Introduction: "Silence for 15 days! Recently, some netizens found that many official Weibo or big V of Zhao Liying's fan base were banned, including many accounts with millions of fans, and subsequently, @Zhao Liying Studio was also banned. This is also the first fan group to be banned for "mutual tearing" since the Central Cyberspace Administration decided to launch the "Clear Lang Operation" in June this year. Traffic stars, platform capital, and rice circle culture have become the three major engines of the current network environment chaos, and have also attracted the attention of the government and the whole society. How to effectively create a civilized and healthy online environment, strengthen the protection of minors online, and help minors grow up healthily? In response to these phenomena and problems, Observer Network interviewed Wu Yingbo, vice president of the Institute of Media and Public Affairs of the Communication University of China.
Observer Network: The recent traffic star incidents have allowed us to see the deep "erosion" of the rice circle culture on the behavior and way of thinking of teenagers. Judging from the phenomena you have observed, what are the salient characteristics of this "rice circle thinking" and what impact will it have on the growth of adolescents?
Xi Yingbo: The term rice circle is an Internet term, that is, the abbreviation of the fan circle. In fact, "fans" and "rice" are both derived from the transliteration of the English "fans". Fans are "rice", and the circle of fans is called "rice circle". It can be said that from the star chaser, to the fans, and then to the rice circle, although the title has changed, the worship and pursuit of idols has not changed.
What cannot be ignored is that the Internet era in which we live today – the popularity of the mobile Internet, the innovation of electronic technology, and the integration of platform media – has brought subtle but far-reaching changes to our lives. This change appeals to individuals, and we hardly see passengers flipping through newspapers on the subway anymore; it can change groups, and even payment software is trying to become a tool for communication between groups; it has changed society, and the power accumulated by a single forward can even promote the process of national legal system.
This is the reality we face today – the socialization of media and the mediatization of society. This gradual process shocks and changes the original traditional society, first with the wind and rain, and then with great fanfare; the society is undergoing great changes that are constantly resonating and agitating from the bottom up, but also from the top down. Therefore, we see that celebrities + traffic + rice circles, in today's era, can often be amplified into public opinion hot events in a short period of time. In particular, the recent "milk pouring incident", "fund-raising behavior", "Wu Yifan incident", etc., are all manifestations of the deep "erosion" of adolescent behavior and thinking style by rice circle culture.
In a network roundup, fans buy designated milk, and after scanning the QR code of the bottle cap to vote for the idol, there is a situation where the unsaved milk is discarded
This kind of rice circle thinking is externalized, and there are three significant characteristics, one is "reason follows emotion", the second is "three views follow the five senses", and the third is "stars follow capital".
A "reason follows emotion" is manifested as safeguarding the interests of idols above all else. From brushing and commenting to verbally tearing each other apart, from provoking confrontation to online violence, some even to advocating willingness to pay everything for stars, including time, money, body and life. Often the more extreme fans who hold such views, because of extraordinary efforts, are more likely to be selected as "fans", that is, the leaders of the rice circle, who have the right to speak and control the rice circle. In this way, the payment of "overspending" has also become a qualified standard for measuring a rice circle fan, which has further created the paranoia and inner volume of the rice circle culture.
The second "three views follow the five senses", which is manifested as the value of appearance and justice, not only confuses the correct outlook on life, but also aggravates the undeserved appearance anxiety of the adolescent group, resulting in the abound of junior high school students and high school students doing medical and aesthetic plastic surgery, resulting in a bad social atmosphere.
The three "stars follow the capital", which is manifested as capital manipulating stars and rice circles. Capital not only marks the commercial value and liquidity of celebrities through traffic; but also promotes the so-called rice circle to serve itself through people-designed packaging and pyramid marketing, including inducing minors to raise funds, high consumption, voting and hitting the list. Some stars who have lost both virtue and art can also become the top stream, and some online communities spontaneously formed by star-chasing fans have developed into hotbeds for illegal fundraising, traffic fraud and other illegal crimes.
Young people are the hope of the country and the future of the nation. For adolescents growing and developing, some of the wrong worldviews, outlooks on life and values advocated by rice circle thinking, if capital and flow are allowed to be amplified without guidance and change, will have a huge destructive effect on the future life and social atmosphere of teenagers. Therefore, the problem of the deep "erosion" of the behavior and thinking style of young people by the rice circle culture should arouse the attention of the whole society.
Observer Network: "Rice Circle" was originally a subcultural phenomenon, but in recent years there have been many out-of-the-loop behaviors, such as the 2019 "Rice Circle Expedition" foreign social media incident. How do you think you can guide young people in the rice circle to form a correct social cognition to understand the operation of politics, society, and culture, and adopt positive social participation behaviors?
Xi Yingbo: Behind the "rice circle" out of the circle, it reflects the complexity of network problems and the urgency of the need for comprehensive governance. To guide young people in the rice circle to form a correct social cognition, it should be education guidance, public opinion publicity, cultural edification, practice cultivation, institutional guarantees and so on. In the specific problem governance, form a multi-party responsible entity of the state, society, school and family, and jointly build a juvenile network protection system. From a development perspective, the right of minors to use new media resources and development opportunities should be respected, while their ability to identify and use the Internet should be enhanced.
At the same time, it should also be noted that Internet technology and new media have changed the cultural ecology and spawned a large number of new media product types, and it is necessary to adapt to the development of the situation and strengthen positive guidance, especially the creation and production of popular live broadcasts, short videos and popular network literary and artistic works. It is necessary to adhere to the guidance rather than pandering, to break the capital hijacking of only ratings and only flow, and to attract, guide and enlighten young people in the rice circle through healthy spiritual food. Content producers and platforms should work together to improve the youth model mechanism and build a pool of high-quality content.
Observer Network: In response to the adverse impact of the rice circle culture, the regulatory authorities have organized clear actions many times to rectify the rice circle phenomenon and platform capital. In your opinion, how can this kind of governance action achieve effective governance while grasping the "degree"?
Xi Yingbo: Although virtual and open are important features and development momentum of the Internet, the Internet is not an extralegal place. Continuous, repeated, and effective cyberspace governance actions by regulatory authorities are very necessary, and this kind of governance is not to keep young people away from the Internet, but to create a civilized and healthy online environment for young people through network governance.
In real life, we want to live in the green mountains and rivers, and we also need to be clean and healthy in the network society. In the same way, network governance cannot rely solely on regulatory authorities, but requires the participation of all sectors of society, including enterprises, platforms, schools, families, and societies and academia.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) Launches "Qinglang· Notice of the special action of the rice circle 'chaos rectification'
It can be said that with the development of Internet technology, the importance and urgency of youth network protection has attracted attention from all sides. On June 1 this year, China's newly revised Law on the Protection of Minors was officially implemented, and a special chapter on "Network Protection" was added to it. The Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the China Internet Network Information Center and other academic organizations released the "National Research Report on the Internet Use of Minors". The Observer Think Tank and the School of Media and Public Affairs of the Communication University of China have also jointly established a "Research Group for the Protection of Minors on the Internet", inviting experts and scholars in the judicial field, the media field, platform enterprises and experts and scholars to jointly carry out special research.
From the observation of the trend of the protection of Internet minors in China in recent years, it can be seen that the advantages of integrity, overall planning and forward-looking are being brought into play, and gradually creating a pattern of government and legal level, content producer level, platform level, and mutual cooperation and practice at the community, school and family levels with Chinese characteristics, and a good start has emerged in the combination of traditional protection system and online protection, and the combination of rigid governance and flexible governance. However, the implementation and development of multi-party coordination mechanisms in the online protection of minors also need to be further developed, and the whole society needs to work together for a long time.
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