The flowers are similar from year to year, but the city is different from year to year. In 2021, which cities are in the spotlight, and which cities are on the hot search list? In the noisy field of public opinion, how is the image of the city revealed, defined and reshaped, and what is different about the urban story that people listen to?
This is the second issue of the Southern Weekend Urban (Regional) Research Center,"Annual Observations on City Image".
In the previous annual report, we defined 2020 as a "turning point", and put forward the judgment that niche cities are "out of the circle" and the big cities are "out of the new"; in 2021, the city image communication continues to maintain the general trend of "out of the circle" and "out of the new", and shows more wonderful changes.
In 2021, our judgment is that the dissemination of urban image has entered the "year of evolution": this year, the participatory communication of social networks continues to contribute to the "out-of-the-loop" of niche cities; this year, historical and cultural cities continue to adjust the story content of the city, and the serious and elegant traditional cultural elements have won the favor of the masses; this year, under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the good and bad government governance has been magnified, showing the "face" and "Lizi" of the city in the special period.
The research team believes that these three conditions correspond to the three major success rules that urban communication needs to practice - social dividends, cultural heritage and public opinion effects of unexpected situations.
Those lonely and nameless cities, those cities that have fame and want to tell new stories, how to grasp the laws of communication, define themselves and reinvent themselves, improve urban visibility, and push open the door to the victory of urban communication?
Social Dividend: The empathy effect continues
In 2021, on the women's 10m jump platform of the Tokyo Olympic Games, 14-year-old Quan Hongchan made a stunning leap, winning the championship with 3 full scores and a unique "splash disappearance technique", instantly igniting social networks. People's curiosity turned to "what kind of city made all red chan". People were surprised to find that this small city is the cutting-edge "internet red city" zhanjiang in Guangdong.
From Chikan Old Street, which became popular in 2020 with the online drama "The Hidden Corner", to the "Sea of Pineapples" in early 2021, and then to the "All Red Chan Effect" in the middle of the year, Zhanjiang in the past two years seems to have played a "popular" series. This is the dark horse-like existence of domestic urban transmission.
Zhanjiang is a large city with a population of nearly 8 million. However, in the past public opinion field, it was a "small city" that few people paid attention to and discussed. Why can the extremely everyday life scene define Zhanjiang, a relatively "niche" city?
Secrets are dividends for social networks.
In social networks, niche cities get the opportunity to quickly become household names. The fragmented city image, as a glimpse in the complex composition of the city image, also stimulates people's gaze and reverie of a specific city image.
"Hidden Corners" show the old customs and old times of Zhanjiang, evoking people's nostalgic feelings; "The Sea of Pineapples" shows the colorful tropical agricultural landscape, the pastoral life of "Ambiguous And Distant People's Village" attracts the city people who have been in the cage for a long time; the image of the little girl next door in the whole red Chan, the simplicity and optimism, and even the resilience of growing upwards, sprinkle a bright light in the social environment of drawing on the fame of merit.
In the specific practice of 2021, we have found that in film and television, variety shows, cut into one side of the crowd, express the water and soil of one side, present a solid atmosphere of life, and gradually become a trend.
The similarity and closeness that come to the surface make people on social networks empathize, so that they are willing to discuss and share, creating hot search-level traffic; while the active participation of institutional media and the promotion of platform-based media further increase the possibility of hot discussion among the whole people.
In other words, this is the "topic degree" in the context of social networking. In the era of integrated media communication, there is no visibility of the city without the spread of the topic.
The well-known "Chongqing Forest" in the past, the "Miracle Stupid Child" that is now popular, the variety show "Ding Zhen's Natural Notes", "Night in Greater Wan Chai", the documentary "Wonderful City" and "The Reason I Live Here", these films, television and variety shows all contain unique city symbols.
The closeness of urban symbols and the integration of social networks have created the dividends of urban communication in the era of integrated media. This is also a lesson that the rulers who used to focus on the traditional public opinion field must learn.
The city that continues to go out on the social network is not only Zhanjiang.
In the southwest region, Guizhou Bijie, a "poor student" limited by the geographical environment and unable to keep up with the progress of development, has created a digital miracle through the Network. Relevant data show that the number of more than 30 Bijieda fans on the Douyin platform is higher than 1 million, and live streaming with goods has become an important way for local residents to get rich. A pair of Bijie Yi brothers have opened self-media accounts on multiple platforms, with more than 300,000 fans on a single platform and more than 500,000 traffic monetization.
While the southwestern small city of Bijie created a digital miracle, the northeastern small city of Heilongjiang Hegang, thousands of miles away, also ushered in a wave of traffic dividends.
This resource-based city, which is famous for coal, is subject to a single industrial structure, and its economic transformation is difficult, and it is inevitable to fall into a contraction crisis and gradually fall silent. In the past two years, because of the "cabbage house price" in the social network again, it has become a "utopia" for young people to buy a house, and has become one of China's "net red" cities. Will its contraction and recession usher in hopes of revival?
The humorous and concise Internet pop meme stimulates happy emotions and gradually becomes a bridge between the city and netizens. For example, terriers such as "Caoxian 666", "Wuhu Take-off" and "Bengbu Residence" have quickly become popular among major media platforms. After the popularity of Cao County, Shandong, shandong Heze hotel bookings increased by 8 times year-on-year, driving the development of local tourism.
In addition, music is not left behind in the boost of the city's image dissemination. According to the "Douyin 2021 Data Report", the love divine comedy "Mohe Dance Hall" drove the search volume of Mohe in Heilongjiang to increase by more than 6 times in two weeks, and more than 20.95 million people watched the mohe slow live broadcast.
McLuhan once said that "the media is the message", to a certain extent, shows that the media has a decisive role in the communication effect. The superior performance of film and television, variety shows, music and social networks in the dissemination of urban image calls on local governments to build a comprehensive matrix of media communication, no longer stuck to a single media and communication form.
Cultural Heritage: Elegant content begins to appear
Overnight explosions are common, and it is not common for them to continue to become popular. However, in the field of public opinion in 2021, Henan has gone from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. From the Spring Festival to the Mid-Autumn Festival, Henan Satellite TV seems to have opened up the second pulse of Ren Dou, presented a cultural feast for the public, and completely reborn, netizens directly called "Henan Satellite TV killed crazy".
In the case of Henan, we see the participatory dissemination of topics and social networks. But unlike Zhanjiang's script, henan satellite TV attracts people with traditional culture. The fusion of cultural heritage elements and modern dance makes people can't help but sigh: the cultural flow is to let it play clearly.
With the continuous explosion of the Henan Satellite TV series, sites and scenic spots such as Longmen Grottoes, Yingtianmen, and Dingdingmen have been warmly welcomed, and Luoyang, a thousand-year-old city, has been pushed in front of the public.
This attention economy has been fully realized offline, triggering people's pursuit of historical and cultural heritage.
According to Ctrip's "Tourism Night Economy Report for the First Half of 2021", Luoyang ranks first in the list of night tour destinations, and driven by the night tour experience represented by the night tour Longmen Grottoes, the order volume of Luoyang City increased by nearly 8 times year-on-year. In addition, Kaifeng is also among the top three night travel destinations with a large increase in popularity in the first half of 2021.
Under the example of Henan Satellite TV, other cities have also begun to "attack" local cultural elements.
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Shaanxi, Hunan, Shanghai and other local satellite televisions no longer pursue the traffic star lineup, and creating a cultural evening full of local characteristics has become their common choice. Whether it is Shaanxi Satellite TV's "Send You a Chang'an", Hunan Satellite TV's "Moon Goes, I Go", or Oriental Satellite TV's "Yue Yue Dongfang", we can see that in the main position of urban image dissemination, culture has become a must.
Influenced by a fast-paced lifestyle, fun and relaxed communication content is often easier to attract attention and traffic. In the urban communication where entertainment prevails, traditional culture is thick and deep, and in the past, the image of the city through this method has had little effect.
The scenes of daily life have sufficient closeness and sufficient topicality to facilitate the definition and reshaping of the image of the city; but traditional culture, especially serious traditional culture, gives ordinary people a certain sense of distance, which often exists in textbooks and video materials, is it valuable to define the city?
Henan offers the first success story.
Henan's "Chinese Festivals" series does not deliberately chase fun and carnival, but stands in the torrent of consumerism in a solemn and solemn manner, respects tradition and adheres to culture, and has become a clear stream in the wave of entertainment.
He Guoping, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, believes that urban positioning is the primary condition for the dissemination of urban image. The dissemination of urban image needs to find the correct positioning and stand on its own characteristic culture. As a province with a thousand years of cultural precipitation, Henan has been unswerving in adhering to and inheriting culture for many years.
After the slogan of "Cultural Platform" was put forward, Henan Satellite TV launched cultural programs such as "Chinese Character Hero", "Idiom Hero", "Huayu Gate" and so on, awakening the national consciousness of local residents within the Henan region and forming cultural identity. While digging deep into the cultural core, we promote cultural innovation, use technical means to create immersive experiences, bring the audience into the cultural context, and stimulate cultural self-confidence.
Henan has used its own case to prove to other cities that serious "serious" cultural elements can also promote the city's popularity. In urban communication, the power of cultural heritage lies in creating enough sense of sublimity, giving people a solemn distance and a desire to pursue elegant art and identity. This is the higher spiritual need of the people, and it is related to the empathy effect of the higher level.
In 2021, the national hot flashes, museum fever, and cultural relics fever emerge in an endless stream, the public's attitude towards traditional culture has turned, the "old" history and culture of the past has been revitalized in the new era, and the serious way of culture as the background has become a new way for the city to become popular.
We can expect that in the future, cultural ancient cities and famous cities will wake up from history and reproduce their former glory in the new era.
Public opinion effect: walking between popularity and crisis
On the evening of October 31, 2021, at Shanghai Disneyland, fireworks in the sky and castles in the distance guarded the dreams of fairy tales, and in the nearby square, the nucleic acid testing team moved in an orderly manner. The harmonious coexistence of fireworks and queuing of nucleic acids shows the calmness and romance of Shanghai's fight against the epidemic.
From the circulation report "only mentioning the location and not mentioning the person", to the city not stopping operation, the people's normal life while clearing zero cases, and then to the "testing nucleic acid under the fireworks", Shanghai's professionalism and action to deal with the epidemic have given the public another reason to fall in love with the city.
Coincidentally, a sentence of "phone call me" made Shenzhen enjoy full praise in the hot search list. During the epidemic period, a netizen left a message under the WeChat public account of the "Shenzhen Health Commission" asking whether it is possible to give priority to the hospital for pregnant women who have done nucleic acid but have not yet produced results. After 6 minutes, the "Shenzhen Health Commission" replied that after 1 hour, the pregnant woman was successfully admitted to the hospital. In the face of flexible and efficient coordination of emergencies, the speed of Shenzhen's "special zone" during the epidemic has not decreased, bringing citizens a full sense of security and labeling the city with a warm label.
Big cities warm their hearts, and small cities also have heroic feats. Border towns such as Ruili in Yunnan and Suifenhe in Heilongjiang, in the northeast and southwest corners of China, cities that "must be found on the map with a magnifying glass" have been in the forefront due to their special geographical locations, entangled with the epidemic throughout the year, leaving a strong mark in the anti-epidemic chronicle in 2021, which has attracted much attention.
When masks become a necessary item for travel, the construction of the image of the city caused by public health emergencies tests the governance level of the city and also puts forward higher requirements for the governance of urban public opinion.
In addition, public opinion events, including natural disasters such as torrential rains and floods, as well as public emergencies, have gradually become uncertain factors in the shaping of urban image in the post-epidemic era, affecting the spread of urban image.
We found that "public opinion into success, public opinion into failure" is a true portrayal of the ups and downs of the reputation of large and small cities in 2021. In the face of emergencies, the city's energy level, volume and visibility are decoupled, regardless of the size of the city, and sudden public opinion is both an opportunity and a crisis.
In the face of sudden emergencies, some cities lack flexibility and flexibility, and lack of management, which adversely affects the image of the city and triggers negative public opinion in the city. On the hot search list in 2021, some cities have left an embarrassing mark, such as the escape of the golden leopard in Hangzhou Wildlife Park, and the "concealment of the leopard" has triggered public ridicule.
Sudden public events and network communication superimposed, urban image communication ecology is facing a more complex situation, how to effectively shape and repair the image of the city is an unavoidable topic.
We see that in the face of sudden public opinion events, no matter what strategy is used to shape the image of the city, the key lies in respecting life and putting people first, and only cities that truly put the interests of the people first can create a good city image.
How to improve urban visibility?
In a special context, the image of the city has a bias of dissemination. In the dissemination of entertainment supremacy, the serious and serious "new" methodology has a foothold, and its role in promoting the dissemination of urban image has become more and more obvious.
With the blessing of Internet big data, Andy Warhol's "fifteen-minute law of fame" still applies to urban communication. A number of cities through different ways, in a very short period of time "out of the circle" and "out of the new" to become popular, but can always be active, to achieve long red cities are like the morning star. Cities with large urban scale and energy level occupy a leading position in urban communication with "big family and big business". The small town with a "weak family" can only be a fleeting meteor with a fleeting fate under the realistic limitations of operation that cannot keep up.
So, how can cities achieve long red?
In his book Narrative Economics, Nobel laureate Robert Shearer argues that successful economic narratives rely on specific elements: humanity, identity, and patriotism.
And these three elements can be expressed through the closeness of the all-red Chan effect, or they can be expressed with serious content like Henan Satellite TV.
Compared with the internet celebrity dots with serious homogenization, "The Hidden Corner" brings fire to Zhanjiang because it has elements such as nostalgia, childhood, and far away; Shenzhen in "Miracle Stupid Child" presents stories of family affection, entrepreneurship, and miracles; Henan's cultural programs awaken national identity and inspire the cultural self-confidence of Chinese; the public opinion governance of Shanghai, Shenzhen, Ruili, and Suifenhe reflects respect for the people's values.
Focusing on the cultural symbols that carry the city's heritage and resonating through urban stories and experiences is one of the secrets of successfully building a city's image.
We believe that for the dissemination of urban image, accurate positioning is the primary principle. Based on their own cultural coordinates, dig deep into the characteristics, establish cultural self-confidence, create high-quality communication content, and break the circle from the inside out.
Second, make good use of social media. Content construction is the essence, and "channel is king" is also very important. In recent years, small and lonely cities such as Litang, Xuwen and Caoxian have become popular through topical events on social media, proving that social media may be an opportunity for small cities to make their voices heard and be seen.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the logical basis for telling urban stories is the empathy effect. Thanks to the dissemination of various media, the foundation of the city's "long red" lies in stimulating people's yearning for the city through real stories, and realizing the transformation from content and emotional interaction to establishing a realistic link with the city.
The spiritual core that defines a city is often rooted in the emotions and values of Chinese culture.
Southern Weekend Urban (Regional) Research Center
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