Let the World Understand China better and Tell Chinese Stories Better in All-Media

By Zhong Youtian, Zhejiang Media College

Let the World Understand China better and Tell Chinese Stories Better in All-Media

By Zhong Youtian, Zhejiang Media College

Currently, with the continuous development of all-media, there are also full-range media, holographic media, full-scale media, full-effect media, etc. Information can be found everywhere and used by everyone. Promoting media integration to develop in depth, constructing a whole media communication pattern, making great efforts to tell Chinese stories, and showing the world a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive China are the important task for publicity work overseas in the new era. We should firmly grasp the profound changes in the media pattern and be good at telling Chinese stories in the wholly media.

Development of the whole media has provided favorable conditions for telling Chinese stories well. Good stories often need to design and create characters, plots, scenes, etc., be able to see people, deeds and feelings, express views and stance in the eloquent way, so that the audience can listen, believe and keep in mind. Real characters, vivid plots, warm scenes, etc. are the elements of a good story. From a practice perspective, a single media form sometimes can hardly adequately express many elements of a good story, so we need to resort to cross-media, integrated media, and all-media. Presently, the vigorous development of the new generation of information technology, such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, block chain, has provided technical support for the full-time, cross-terminal, hyperlink, touch-able, experiential and communicable all-media communication pattern, as well as favorable conditions for us to creatively tell Chinese stories. For example, relying on virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology to carry out scene-based and space-based storytelling can create an immersive and intoxicated effect in the virtual scene; relying on the Internet social platform to carry out social and interactive storytelling can realize interaction between the narrator and audience in the virtual space, and then arouse the audience resonance. These storytelling methods help to form storytelling products with both pictures and texts, and make the characters, plots and scenes of the stories richer and more vivid, so as to enhance the attraction and appeal of Chinese stories, and constantly enhance the dissemination effect. Practice has proved that all-media communication is conducive to the expression of China's position and views with the help of some fresh elements, so it is an important way to do a good job for publicity overseas in the new era.

The wholly-media ecology formed by relying on the new generation of information technology not only provides a new platform for telling Chinese stories, but also provides a new channel for publicizing Chinese stories. One of the characteristics of the whole media is that the coverage of space and people is very wide, which leads to profound changes in the mode of communication. In the virtual scene created by the wholly media, the dissemination of stories is public and open, and the audience is massive. The openness of story dissemination makes many audience become disseminators of story to some extent. This feature determines that we can make full use of the media's communication power, expand the coverage of Chinese stories, and strive to provide to people who see and hear wonderful Chinese stories at any time, anywhere and at any terminal.

Currently, we have made effective explorations in using the wholly media to tell Chinese stories, and achieved remarkable results. But we should also realize that it is necessary to make more efforts all-dimensionally to tell attractive and appealing Chinese stories so that audiences with different historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds can truly accept Chinese stories. We should be good at using the all-media to endow Chinese stories with new ideas and vitality, emotions and fever, to form interaction, to achieve dialogue, to promote understanding and to build consensus between story tellers and audience, so as to promote the culture and values transmitted by the Chinese stories to be broadly resonated. In short, the whole media is an effective carrier and channel for telling Chinese stories well. We should pursue, move and work in accordance with the changing situation and in the wave of continuous development of the wholly media, should tell well the story of the CPC's governance of the country, should tell well the story of the Chinese people's struggle for realizing the dream, should tell well the story of China's persistence in peaceful development, cooperation and win-win results in a more pluralistic, three-dimensional and dynamic ways, so as to make a sound impression and portrait of China in the new era and to show the world a real, three-dimensional, comprehensive China.

(Edited excerpts of the article in People's Daily, 13 June 2019)