Since 2016, Li Ziye has started to post videos of ancient-style food production on internet platforms, and subsequently involved in various traditional handmade items, including bamboo furniture, stationery, paper making, etc. By posting on self-media platforms, she owns a large number of hits and has accumulated a large number of fans, becoming a unique oriental food life, and has been praised by netizens and the media for promoting the dissemination of traditional Chinese culture both at home and abroad.
From 2016 to 8 November 2020, Li Ziye has uploaded a total of 134 video works on Youtube, twitter, facebook, ranging from 4 to 10 minutes in length, which are mainly about her labour and life in mountain villages. Seasonal food and traditional festive food are the most popular items in her works, but by showing the process of planting, collecting and making, the videos convey to the viewers the appreciation of food and the harmony between human and nature. handmade paper, demonstrating traditional Chinese craftsmanship.
As of November 2020, Li Zi Dye has 27.01 million followers on Weibo, more than 700 play fans on b-station, more than 8 million fans on YouTube, and the number of YouTube broadcasts has reached more than 600 million, which not only receives attention from the domestic media, but also has been reported by the foreign media for its high popularity on Facebook and YouTube, forming a new way of exporting traditional culture. A new way of exporting traditional culture.
In this communication process, the KOL’s civilian identity as an “ordinary netizen” dissolved the hostile consciousness of the audience and brought the psychological distance between the audience and the KOL closer, and at the same time, through the deep cultivation of professionalism in the vertical field, the output of the content and information has a certain degree of professionalism and has gained the trust of the audience. Communicators with both “commonality” and “professionalism” are more acceptable in the new media communication field, which is decentralised, egalitarian and highly interactiv
New secondary communication theories for the new age of self media
The two-step flow communication theory is also known as mass communication – opinion leaders – general audience.
With the development of the Internet, the role of the network in the transmission of social events can not be underestimated. If the traditional theory of secondary communication is “mass media, leaders and the public model, then in the era of we media, a new model has emerged, that is, we media, community fans, mass media/the public”.
In the era of traditional media, the production of information content mainly comes from the authoritative media and its practitioners who master the discourse platform, and only the content that passes the control of the authoritative media can enter the information circulation. On the Internet today, UGC (user-produced content) has a place and has become an important traffic front in the Internet world.
