Short videos help break the traditional circle of reading
Short videos have become a new form of information acquisition and social participation for people. In the era of short videos, what changes have occurred in people's reading behavior, and has the current reading ecosystem become more diverse? Shanghai University of Technology has released a report titled "Research on Reading in the Short Video Era". The report points out that short videos have become a new type of reading method that meets the development of the times and the needs of the public, integrating and promoting traditional reading, and playing a positive role in promoting universal reading, knowledge and cultural popularization.
Zhang Wenyan, Vice Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Qingdao University, proposed three hypotheses during the report discussion.
Assumption 1: Can short videos enrich the ecosystem of public reading? From the perspective of inter media theory, no medium can exist alone. Before the emergence of writing, human culture went through the era of images, murals, and sculpture. Today, we are once again returning to the era of images, which is just the technological image era emphasized by Stiegler and Frussel. As McLuhan emphasized, "media is information," the same content is a new product after changing the carrier. The anthropological work "Matsutake" states that matsutake can transform inorganic substances into organic soil for other plants to absorb. From this perspective, short videos may become a mushroom in the current reading system.
Assumption 2: Is the network dissemination of short videos loose and not strong enough? Some people believe that the dissemination of short videos is a network structure, losing the close power of traditional public spaces. However, we have found that behind short videos are a vast number of content creators and suppliers from different professions, professions, and backgrounds, including knowledgeable individuals, experts and scholars, writers, cultural celebrities, publishing houses, and even major universities and research institutions. As a medium, short videos graft the communication structures between different types of people, giving birth to new communication results. The dissemination of short videos is not a network structure, but a tree like structure, effectively enhancing the interactivity of dissemination, forming what the publishing industry calls a "communication cycle", breaking the single dimension of book dissemination, and making the dimensions of knowledge dissemination more diverse.
Assumption 3: Can short videos break the elitism and circle of traditional reading? Many people have emotions and admiration for words, but rational thinking can reveal that words are not only a bridge of communication, but also have a "hard shell". For example, China's "Complete Library of Four Branches" can be regarded as a huge "palace of knowledge", but even readers with rich knowledge can only understand a small part. Most readers can only appreciate its brilliance on the surface of the "hall". When the "shell" of knowledge becomes increasingly rigid and hard, and cannot be accessed by the public, what is the purpose of having so many literature? The emergence of short videos may reshape the logic of reading, help us break through the circle of books, and make classic and elite popular.
