From disorder to norm
China’s webcasting emerged in 2005, and it developed by spurt in 2016. By 2018, the scale of China’s live broadcast industry has exceeded 456 million people, that is, more than half of China netizens have played live broadcast. According to the data of "White Paper on Full-platform Live Broadcasting Industry of Xiaohulu in 2018", the number of new anchors on the whole platform was 1.45 million in 2017, and this number rose to 2.17 million in 2018.
The huge market scale has led to mixed anchor groups. In order to attract attention, some anchors do everything they can, from "eel incident" to "live mother taking a bath" to "live drug taking" and "live jumping off a building", the outrageous live broadcast behavior has repeatedly broken the moral and legal bottom line. This shows that live webcasting activities and the behavior of network anchors need to be standardized. To this end, in 2018, the National Office for Combating Pornography, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and other departments jointly issued the Notice on Strengthening the Management of Webcast Services to strengthen the basic management of the Webcast industry.
Under strict control, extreme live broadcast behaviors such as "eel incident" have been greatly reduced, but violations such as "smoking in live broadcast" and "swearing in live broadcast" still occur from time to time. Some of these behaviors are deliberately playing "edge ball", and some are "unintentional actions" caused by the anchor’s lack of understanding of relevant norms.
Song Leyong, deputy general manager of Guangming. com, said that since the beginning of 2018, Guangming. com, with the support of the Central Network Information Office, has built a network anchor blacklist database sharing system. Up to now, more than 2,100 anchors have entered this blacklist. "Some are deliberately involved in pornography and drugs driven by interests, but most people who enter the blacklist are ignorant. For example, some people smoke in the live broadcast, and some people swear in the live broadcast. The behavior seems to be indifferent, but once it is blacked out, they will be unable to move on the Internet, and it is difficult to open an online store. "
Therefore, it is necessary to educate and train network anchors from the perspective of maintaining the clean cyberspace and the long-term interests of network anchors.
In November, 2018, the Network Performance (Live Broadcasting) Branch of China Performance Association held a network performance (live broadcasting) industry training course in Shanghai, which involved the interpretation of policies and regulations, the explanation of law enforcement cases, the special training of anchor literacy, the image and etiquette of live broadcasting, etc. However, the scale was small, and most of the participants were the content audit leaders of the live broadcasting platform and some head anchors.
The anchor training that Cool Dog started this time is large in scale, and all anchors on the platform can sign up to participate, and the other is to normalize the training. Huang Xuanting, head of Cool Dog Live Academy, introduced that Cool Dog Live Academy was launched in May 2018. At present, it has developed more than 140 online courses, 30% of which are policies, laws and regulations. The purpose is to teach anchors how to make their live broadcast behavior legal and legal. The effect of the training is obvious. "The anchor who participated in the training has a 67% decrease in behavior violation rate".
From Yan value to value
Hong Gege, who graduated from the School of Music of Southwest University, used to be a music teacher. Although she has a good musical literacy, she is also very nervous when she first entered the live broadcast industry. She doesn’t know how to face the camera and won’t interact with fans. When she first started the live broadcast, she was "so nervous that her hands would shake".
Many new anchors will "learn from the teacher", that is, learn from the old anchor "how to attract fans, how to get more rewards and gifts", etc. It is basically impossible to learn more. Most anchors live in the rivers and lakes and die. As Xie Huan said, there is a strange circle in the live broadcast industry. No matter how popular the anchor is, the popularity cycle is basically 3 to 5 years.
Fans’ attention to the anchor is mostly a fresh picture. Once the freshness is over, it is likely to "turn around". The main reason is that everyone can broadcast live with a smart phone, and the content of the live broadcast lacks professionalism, and it has been spinning at the same level for a long time. Many talent anchors have no masterpieces, and fans are prone to aesthetic fatigue. Hong Gege sighed to the reporter, "The professional bottleneck of the anchor is that fans are mobile, and you must constantly improve your talents and live broadcast skills to make fans stable."
To improve the professional level of anchors, education and training is an unavoidable process. Cool dog’s training for music anchors is to make efforts in specialization and improve the professionalism of anchors. Huang Xuanting introduced that Cool Dog Live Academy, in conjunction with industry associations and several universities, has developed more than 140 courses for anchors to choose from, 70% of which are professional courses, ranging from basic vocal skills to the use of musical instruments to the explanation of music theory, including video courses and live courses, as well as one-to-one and one-to-many small class training. Each course has different points according to the degree of difficulty. When a certain point is accumulated, the anchor can apply for the exam. After passing the exam, the anchor entered a two-month internship period. During the internship, there are also assessments, including system rating and user rating. When the live content reaches a certain standard and there is "zero violation", it can be officially "graduated" and certified and promoted by the platform.
In order to improve the professional level of training, Cool Dog Live Academy hired senior industry experts to offer customized teaching. For example, a vocal music professor from the Berkeley Conservatory of Music in the United States sits in the Cool Dog Live Academy and teaches from singing skills, expression management, emotional expression and other aspects. Lan Tianyang, the vocal consultant of Singer, set up a "Good Voice Training Camp" in Cool Dog Live Academy, trying to solve the problems encountered by the anchor in singing, so as to make the voice by going up one flight of stairs. Hong Gege, who participated in the training, felt that she had gained a lot. With learning how to turn her music skills into a show performance, she completed a gorgeous turn from a music teacher to an anchor in online celebrity, and hoped to write her own songs and be original in the future, so as to go further on the road of specialization.
Gao Wenjun, an assistant researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that when the platform creates a learning and upgrading space for anchors from the perspective of development, it can not only cultivate more excellent anchors, but also produce better content to attract viewers. In the long run, it can also promote the overall development of the live broadcast industry.
From specialization to professionalization
It is a very realistic question whether network anchors can stand on a higher stage without the live broadcast room. For the anchor, it means whether it can break through the professional bottleneck and open up a new world.
Many network anchors are also trying to develop offline, in order to advance from online celebrity to performing stars. However, after leaving the live broadcast room, it is inevitable that they will not adapt to the professional stage. There was once a online celebrity music anchor with millions of fans who participated in a music program. He stood on the stage and was asked a question related to the basic knowledge of music theory by his tutor, so he was stumped and stopped.
From the perspective of the overall environment, the scale of the webcast industry is growing steadily, and the development of the industry is also returning to rationality. It is difficult to have a foothold in the practice of spelling out the value, showing the lower limit and playing the legal edge ball. Behavior not violating the rules is only the foundation. In order to gain long-term vitality, there must be quality content. Therefore, in addition to standardization and specialization, it seems inevitable to promote the professionalization of network anchors, because only professionalism can improve the quality of live broadcast content.
Whether network anchor can become a profession has been debated in the industry for years. Pan Yan, secretary general of China Performance Industry Association, said that live broadcast is a tool, and not everyone can become an anchor by using live broadcast. Only when a professional network anchor group appears can it become a new profession. In the future, China Performance Industry Association will provide ability certification services for anchors in need, and at the same time establish a vocational education standard system that can be applied to all platforms.
The reality is ahead of the professional identification of network anchors. At present, a number of professional network anchors have appeared on major live broadcast platforms, and many of them have set up teams and developed from online to offline. For example, on the Aauto Quicker live broadcast platform, the Yiren team, represented by online celebrity’s "Boss Sha", gathered a group of network anchors, specializing in shooting funny short videos on rural themes, which gained high popularity and was invited to participate in the filming of the film "Genius Partner". Most of these network anchors are still engaged in other jobs, and webcasting can only be regarded as a part-time job. Only some head anchors put all their energy into the live broadcast and regard the anchor as a profession.
This shows that the professionalization of network anchors has a long way to go. Promoting the standardization, specialization and professionalization of network anchors is difficult to achieve only by one or two platforms, but requires the joint efforts of platforms, associations and industry authorities. Huang Xuanting called on more live broadcast platforms to join the training of anchors, empower the industry incubation through talent education and training, and turn the network anchor into the "361st line" that can be the number one scholar at an early date.
(Reporter Han Yeting)
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