both the medias effect along with the present trend of Chinese population is gathered by the authors. This gathered information is given in the study. The understanding of these knowledge and techniques will be applied by the author to find out the effect that CCTV13 is facing due the increase in adoption of other platforms of social media by the Chinese population (Fardouly et al., 2017). Thus the first part of data collection is from the researcher about the concept of social media. After having proper understanding about the social media the author of this article collected research materials of various articles and journals about the positive and negative effect of social media. This will help the author of this paper to have relevant understanding about the impact of social media on current population of the world. Next it is important for the author to understand the relationship that the CCTV-13 has with social media for which relevant articles and journals are collected. The government of China is very sensitive towards its own traditions and media. Thus it creates a need for the author to collect materials about the role of Chinese government and its effect on the media (Bode, 2016). It order to compare CCTV-13’s effectiveness with social media it is important to understand the strength and weakness of CCTV. Thus research materials related to the competitiveness of CCTV is collected by the author. Finally it is also important to study and understand the perceptions of Chinese population due to which the research materials on the audience reactions about the Chinese media are collected.
These collected data will be then analyzed with the help of analysis plan that will be discussed in the next part of this paper.
3.7 Data Analysis Plan
The parts of methodology before this helped the author in proper collection and assimilation of data which is ready for analysis. Thus this section will discuss about the analysis plan of data in order to achieve to the desired results of this paper. Thus a data analysis plan is a tool that will help the author of this paper to have a proper assessment of the collected data. In other words it is the tool that will be useful in the determination of appropriate results that will be used in data analysis (Ravasi et al., 2019). This as per the requirement of this paper and the collection of secondary data the data analysis plan is made on the basis of thematic evaluation. As per the plan the required data is collected from various sources like websites, literature of past researchers, newspapers and business magazines. These collected data will then be studied in order to understand the concepts and models. This understanding will help the author to obtain the desired results.
3.8 Ethical Consideration
Ethical consideration is the important part of any research as its absences leads towards the research failure. The author of this paper has given key importance to the ethics while doing this research and the complete research is based on the ethical rules and norms. The secondary data that has been collected by the author of this paper are from genuine and valid source along with their relevancy to the topic of this research. The article, journals, websites, newspapers and business magazines from where the data and ideas are collected are true and relevant (Markova, 2020). Also the author has not changed the views and ideas of any of the collected data materials in order to achieve the objectives. The ideas and models used for the study are the one that the researchers have given without any single variation. This has helped in the development of ethical data collection, analysis and result formation for the impact of Social Media on the traditional Chinese media.
Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Findings
4.1 Introduction
The use of social media has been significantly high among Chinese consumers and therefore this has an impact on the traditional media. The traditional media channels have been taking extensive steps and actions with the help of which they are looking to improve their operational activities (Bowen et al., 2017). With the advent of globalization there has been entry of various international channels in the Chinese markets and thereby the extent of competition has even increased. It has been observed that various other channels have been using the platform of social media with the help of which they have been looking to increase their TRP. In this section of the paper extensive analysis would be made for CCTV 13 which is a renowned channel in China and thereby their use and impact of social media will be extensively assessed.
4.2 Thematic Analysis
4.2.1 Impact of Globalization on Chinese Media Industry
The process of globalization in the Chinese media industry has become an integral part and with the help of the same China has been looking to go global and its reputation all over the globe and simultaneously has maintained it national reputation by making use of their media at the time when they received any kind of remarks.
China has reshaped their Chinese media industry with the help of which they have been able to re-design their media landscape and this has led to various benefits and limitations within the media industry of China.
The Chinese media industry has looked to prevent their conventional role which they maintained was to speak on behalf of the Chinese government. The industry has given more focus towards the social and the cultural issues of China (Laurell, & Sandström, 2018). The media has looked to attain international communication with the help of which they can attain information and news from various parts of the world. The media industry in China has been looking to develop in a much better way with the help of which they have been able to attain the expectations of the consumers. The advent of social media and new media platform has indicated that the media industry of China has been overlooking certain areas. The social media has concentrated on these areas and have been able to maintain a parity among the local and the international news. CCTV 13 has always maintained their traditional working role and have always focused on delivering the news that are important for the society and have neglected feeble and minor news. Social media on the other hand have given the users with various kinds of activities along with the delivery of news and information and therefore the consumers are more attracted towards them.
4.2.2 Social Media and CCTV 13
The beginning of 21st century the new media has been transforming into internet media with rapid development and extensive acceptance. In the year 2004 the development of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn changed the living standards of people’s life. In China the development of social media went through various stages like BBS, SNS, Blog, Weibo and WeChat. The traditional Chinese media has been using ‘Weibo, WeChat and App” in order to have social media presence. In the year 2015 traditional media formed around 30,000 official accounts in WeChat with 700 to 800 applications. Among 731 million users of internet according to 2017, 340 million were users of Sina Weibo, a Chinese substitute of twitter (BBC News, 2017). Additionally all the media companies have their account in “SINA Weibo” one of the official Chinese website which created a strong influence on the common audiences. The graph below shows the increase in users of CCTV 13 from the year 2012 to 2015 due to adaptation of Weibo the Chinese social media.
Fig 1: the increasing number of users of @CCTV News in Weibo
Source by: CCTV.com (2020)
Form the above graph it is clear that with the acceptance of Weibo by CCTV i.e. integration of CCTV 13 to social media the number of followers increased to 5 million and 45 million in the years 2012 and 2013 respectively. Thus finally this number increased to 107 million in the year 2015 as shown in fig1. Thus it can be concluded that with the integration of Social media with CCTV 13 the number of audience for CCTV 13 stated to grow from 2012 and is still growing.
Again in the year 2013 CCTV 13 established an official account in WeChat for @CCTV NEWS. In the same year it was observed that the number of subscription rose above 700,000 which further increased to 1,799,000 in the year 2014 and to 4 million in 2015. By the end of 2015 the number of @CCTV NEWS subscription rose to 535.5 million. These data are represented in the graphical figure below.
Fig 2: The subscribers of WeChat official Account (million)
Sourced by: Huang, & Lu, (2017)
The viewpoint of CCTV 13 changed significantly as it was observed that there was a cultural change among the consumers and the consumers preferred short and crisp news with some added attractions. CCTV 13 was unable understand the needs of the consumers and therefore maintained their old ways of work (Morra et al., 2018). The consumers with the advent of social media increased their demand for expressing their own views as in social media they had the opportunity to express their own views in front of the public. Social media offers a feedback section where the consumers have the ability to express their views with regards to some events or news. However, CCTV 13 never offered such events to their consumers. The consumers had to listen to the news that was readily delivered by the channel and thereby transparency was not maintained.
The consumers even discovered that the news shared by the channels was not always authentic and certain manipulations have been made. The advent of social media eliminated such activities as the consumers could gain any news with true and fair source. The news that is delivered in social media mainly comes from the people itself and therefore the chances of news being authentic is higher.
4.2.3 CCTV 13
The February 2020 has seen a significant development of CCTV 13 news. The share of CCTV has been maintained at 5% while maintain the number 1 position in Shangxing channel and gain advantage during the pandemic situation. This is evident in the graphical figure 3.
Fig 3: CCTV 13 rating and share in 2020
Sourced by: lichen, 1. (2020)
The CCTV 13 has nine sections of audience whose rations exceed 1% from February 5th to February 11th. The figure 4 represents that the “News 30” has the rating of 1.75% with rating shares of 8.54%. Additionally the other programs of CCTV like “Common Concern” lies in the second column with the rating of 1.74% and share rating of 6.00% with “Rule of Law” in the third column whose rating and share ratings are 1.42% and 6.75% respectively.
Fig 4: CCTV 2020 programs and their ratings
Sourced by: lichen, 1. (2020)
Fig 5: CCTV 2020 viewer’s age and distribution
Sourced by: lichen, 1. (2020)
The fig 5 shows that CCTV has its significance in young and educated people. The rating of viewers with all ages and education background has increased significantly in the year 2020. The 15-34 years of viewers has the most significant use of CCTV who increases the rating of the company. The rating of viewers of age between 25 to 34 years has increased from 400% to 572%. On the other hand on the basis of education the college educated viewers and higer level of education has increased the rating to 342%.
4.2.4 Social Media and Governmental Influence
As discussed in the above literature it has been observed that news information which are posted on social media are the joint ventures of editors and journalists with the help of consumer based algorithm. Consumer based algorithm is developed on the basis of social media users behaviour and their actions. These behaviour and actions are studies on the basis of their likes, comments, reposting and sharing (Boman et al., 2018). These new technologies and algorithm has changed the traditional process of new generation and announcements. Newspapers have been converted into e-papers, new channels into apps, along with blogs and articles. Traditionally news information communication was only a one-way communication which with the introduction of social media has changed into two-way communication process. This communication process has given voice to the common people with the help of which they can share their views and comments. However social media has not yet changed all the important aspects of traditional media (Wang et al., 2019). One of such important aspects in the live reports and exclusive current affairs which are broadcasted by news channels like CCTV-13 first.
The government of China has huge control in every aspect of Chinese organizations along with news channels. The government has been controlling the media on the amount of information that can be shared with the general public. This has led to a huge step taken by the government in the year 2015 which blocked more than 3000 websites including google (Yu et al., 2018). These steps were taken in order to control the spread on information to the Chinese population and cut off any information that the common population of China can receive from these websites. China is known for its achievement in technological development however due to political and governmental pressure they common societies are restricted towards the use of controlled user generated contents. CCTV is the only authorized news broadcasting channel of China which the help of which the government insure the spread of control information to the general public. This governmental control is the main reason due to which the youth population of China dislikes CCTV. Thus these populations of China who protest about the governmental control on the information sharing have been influencing other people. This has led to the decrease in the audience viewing of CCTV-13. Thus the populations of China are moving towards the use of social media platform that they are currently able to use and share (Brooks, 2018). Thus it can conclude that CCTV is not losing importance to social media due to its advantage but due to excessive control of government on the information content sharing of CCTV.
4.2.5 Factors encouraging CCTV to undertake social media transformation
There are several factors that have compelled traditional media channels in China to take up social media and proper assessment has highlighted that there are generally four factors that have led to the encouragement.
Technical Factors: Social media in the current time period has been using the technology in the Web 2.0 model and therefore is different from the conventional web 1.0 model in which the admin has the authority to edit and select news information for the users. In the model 2.0 the users have the ability to access the editing and the selection procedure. This new model has three traits which are inclusive of the fact that multiple users can provide reports together, the users can even read and even provide their own inputs as feedback and this model makes it easier for the users to communicate which was not possible earlier. Hence, an individual user can have the ability to be the viewer and the producer. Social media in China has been developing with the incorporation of the new association model with the human beings which was unavailable in the older style of communication.
Social Factors: China has been undergoing the revolution of information and therefore it has become an essential part for attaining and sharing the information in the daily lives of human beings. The pattern that is being followed in social media has attracted a lot of users so that they can gather and share information at the same time. For instance, in circumstances where a huge incident has taken place people near to the location of the incident even share videos of the incident and share the updated information so that other users of the social media can easily connect and have the relevant information at the earliest time possible. With the use of social media CCTV news would be able to gather the news real time and thereby can showcase the same to the users and the public way before other channels can convey the information.
Political Factors: The Chinese media in the current time period had become the mouth of the communist party and thereby a negative impact was seen in the viewer experience of the channel. It is due to the fact that new and regulated guidelines were created by the channel with the help of which the channel can make its own presence. Social media in this matter has taken care of this situation in an apt way and therefore they have created apps and features with the help of which they are able to ask the users to upload links and pictures and even share their feedback. In this manner, it becomes a public forum where biasness is absent.
Marketing Factors: The marketing structure in China in the recent times have transformed and therefore it is seen that CCTV has been facing a lot of competition. There are several other channels that have come into the market and thereby rivalry has increased. The use of social media for CCTV would thereby create a USP for them and thereby they can activate their potential bloggers and users and take their opinion and feedback and gather information that is not available easily.
4.2.6 Transformation made in CCTV 13 with respect to social media development
The advent of social media triggered CCTV 13 to take certain initiatives with the help of which they can recover from this sort of impact of social media. CCTV 13 took the drastic step of changing their operational activities. CCTV 13 created a digital platform themselves and created a digital team which concentrated on creating pages and portal in social media platforms. The channel therefore created various pages in several social media platforms where they would share all their news so that members of social media can read and view them. The channel even shared videos of live updates in their pages in order to increase their followers and the even made the option of providing feedback from the end of the viewers. The channel even in their pages provided the idea of making subscription so that the followers can first have knowledge about the news with and the news would be updated in their social media page and even in the mobile applications. The channel therefore started utilizing social media rather than making losses and once the strategy was implemented the channel started to reap its benefits. The channel offered consumers to become freelance reporters and offered prices and awards to the best news that would be provided by any of the follower. In this manner the number of followers increased and the channel was able to find news from various parts of the country and even from all around the globe which they used as their competitive edge (Hunt, & Gruszczynski, 2019). The addition of such news even increased their TRP in their traditional working process.
The channel initiated to create a software application of their own where the live feeds and telecasts would be provided to the users. This attracted more consumers and social media personnel and thereby their views and subscription increased. The channel currently has agreements with various social media platforms and makes use of the information that is available there so that they can enhance their services.
One of the key areas that the channel started to utilize was that several dignitaries and politicians post their views and comments in social media and express their views and concerns about any particular news. They follow the accounts of such dignitaries and update the consumers about the feelings about such dignitaries with regards to any event. The channel even undertakes various events and quizzes in the social media platform so that the users can have some recreation along with following news.
It is therefore seen that after the initial stages of the advent of social media, CCTV 13 transformed their plans and activities and started making use of social media for their own benefits. In this manner they were able to enhance their business and broadcasting network and could reach out to people to various sections of the globe which were inaccessible to them earlier. The channel was able to increase their views and followers and even made agreements with other news channel from different countries so that they could receive global news in an effortless manner. The completion of the analysis therefore states that CCTV 13 was able to positively utilize the development of social media and have been able to increase their sales and services and brand image accordingly. They have maintained a parity among their traditional activities and activities via social media so that they are able to satisfy consumers preferring both the processes.
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Recommendation
The present world is being affected by the development of technologies. One of such technology is the social media which developed due to the development of internet. This new platform of communication has changes the way people communicate with each other. Communications are of many types which include personal communication, social communication and media communication. Media communication is a tool with the help of which information are given to a mass audience at once. Some of the common sources of media communication are newspapers and news channels with the help of which information regarding various sectors like politics, development, crime, economy, global conditions and others are given to the mass population. With the introduction of social media it has been observed that the these information which were provided by the media channels are now been given by the social media platforms. Along with the acceptance as well as the trust level on such form of information is also high. These situations have led to the fall of various traditional news channels.
Thus in order to complete the paper the author has collected literature from several sources in order to understand the concept of social media and its effect on CCTV. With the help of this information the other parts of this paper have been done. The first part of this paper is the background about the topic i.e. the information about social media, its development, its impact, Chinese traditional media, CCTV and the changes in CCTV due to social media. The first part also contains the research questions, aim and objectives of the research with the help of which the author will analyze the collected data. The second part of the paper deals with the literature about the topic. These literatures helped the author to have a proper understanding about the concept of social, the positive as well as the negative effect of social media on CCTV, the existing relationship between social media and CCTV, transitory role of government of China, competiveness of CCTV and the reaction of viewers towards the new form of media channels.
The third part is the methodological part of social media with the help of which the author has collected the required data for the research. The third part is the most important part of this paper as this part has helped the author to collect appropriate data on which analysis has been done in order to achieve the desired objectives. This part is divided into seven parts where the first part is the research onion of the research. With the help of research onion the author received the knowledge about the quality research. The author has chosen to use the mono-method of research onion which helped the author to gather qualitative data. The second part is the research philosophy of research which provided the author with proper research guidelines. For this research the philosophy that the author has chosen is the philosophy of positivism. With the help of the guidelines of positivism philosophy the author has made his own guideline on the basis to which the data for the research was collected. These guidelines assured the proper and relevant collection of data. The third part of research philosophy is the research approach with the help of which proper steps for data collection was taken by the author. From the two types of research approach of inductive and deductive approaches the author has chosen the deductive approach. With the help of deductive approach the knowledge gathered about the concept of social media and CCTV-13 was applied on the research analysis which gave the author appropriate and correct results. With the help of the fourth part the research design the author designed the process of its data collection. With the help of exploratory research design the author of this paper has made the research design that helped him to collect data which were relevant for the study. The first part of research methodology is the most important part as it deals with the data collection process which is the most essential work of any research. The author has completed this study with the help of secondary data acquired from various sources such as business magazines, blogs, newspapers, articles and journals. These data are then analysis in the fourth section of this paper with provided the author with impact or changes in CCTV-13 due to development of social media. The sixth part is the also the important part of this paper as helps the author to design a proper analysis plan for the secondary data. This plan includes the collected of data from appropriate and relevant sources. After the collection the deductive approach is applied on the collected data in order to acquire knowledge and understandings about the social media and CCTV 13 along with the impact of social media on CCTV-13. Thus the analysis plan gave the author a step by step procedure to analyze the data in appropriate manner.
The evaluation that has been undertaken by gaining information from various secondary sources have been able to reveal the fact that CCTV 13 at the primary phases of the introduction of social media was facing great losses and were losing their customers. However, with the advent of time, with their transforming plans and strategies were able to utilize the positive effects of social media. The channel with the plans and strategies prepared pages in the social media platforms and offered news to the readers and gave the opportunity to provide their own opinions and feedback. This increased the expression level of the consumers as they were able to freely express their views with regards to some information which led to way to development of new ideas and answers.
The channel was even able to reach out to the global consumers and was able to gain faster news and information. The use of social media made the channel come closer to their consumers and this led to a better communication line and made the channel understand the choices and the requirements of the consumers. The channel therefore maintained a parity between the use of social media and their traditional services method which assisted them to increase their brand image and reputation. The completion of the analysis comes to the finding that social media has a positive effect on the traditional media and the positive impact is observed after the analysis made for CCTV 13.
5.1 Recommendation
The completion of the evaluation has made way for delivering new and improved suggestions with the help of which the channel can enhance their services and activities. It is recommended that the channel takes feedback from their viewers from time to time in order to understand the user experience and gain knowledge about what the consumers want and how they can improve their services towards them.
It is even suggested that the company analyzes the activities and actions that have been undertaken by their rival channels so that they can take steps and actions with the help of which they can remain a step ahead of the others.
It is even recommended that the market is analyzed and the channel remains ready for making changes in their plans and actions if there is a change in the need in the market with respect to new and telecast activities. The channel is even recommended to make tie ups with other international channels so that they can receive global news at the earliest and deliver the news to their consumers with the help of which their image and reputation remain enhanced.
5.2 Future Plan
The study that has been undertaken has a scope for further developments in the future. It is mainly due to the fact that social media platforms and the scope of news and media is changing drastically with the use and development of various digital tools and technologies. It is due to this fact that a research on this topic in future course of action can be undertaken with the help of which better and different results can be ascertained. A comparison with the current and the future research study can be made with the help of which the idea can be attained with respect to the changes that have taken place and impact social media would have on traditional media in the future time period.
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