MECO6935 Professional Project

Cross-cultural Communication in Short Videos on Social Media Platform

A study on Chinese YouTuber Li Ziqi and her short videos

Introduction

With the rapid development of new media technology and the rise of various social platforms on a global scale, the ways and contents of communication between countries are becoming increasingly diverse. Nowadays, cross-cultural communication is not only between countries, but also among people under different cultural backgrounds. Thus, there is no doubt that cross-cultural communication has become an important channel between global cultures.

As a short video producer from Sichuan, China, Li Ziqi has attracted people's attention since 2017 and won a lot of praise from overseas fans for her YouTube short videos showing Chinese food and spreading Chinese traditional culture, which has generated great influence and communication power on a global scale. LiZiqi joined YouTube in August 2017, and by May 30, 2022, the number of Li Ziqi’s subscriptions on YouTube has reached more than 16.9 million. By comparison, CNN (Cable News Network), the most influential media outlet in the United States, has 13.9 million subscribers on its YouTube channel, while CGTN (China Global Television Network) only has around 2.8 million subscribers. Despite the differences in language and cultural backgrounds between the information sender and receivers, people from different countries and regions comment with full of praise under Li Ziqi’s short videos. It can be said that Li Ziqi has achieved great success in cross-cultural communication by using short videos as  a means  of cross-cultural  communication,  and  received  even more widespread attention from the globe, comparing with China’s official media channel.

As a personal communicator, Li Ziqi has effectively spread Chinese culture, presented a positive image of China and narrated Chinese stories to the world. In this paper, Li Ziqi is taken as an example to explore the content construction, self-presentation, and communication  effect  by  analyzing  her  short  videos,  so  as  to  conclude  some enlightenments for social media influencers who intend to spread their cultures overseas and provide references for future studies towards cross-cultural communication.

Literature Review

Cross-cultural Communication

In 1959, Edward Hall, a cultural anthropologist, proposed the concept of intercultural communication for the first time in his book The Silent Language, which referred to the  communication  activities  between  individuals,  groups,  or  organizations  from different cultural backgrounds. In the book, he claimed the statement “communication is culture, and culture is communication” to emphasize the function and importance of culture in human communication and laid the foundation for the study of cross-cultural communication. In 1989, he proposed the concept of high context and low context in Beyond Culture. Rather than the words themselves, high context culture focuses on underlying context, meaning, and tone in the message. In low context culture, by contrast, communication is carried by explicit and straightforward coding, with less implied information. The concept has provided theoretical reference for later research and Hall's contribution to the field of cross-cultural communication has been widely recognized.

Around the 1980s, some scholars introduced sociology, semiotics, linguistics, and other disciplines into cross-cultural communication (Chapman, 1979). Since the 1990s, mass media studies, cultural imperialism, international discourse power and other theories have  been  developed  to  enrich  the  theory  and  research  content  of  cross-cultural communication (Ahmed, 1998).

New Media and Cross-cultural Communication

With  the  continuous  evolution  of  communication  technology,  human  society  has gradually entered the era of visual communication. Visual symbols have gradually replaced linguistic symbols, whilst the way people obtain information and express opinions have been constantly changing as well.   Guy Debord (1990) expressed his views in Society of the Spectacle that he believed the visual sense were overwhelmingly superior to other senses in daily life as it could continuously produce image symbols which stimulated people’s desires. Indeed, visual culture marks the transformation of cultural forms and human thinking modes, as well as the expansion of relevant concepts for communication (Mirzoeff,  1999). Thus, in cross-cultural communication, visual communication can play an efficient role with the help of the new media technology nowadays.

Short video as a new visual communication platform. is constantly shaping the new ecology of global communication with its powerful influence. The content in short video is not only vivid and interesting, but also has a low threshold for production and communication (Cheng & Chen, 2021), which expands the boundaries for interpersonal communication and  updates  the  manifestation  for  people  expressing  opinions.  Meanwhile, with the increasing popularity of short videos, the production of image  symbols is becoming diversified, resulting in development in communication channels  and cultural profundity (Schill, 2012). In short videos, the symbolic meaning is majorly  constructed by the video content, communication subject and narrative mode. Therefore, in cross-cultural communications, it is of great significance to analyze how to better  construct national image by using visual expression.

Theoretical Framework

Semiotics Theory

Symbols are an important system for information production and cultural inheritance. Linguist Saussure put forward the concept of semiotics for the first time in 1894, and made further subdivision in the expression of signs, pointing out the "signifier" and "signified" respectively. The "signifier" is an intuitive symbol expression, while the “signified” is an abstract mental concept (Saussure,1916). In this paper, the research will follow Saussure's semiotics theory of "signifier" and "signified" to analyze the symbols presented in Li Ziqi’s short video and explore its relationship with Chinese traditional culture.

Cultural Identity Theory

Cultural identity is the recognition of the common origin, characteristics and ideals for certain  ethnic  groups,  and  achievement  of  a  state  of  integrated  construction  for discourse space, as well as the commonness and identity boundary of each other within the group (Friedman, 1994). Different from national identity, which is not an alternative for individuals, cultural identity is the self-consciousness constructed in the interaction between a person and the outside world. Under the guidance of this theory, individuals' acceptance for different cultures can be explored to measure the effect of cross-cultural communication in Li Ziqi’s videos.

Methodology

Case Study Analysis

A case study is a detailed study of a particular topic focusing on a person, a group, an event, or an organization in a real-world setting (Harrison, et al. 2017). This paper takes the cross-cultural communication achieved by Li Ziqi as a case study and selects 3 representative videos from her 128 videos uploaded on YouTube as research samples, analyzes the content presentation in her videos, and summarizes the reasons for the success  of  Li  Ziqi’s  video   from  the  perspective   of  popularity,  thus  providing enlightenment for future study in cross-cultural communication.

Textual Analysis

Textual analysis includes exploring the languages, symbols, patterns, pictures in the  text, which is helpful for researchers to understand how people covey their ideologies  and thoughts through texts (Bernard & Ryan, 1998). This research method is used as  an auxiliary method in this paper for further research. Through the qualitative analysis  of the selected samples, the narrative characteristics and strategies of Li Ziqi's short  videos  are  explored.  Besides,  comments  on  the  selected  videos  on  the  YouTube  platform. are analyzed, and the success of cross-cultural communication achieved by Li  Ziqi's short videos is further summarized through evaluating the comments of audiences.

Findings and Analysis

Content Connotation of LiZiqi’s short videos

According to Hall, the fundamental purpose of communication lies in the sharing of meaning, and meaning comes from a certain context (Hall, et al. 1968). China, as one of the typical representatives of high-context culture (Kim, Pan & Park, 1998), is of great significance to understand the interpretation of communication context to the meaning of symbols, which is the key to correctly understand the signified meaning of symbols. In LiZiqi’s short videos, she mainly shows the necessities of ordinary Chinese people’s daily life, reflecting the traditional Chinese culture with a long history.

In the 128 short videos shared by Li Ziqi, themes are not only concerned with food  cooking  and  local  cuisines,    but  also  Chinese  traditional  festivals,  painting  and  calligraphy,  folk  costumes,  and  traditional  ethnic  crafts.  All  these  are  important  components of China's long-standing and profound traditional culture. By sorting out  the content of LiZiqi's short videos, 3 videos samples are selected for semeiotic analysis. The first video “A Special Program on New Year Snacks” is the most popular one with  more than one hundred million views, the second video “Firewood, Rice, Oil, Soy  Sauce, Vinegar, and Tea” is one of her representative videos for Chinese food culture,  which is also the video she chose to display on her homepage, and the third video  “Winter  Bedding  From  Double-cocoon  Silk”  is  another  representative  video  for  Chinese traditional handicraft culture. The content subject and cultural attributes in  these 3 videos are demonstrated in the Table 1, and the symbols obtained in the video  are shown in Table 2.

Table 1. Content subject and culture attribute in Li Ziqi’s videos

Table 2. Symbolic analysis in Li Ziqi’s videos

Roland Barthes (1967) believes that the signification process of signs is only the first system, and there is another signification system for social meaning. According to the table, it is not hard to find that Li Ziqi's short video is the first ideograph system of symbols, and the social ideology behind it is the profound traditional Chinese culture represented by food culture, handicraft culture and folk culture.

1. Food Symbols

By analyzing the content of Li Ziqi's short videos, it is found that the topics of her short videos are mainly divided into food production and handicraft production, of which food production accounts for 96% and craft production accounts for 4%. Food symbols have become an important part of the construction of the content in Li Ziqi’s videos.

Through the elaborate presentation of Chinese food, LiZiqi improves the artistic quality of food and at the same time realizes the connotation connection between food symbol and cultural symbol. For instance, the short video " A Special Program on New Year Snacks" shows the process of making peanuts, melon seeds, sugar-coated haws, dried meat and preserved fruit, which are common snacks during the Spring Festival. Among those foods, peanut as a symbol of auspiciousness in China has a positive meaning of longevity and wealth. Li Ziqi connect Chinese Spring Festival with peanut to express the wish of health and happiness in the new year. In addition, Li Ziqi pays special attention to the construction of cultural artistic conception when making food. For example, the delicacy "Blossom" she made is highly aesthetic and artistic. She put ten shrimp into a circle and put decorative flowers in the middle of the circle, so that the whole dish presents the image of flowers in blossom. Food in Li ziqi’s videos is not only a “tool” to satisfy the stomach, but also a material carrier of life aesthetics and food culture. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that in Chinese food culture, people are accustomed to name dishes with good symbols and auspicious connotations to realize the function and significance of expressing emotions, which directly promotes food symbols to become signifiers that gather wisdom, perception, and emotions.

2. Handicraft Symbols

Traditional  handicraft,  as  a  kind  of manual  production  and  primitive  mechanical production, has rich Chinese cultural connotation. Craft sculpture, embroidery, dip- dyeing and weaving, woodworking and paper cutting are all parts of traditional craft making. However, as a precious cultural heritage, traditional craft in the modern society may have  faced  the  crisis  of demise.  Li  Ziqi  has  arisen  the  public's  attention  to traditional handicraft by showing various handicraft works in her videos and realizes the inheritance and dissemination of traditional craft culture, which is conducive to the protection of China's excellent cultural heritage.

Sericulture is one of the traditional products of ancient Chinese civilization, which has a long history of 5,000 years since Chinese ancestors planted mulberry and raised silkworms in the late Neolithic Period (Jihe, 2021). China is the first country in the world to invent sericulture and silk reeling. The short video “Winter Bedding from Double-cocoon Silk”  shows in detail the whole process of making cocoon silk quilt from the double-cocoon of silkworm. The video spans a long period of time, from sericulture to  silkworm  spinning,  to  cooking  and  peeling,  to  cotton  breaking  and opening, drying, and finally sewing into a silk quilt. The whole process requires enough patience and care. The sericulture reflected in the short video condenses the wisdom of human being. To some extent, the video also contains the philosophical and ecological view of harmony and unity between Chinese people and the nature.

The self-presentation and construction of national image

Goffman’s  dramaturgical  theory  (1956)  suggests  that  the  self  is  the  product  of socialization. “When an individual plays a part, he implicitly requests his observers to take seriously the impression that is fostered before them. They are asked to believe that the character they see possesses the attributes he appears to possess, that the task he performs will have the consequences that are implicitly claimed for it, and that, in general, matters are what they appear to be” (Goffman, 1956, p. 10). In the situation of communication,  people  carry  out  information  transmission  through  the  character.  However, the interpretation of communication is not only completed by verbal symbols, but also by personal behaviors. In Li Ziqi’s short videos, she builds an image of an  industrious female in rural life. The scenes of Li's hands-on farming   can  be seen  everywhere in short videos: when she needs to make a bowl of ramen, she starts with  flour; when it comes to make wine, she collects the fruit herself and ferments it. In the  video “Firewood, Rice, Oil, Soy Sauce, Vinegar, and Tea”, she shows the whole process  from salt production to salt making, then used the self-made salt to cook local dishes,  giving the audience a comprehensive understanding of every step for food preparation.  Every detail of the picture, including frozen red hands, swarthy hands, and faintly  visible calluses of hands, all reflect Li Ziqi's personal involvement in working as a  farmer,  which  demonstrates  a  hard-working,  intelligent,  independent  rural  female  image. Moreover, in the video, Li Ziqi has two dresses, in which the first one appears  as a plain woman and another as an exquisitely dressed lady. The contradictory and  contrasting images are perfectly   fused  in  Li Ziqi,   becoming  her personal unique  attraction and the key to the strong transmission power of her short video.

In Li Ziqi’s video, apart from elaborately presenting the food production process and handicraft  skills,  many  shots  are  also  used  to  depict the pastoral  life  and  natural spectacle  of  China,  reflecting   China's  rich  natural  landscape  and  geographical environment through beautiful pictures. Meanwhile, she is spreading the natural beauty of China's original ecology for global audiences and creating an oriental fairyland for overseas people.

Figure 1. Natural scenery in Li Ziqi’s video “Winter Bedding from Double-cocoon Silk”

The audience can not only see  lakes, mountains, grasslands, snow-capped mountains in her videos, but also can see the evening sunset, peach blossom and springs. All of these are representative symbols in rural life, and people give these natural symbols with cultural connotation and significance in human society. In the history of Chinese culture, since ancient times, there has been a belief and worship of "sun”, “moon”, “stars" and other natural scenes, which are regarded as the symbol of luck, and thus Chinese people developed a series of cultural customs and traditions with far-reaching meanings.   In  Li  Ziqi’s  short  videos,  all  the  symbols  of natural  landscape  in  the following list are symbols of green, nature, and an idyllic life.

Table 3. Symbolic analysis in Li Ziqi’s videos

Audience's consumption and interpretation of LiZiqi's short video

According to Social Blade, a third-party data tracker, the number of Li Ziqi's personal channel subscriptions and videos played on YouTube have increased year by year since she joined the platform. She has achieved phenomenal influence and effect in cross- cultural communication with fans from all over the world. In the short video of LiZiqi's personal channel, comments from everywhere around the globe can be seen, such as the United States, France, Russia, Korea, Greece, and other countries, which roughly matches the geographic distribution of her followers. As Graph  1 shows, Although YouTube,  the  largest  video  social  media  platform,  is  based  on  the  goal  of internationalization, it is still an America-based platform, so the proportion of American users still occupies a certain proportion of 25%. Notably, countries other than those listed in the pie chart account for 27%, making for a diverse fan base for Li Ziqi.

Country or region

Graph 1. Geographic distribution of Li Ziqi’s followers

In the comment area under Li Ziqi’s videos, positive words occupy the dominant position, and most of which are yearning for idyllic life in China, appreciating for Chinese  culture,  and  praising  for  Li  Ziqi’s  creativity.  Among  these  comments, representative comments are selected to prove the effect of Li Ziqi’s video in cross- cultural communication.

Retour En Avant: “Hi there! Each of your videos make my day …And you inspire my own French countrylife videos. Wishing you all the best and the success you deserve.  Please continue to share your culture with us, loves from France.” (Selected from “A   Special Program on New Year Snacks”)

Ashan Trisheild: “Such a beautiful environment and delicious food. Wonderland!” (Selected from “A Special Program on New Year Snacks”)

Faina Sh: “Liziqi, you are the best blogger. I adore your videos. I fell in love in China and village lifestyle. Love and respect from Russia.” (Selected from“Firewood, Rice,  Oil, Soy Sauce, Vinegar, and Tea”)

Rosni Nepal: “how much more talented and hard-working a person can be. In awe of her every videos!” (Selected from “Winter Bedding from Double-cocoon Silk”)

In the comments, it is obvious that audiences in different regions have developed a strong interest in China and Li Ziqi. These audiences psychologically accept and love Chinese traditional culture.

As mentioned in the section of theoretical framework, cultural identity refers to the recognition of the common culture between people or between individuals and groups. For the function of cultural identity, John Townlinson (2001) believes that cultural identity affects the rise and fall of a country and a nation. People's cultural identity is usually based on the same or similar cultural basis and background, and the deeper level is the recognition and acceptance between different cultures. Through the positive interaction of Li Ziqi's videos, cultural identity for global audiences is maintained and consolidated in this process.

Furthermore, researchers who study the effect of Li Ziqi’s video has revealed the audience's main emotional responses by using high-frequency word analysis, pointing to the word "love," "beautiful," "very," "life," and "nice" as the standouts. It can also be seen that positive words occupy the main part, indicating the audience's appreciation for the video, as well as recognition for Chinese culture.