News Narration, Local Visibility and Public Life in Chinese Short Videos

ABSTRACT

Short videos are very popular in China. The provincial TV stations in China use short videos to disseminate information. Curiosity about the influence of short video news is the primary motivation of this study. This paper integrates theories of news and place, focuses on local visibility, explores how short videos can serve as media infrastructure to report news, construct local visibility and change public life. Taking a sample of official short videos from 31 provincial TV stations in China, this paper uses the narrative analysis method to decode the videos. It is found that short videos create a unique news space which are reflected in narrative language, narrative framework and narrative theme, respectively. This study argues that the short video platform has shaped a place with public vitality, participated in local image management, and built the “visible community”. This has innovated the existing theoretical relationship between news and place, and the short video media practice of TV stations in various provinces has provided the world with the Chinese experience of creating place.

KEYWORDS:

• Short videos
• place
• news narration
• public life
• space
• visibility

Introduction

Short videos are creative productions of content, using images, sound and words, which usually last about 15 s to 1 min. They can stimulate both the auditory and visual senses and give the user a strong immersive experience. Short videos are very popular in China. According to “The 48th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development” of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), by June 2021, the number of mobile Internet users in China reached 1.007 billion, the proportion of Internet user using mobile phones reached 99.6% and the number of short video users reached 888 million, accounting for 87.8% of the total number of Internet users (CNNIC 2021). According to “The 2021 China Network Audio & Video Development Research Report” by China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA), by March 2021, the average daily use time of short video users has exceeded two hours, occupying the attention and entertainment time of a large number of users (CNSA 2021). Tik Tok has become a “video encyclopedia” of infrastructuralization, engage in the fields of publicity for city branding (Zongyi 2021). As the influence of short videos expands overseas, it has not only become a tool for daily communication and entertainment for the public, but also an important vehicle for China’s cross-cultural communication and foreign dissemination.

As more and more people choose to use short videos to share their daily lives, local media in China are noticing the key role of short videos in spreading local culture. More and more provincial media are using short video platforms for information dissemination and applying them to news production which are the embodiment of media convergence. The media convergence of city TV stations in China is the convergence of concept, technology and content (Hanhua 2012), it also be an important impetus to the gradual establishment of a media society (Jian and Yuanke 2006). This paper aims to investigate the impact of short videos on news production and focuses on the field of TV stations, which is one of the most common mass media in Chinese everyday life. The provincial TV stations in China have established their official accounts on Tik Tok, using various image expression techniques to report news content and obtain information output. Short videos released in many provincial TV stations have greatly contributed to cultural communication and caused considerable social influence. With the help of short videos, television stations in various provinces have not only completed the task of news production and external communication, but also effectively constructed a media image with their own provincial characteristics. Why can short videos exert such a great influence? What is local news talking about with regard to the short videos produced by TV stations? Curiosity about the relationship between short videos and locality construction helped generate the questions of this paper.

The construction of place is never accidental; behind it, there is a metaphor for the real world based on a subjective position. There is also a complex interactive relationship between the generation of sight, sound and text, and between individual experience and social order. The media expression characteristics of short videos make their place construction have a unique mode of news presentation. Examining the news content production of short videos from the historical and theoretical perspective of news and space can be regarded as an exploration of how short videos can be used as media infrastructure to report news and change everyday life, and as an analysis of the relationship between news and place, people and place, and news and people. This paper attempts to explore the symbolic space practice of news, focusing on two aspects: the structure and connotation of place, which is believed to have both theoretical and practical significance. This paper differs from previous empirical studies in that it focuses on analyzing the audio-visual language of short videos as a logic, and that, based on a qualitative analysis of experience materials, it explores the Chinese experience of short videos of various provincial TV stations in China. The argument logic of this paper is based on the fact that the visual, auditory and textual news reporting of short videos is a kind of space creation, cultural communication and technical function, which are mutually constructed to form a flowing effect.

Literature Review

News and Place: The History and Theories

The discussion about news can be traced back to the eighteenth century (Wenjing 2021). Early scholars have realized the necessity of space and called for attention to the spatial aspects of journalism. At this time, the focus of news and space was mainly on the relationship between journalism and its region. Parker (1922) believed that newspapers and periodicals promoted the identity of immigrant cities, and Dewey (1927) focused on social interactions in the same area. Both of them became early initiators of research on journalism and spatial structure. In the 1970s, Tuchman (2008 [1978]) focused more on the spatial patterns of news production processes, forming a far-reaching paradigm for the sociological research of news production. Gans (2009 [1979]) paid more attention to the differences of journalism in regions with different levels of development. These scholars all focused on changes in news locations and news production under the background of changing production relations and showed a strong curiosity about the actual operational process of journalism. Since the twenty-first century, more abundant research has emerged around the relationship between news and place. The “comparative media systems” research is full of political economy thinking (Hallin and Mancini 2012 [2004]). It shows a local analysis of journalism as a whole with an interdisciplinary critical consciousness. In recent years, a more obvious spatial turn has emerged in news research, Kurpius, Metzgar, and Rowley (2010) even regard the media which focus on the geographic areas as “hyperlocal media”, which also become the new way to provide place information for the public.

In addition, with the increasing complexity of the external media environment, attention to the influence of environmental factors on news production sites has become an important manifestation of the spatial turn in this period. For example, Robinson (2011) studied changes in the internal layout of the editorial department. As technology becomes more deeply involved in news construction, the target of local media coverage is no longer limited to the place itself, but guided by media organizations and various technology companies (Funk 2012). This period is also a time of social media, and related research has mushroomed, providing new perspectives on the interpretation of news in online places. For example, Lasorsa, Lewis, and Holton (2012) focused on Twitter, exploring spatial news practice of journalists using social media. Hermida (2013) regarded Twitter as a networked communication space and explained the spatial metaphor of cyberspace in more detail. Hess (2013) provided a “geo-social” news model to describe the power of news in a digital landscape. He believes that news is never only related to a certain factor but is closely related to changes in the overall spatial structure. He advocates that a macroscopic and multi-dimensional understanding of local news should be adopted. This reveals that the criteria for evaluating local news should include multiple factors such as for-profit organizations, cultural traditions and social structures. Gutsche (2014) directly views journalism as a discourse system, arguing that the discourse creates the construction of locality in different media, the public becomes an individual participant in the construction of locality, and the construction of local media is constantly perceived and understood by the public, thus journalism becomes a way for the public to perceive locality.

In response to the increasing diversity of technologies, practices and lived experiences of journalism are becoming more and more inseparable and complementary, gradually becoming popular, and the research object is gradually shifting from serious and authoritative news content to popular information practices, with the audience receiving more attention, just as hyperlocal news continues to gain attention from social and cultural perspectives. Dickens, Couldry, and Fotopoulou (2015) believe that news can produce space which is based on the ethos and skills of local people. Weiss (2015) provided a system framework of journalism practice, news producers, consumers and news experience, which is called spatial journalism. Carlson (2016) even used the “metajournalistic discourse” to explain the meaning of journalism development which regards journalism as a cultural practice. With the change of media technology, the relationship between news and space gradually changes from physical space to digital space (Barnhurst 2016). Hess and Waller (2016) analysed the social and cultural value of hyperlocal news and argued that a “cultural approach” can help us understand “excessively local news”. Therefore, under the influence of multiple factors such as technology, space, culture, and the public, hyperlocal news has become a technical and cultural form. On the one hand, it comes from the technical and professional news production links. On the other hand, it is also influenced by mass cultural life.

Changes in attention have gradually promoted the transformation of journalism and revamped the overall conceptual model. Rodgers (2018) argues that we need a phenomenological duality to compare news reports and activities rooted in place. Deuze and Witschge (2018) believe that journalism has a shift in professional culture that allows for a broader definition and understanding of journalism. Peters and Broersma (2019) regard technology, institutions and social influences as important factor in constructing journalism theory. Robinson (2019) described the richness of meaning contained in local news under the influence of technology and social context. Usher (2020) used cartographic news production to construct local significance and provided a new opportunity for journalists to obtain information. Hellmueller, Lischka, and Humprecht (2021) noted the role of news commentary in shaping public space. Kukkakorpi and Pantti (2021) focused on the VR technology and described the interaction between users and the environment through the theory of spatial narrative. As a result, the research field of journalism has been greatly expanded and its approaches have been innovated.

The Introduction of the Concept of “Visibility”

The above literature expounds the relationship between news and place and the role of new media. This paper selects the concept of “visibility” in human geography to interpret the relationship between news and place, and highlights the role of short videos in constructing places. It is worth nothing that the “visibility” of this article refers to the degree of agenda setting of news, rather than the attention of the audience.

The concept of “visibility” has long been concerned by communication scholars. Zhongdang (2003) put forward the concept of “visibility” and argued that “visibility” could be transformed into social resources. Thompson (2005) believed that the media has developed the de-spatialized visibility which facilitated the rise of “the society of self- disclosure”. At the core of the research of media visibility is the analysis of power remolding contained in the media itself, which uses media functions to reshape and present time–space relationships. Relatively speaking, where there is “visibility”, there is “invisibility”. How to measure the degree of being visible? Brighenti (2007) propose “fair visibility” to explain the thresholds of visibility, if it is lower than the minimum value, you will be excluded from society.

Dayan (2013) used the concept of “visibility” to describe the influence of the emergence of new media and other media forms on public culture. “Visibility” refers to the possibility of whether an individual can be seen by others. When the possibility and attention are improved, more visibility is gained, “visibility” includes “the right to be seen, the right to being seen on their own terms, and the right of conferring visibility on others”. “Visibility” depends on the existence of various media, and can form a “community” emotion at the level of consciousness, giving a rich meaning to the field of life (Donglei 2017). Visibility includes not only the meaning of “seeing” but also the meaning of “getting the attention of others” which provides a new perspective for analysing public opinion (Hong and Xinyue 2017). Treem, Leonardi, and Hooff (2020) propose the theory of communication visibility, the actor’s activity that make communication visible, the actions to see communication and the sociomaterial context of communication form the dimensions of communication visibility. Yiqing and Tingting (2022) focuses on the internal logic of media visibility, and states that media has certain embodiment, i.e., media conceals itself while providing visible content, and constructs the temporal and spatial order of this society in an invisible state.

“Visibility” theory expounds the reconstruction of power relations by media, and provides a new perspective for analysing the social role of short videos. In China, some scholars believe that the short video platform has realized the production of visible space and promoted the consumption of visible space, but it may also lead to value paradoxes such as the decline of individual subjectivity and the estrangement of social groups, they also point out that how to get out of such value paradoxes and better observe real life is the key of reflection and exploration in the next stage (Zhiwu and Hongbing 2019). Video provides a platform for professional visual performances, which open up new possibilities for the public life of Chinese society (Ye and Chuyao 2020). The rise of short videos, relying on an immersive viewing structure and scene fragmentation mode, has formed a mobile production practice, that has spawned many short videos of “online celebrity city” (Juan and Lile 2021). Short videos help local governments build city images and enhance the visibility of their cities (Yuanbing and Youwen 2021). Mobile youth groups also achieve self-expression, and acquire support for their social embeddedness and participation with the help of short videos’ visibility (Chaosen and Shuying 2021). The conceptual paradigm of “visibility” highlights the way for the public to gain visibility through the media. This analysis framework has certain constructive significance for the research of short videos.

Short Video as an Intermediary Between News and Local Relations: A Breakthrough

In the field of news production in China, the application and popularity of short videos have promoted the transformation of local media news production. Specifically, short news videos have changed the way of reporting from three aspects: production process, production mode and production content (Rui and Yunqi 2019). Short video news is a product of the integration of traditional news practices and mobile internet practices represented by network short videos. Finding the balance between attracting users and producing content that serves the public is an important factor in promoting its development (Xiumei and Qing 2020). News production of short videos shows the characteristics of innovative expression of news language, innovative way of news reporting, and innovative carrier of consumption and socialization, which has also become an important driving force for the development of short video news production (Qingqing and Xuezhi 2020). Short news videos have shaped a new media experience, which is concentrated in the pursuit of value existing in the world, the emphasis on the interest of user portraits and the expression of meaning for intelligent pushing (Gang 2021). In China's major public health emergencies, the mainstream media use short videos to actively guide the public, help them regain confidence in their lives, and demonstrate clear emotional communication strategies (Shuping and Chaopeng 2021).

Many scholars have started the research of news reporting on short videos created by traditional media. In the short videos run by People's Daily, Tik Tok tells positive stories, and elements such as human touch, importance and practicality have a significant impact on users’ engagement behavior (Fengjiao and Yuting 2019). In government short videos, the scenes, emotions and pragmatic expressions of the short videos show obvious characteristics of personalized communication, reflecting the emotional and conversational transformation of political communication (Jinsong and Qingzhuo 2020). Among the short videos run by TV stations, the short video news content produced by CCTV News AAuto Quicker of China Media Group shows the obvious characteristics of presence and individualized narrative perspective, comprehensive application of UGC + PGC news production mode, fragmentation, immediacy and audio-visual presentation (Nan and Junjian 2020). “Network Broadcast from CCTV Anchor” is a representative work of short video news commentary, which shows the remarkable characteristics of scene of discourse context, mood of discourse tone, visualization of discourse rhetoric and popularity of discourse style (Yuexin and Xiangyi 2021).

To sum up, news research has shown a clear spatial turn, paying attention to more diverse spatial issues and a broader spatial perspective. The rise of diverse audiences and the development of media technology are not only an important reason for the change of news space but also an important guide for the change. News is rooted in spatial practices and constantly represents space, which not only echoes the development of the spatial turn in humanities and social sciences since the twentieth century but also reflects the internal consciousness of news research coming from reality. In recent years, various media technologies have provided more diversified methods and forms of expression for news production. However, in the field of news study, the research that focuses on the relationship between short videos and local news is relatively rare. From this point of view, we hope to focus on the concept of visibility, explore the relationship between the news production and places in short videos, and understand whether short videos in China can provide experience to innovate the theoretical research of news.

Research Questions

This paper focuses on the following research questions.

RQ1. What is the feature of local visibility in short videos of provincial TV stations in China?

RQ2. How do short videos construct local visibility of provincial TV stations in China?

RQ3. What are the connotations and significance of local visibility in the short videos of provincial TV stations in China?

Methodology

Data Collection

In terms of data collection, this paper selects Tik Tok short videos produced by provincial TV stations as research samples according to provincial-level administrative region. In China, province is a kind of administrative division of regions which originated from the county system during the the Yuan Dynasty. The establishment of provincial-level administrative region not only forms an effective administrative system, but also artificially constructs a local culture based on the geographical and human environment. Provincial TV stations also base their cultural communication mainly on the regional content of the provincial-level administrative region. In this paper, Tik Tok, which appeared in 2016 as a platform for short videos, is chosen as the research object. Different from other short videos, it is applied by governments and institutions for cultural communication. Tik Tok has been the important channel to report news for provincial TV stations.

This paper takes the official short video accounts of 31 provincial TV stations (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) as examples. In terms of account selection, considering the numerous accounts of TV media in each province, this paper selects Tik Tok by the number of videos released, the number of fans, the number of likes and the official certification of TV stations. In order to avoid homogenization of most short videos caused by festivals and hot events, which may affect the representativeness of the selected samples, we choose a long period of time (2021.1–2021.12). For the sample selection, the standards are the number of likes, comments and forwards, topic type and period of time. Twenty four short videos are selected from each province, totaling 744 short videos.

Data Analysis

“Representation”, “materiality” and “daily practice” are three widely used ways to analyze short videos at present. They discuss the impact of short videos on contemporary culture and society from the aspects of textual content, material basis and daily practices of the masses (Yiguo and Lili 2022). The media discourse of short videos is a product of media practice in constructing visibility. This paper focuses on the textual representation level of short videos and explores the construction of provincial place visibility through qualitative research, and narrative analysis. Qualitative research uses the researcher as the research tool and focuses on the interpretation and micro-interpretation of social phenomena (Xiangming 2006), which is suitable for the topic of this study. Place construction of short videos is formed through storytelling, and the analysis of these stories requires the research method of narrative analysis. Narrative analysis is an analysis method based on structuralist methodology, which employs a linguistic model to analyse narrative texts and explore the deeper meanings of the texts (Panfeng 2021). The whole process of narrative analysis is based on the narrator’s experience and includes five levels: experience attention, telling, transcribing, analysising and reading (Zhongming 2007). The data analysis of this paper follows the principle of saturation.

News narration can be divided into style narration (telling level) and topic narration (understanding level) (Aijun 2004). For narrative journalism, Krieken and Sanders (2021) believed that few narrative journalism study in online media or multimedia by the review of 103 journal articles about narrative journalism between 1998 and 2017, that provides more potential for this paper. As far as this article is concerned, we are both concerned with the level of style and topic narration, i.e., the expressive features of news. With the increasing diversification of the media environment, narrative types of news also show a trend of diversification. Based on the paradigm of qualitative research and data analysis of news texts, this paper regards each short video as a narrative idea of building a narrative space in the process of displaying place images and fully observes the narrative construction of “local” in different news. In this paper, the analysis of local structure of short videos is regarded as the analysis of narrative language, which is the method of short videos; the analysis of local logic of short videos is regarded as the narrative frame, which is the key of short videos. This paper regards the local connotation analysis of short videos as the analysis of narrative themes, which is a kind of topic description of short videos. Through the comprehensive narrative interpretation of short video, the questions of local visibility construction of short videos can be answer Table 1.

Table 1. Local visibility construction.

Name	Level	Focus	Significance
narrative language analysis	macro	language	place visibility structure
narrative framework analysis	meso	framework	place visibility logic
narrative themes analysis	micro	symbol	place visibility connotation

Note: Table 1 from author.

Findings

In this part, this paper will describe the place visibility by short video news and show the results of macro, meso and micro levels of short video narration which includes place structure, place logics, and place metaphor respectively.

The Macro Narrative Analysis: The Narrative Language and Place Visibility Structure

The short video itself has a certain function, namely narrative language, which defines how place visibility is constructed, how images are presented, how sounds are played, and how combinations change. These functions establish the relationship between places and news, and the connection between communicators and audiences. The narrative language constructed by short videos can be divided into three types: image language, text language and sound language, which presents distinct media characteristics.

Image is a temporal medium, and video presents content with dynamic images and is the product of media spatialization. Short videos help people understand the world. The image language of short videos includes natural videos and homemade videos, and various editing methods are used to make the presentation of videos more diversified. Natural videos refer to video works formed by shooting natural images with certain shooting equipment, and by operations such as selection, combination and switching. Homemade videos refer to video works formed through the continuous and combined playback of text screenshots and images. The locality construction of short video image language forms the visual narrative of news, with more emphasis on the sense of picture, impact and local experience of space. The visual construction of news forms landscape products and symbolic practices which reflect the characteristics of the re-dissemination and construction of visual culture.

The textual language of short videos includes direct text and emotional text. Direct text refers to the writing style of direct exposition of key statements, which mainly undertakes the task of introducing topics and explaining key news topics in the form of asking questions, introducing, asking questions again and answering. Emotional text refers to the type of writing style with distinctive emotional expression, which mainly undertakes the function of guiding the public to the news content with a certain expression tone. As a display medium with a distinctive printing arrangement, words (Chinese characters) play a huge role in expressing the core information of news, enhancing the credibility of narrative. They are the core elements of short video construction.

The sound language of short videos is divided into instrumental music and vocal music. Instrumental music here refers to the sound played by various Chinese and foreign musical instruments, which can enhance the narrative appeal of the original text and image media, and specific types of instrumental music include cheerful, lyrical and light music. Vocal music refers to the subjective voice of human that can effectively supplement the narrative content of news. Specific types can be categorized according to the speaker, including the voices contained in the news, the voices that broadcast the news and other natural voices inside the news. The presence of language effectively achieves the influence of the news narrative, making the development of news narrative more stereoscopic and presenting a driving power for the bright display of news content Table 2.

Table 2. Macro narrative analysis.

Name	Feature	Function	Significance
image language	intuitional	visual impact	local foundation
text language	key	emotional resonance	local connotation
sound language	vivid	narrative infectivity	local vitality

Note: Table 2 from author.

The Meso Narrative Analysis: Narrative Framework and Place Visibility Logic

The logic of local visibility is closely related to the logic of media, and the short video news of TV stations in various provinces forms multiple narrative frames of local visibility display during news output, enriching the dimensions of local display. Some scholars have summarized the narrative logic of short videos as follows: choosing the key points, telling story from multiple perspectives, discovering news from daily life,creative title, plain and vivid explanation language, image and sound editing (Jiayang 2021). This paper holds that the place visibility of short videos has three narrative frameworks: publicity, service and exploration, which are used to present local logic, form diffusion and local reinforcement under the function.

The local logic of short videos can be divided into different types of narrative frames based on different core elements. The publicity framework is generally used for the promotion of TV dramas, programs and sports events. Language can be regarded as a publicity framework that emphasizes image elements. Images play a central role in this framework and become an important power in enhancing the narrative effect. Language can also be regarded as a service framework that emphasizes the elements of words. The service framework is generally used for practical issues such as the release of people's livelihood information and the policy focus of events. In this framework, words become a key vehicle for the audience to obtain information, showing a distinct functional role in interpreting information directly. In addition, language can be regarded as an exploration framework that emphasizes sound elements. The exploration framework is generally used for news about daily life and social events, focusing on further analysis and pursuit of hot topics. In this framework, sound plays a constructive role and becomes an important way for the public to further understand news information and perceive the appeal of news narratives.

With its unique audio-visual language, screen carrier, network connection and group communication, short videos have built a presentation mode with local characteristics and formed a distinct and diversified narrative framework. The functions of the short videos are also assisting the above narrative framework to complete the construction of locality, helping different media such as text, image and sound to play their respective roles, forming different construction features and shaping the news productivity at the spatial level. Short videos are also equipped with the functions of liking, commenting and forwarding, which respectively correspond to three types of expressions: emotion recognition, emotion expression and emotion communication, leading to effective diffusion of space. Through public likes, comments and forwarding, the sharing of local subjectivity can be realized and the identity of place can be enhanced Table 3.

Table 3. Meso narrative analysis.

Name	Theme	Purpose
publicity framework	local construction	shaping the characteristic local image
service framework	local people	provide convenience for local people
exploration framework	local life	developing the connotation of local subjectivity

Note: Table 3 from author.

The Micro Narrative Analysis: Narrative Themes and Place Visibility Connotation

Short videos provide different narrative themes about places, thus showing different dimensions of attention, realize the narration and readability of places, and enrich the visibility of places. The news topics of the short video cover many topics such as tourism, culture, food, sports, history, medicine, government affairs, transportation, legal system, education, environment, society, agriculture, etc. Place is divided into four attributes, including the TV station, province, country and the world.

The TV station is a place which focuses on the promotion of TV programs and the construction of the TV station itself and pays more attention to the news concern of the station as a media organization. The local area of the province is the place at the local level with the widest coverage of news topics, which includes not only the narrative themes of industry and agriculture represented by scientific achievements and agricultural production, but also the narrative themes of entertainment such as cultural tourism and entertainment programs, as well as the narrative themes of local people's lives such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. It is also the narrative themes of the history, human feelings and policy construction of the local society. The diverse themes included fully reflect the multi-dimensional construction of the place. As far as the national area is concerned, the narrative themes are focused on themes such as festivals (24 solar terms, and festival celebrations), sports (major sporting events), history (historical commemorations) and other news themes. These themes are connected across places and focus on the core themes that resonate. As far as the world region is concerned, the main focus is on issues such as tourism (tourism promotion), festivals (celebrating festivals together), health care (public health), showing the world's common concern for these areas and forming the centripetal power of news Table 4.

Table 4. Micro narrative analysis.

Name	Focus	Significance
TV station	TV program	media system
province	local news	local subjectivity
country	country news	the connection between provinces
world	world news	the role of local all over the world

Note: Table 4 from author.

To conclude, we take the place formed by short videos, local news and the public as a “digital place”. The “digital place” means that the construction and perception of place exists entirely in the real world, but is mediated in the context of the digital world, and that place thus forms diversified but regular characteristics of local expression. “Digital” refers to the construction method, survival means and understanding perspective of “place”. “Place” refers to the production, image and cognitive imagination of “digital”. We should not only see the possibility, circulation and firmness of this connection, but also be aware of its fragility, bias and dynamics. Short videos have become an extension of TV media, further forming the local visibility construction of people and further sinking mass communication into a fragmented and vertical form of communication. The construction of “digital place” comes from news content. News content plays an audio-visual role through the construction of short videos which have a perceptual influence on regional groups. That provides Chinese experience on how to construct an analysis framework of place and a dimensional framework for the world to explore place. The specific model of “digital place” is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Digital place. Note: Figure 1 from author.

Conclusion

This paper holds that the short video output of TV stations is not only the embodiment of media convergence on the technical level, but also has profound visibility significance, highlighting the medialization relationship between news and place. This medialization is embodied in the creation and maintenance of public space, the governance and shaping of local image, and the production and display of “visible community”, highlighting the intermediary role of short videos as a new media in social life.

A Liquid Space with Public Vitality

In China, short videos bear multiple functions such as visual presentation, social construction and cultural communication, form a transformation between places and placelessness, and construct an interaction between places and placelessness. The feeling about place can be transformed by diverse perceptions of short videos. This paper calls it a “local news fair” with Chinese characteristics. Short videos are writing and recording life in a seemingly chaotic but orderly way. In the short videos, food shopping, daily weather, traffic conditions, etc. have become common contents, which enrich residents’ daily life and present a more dynamic local space. Short videos construct the environment, create a unique space landscape of news, and play an important role in the construction of space culture. Short videos have profoundly changed people’s perception, listening and experience of place in the digital age. Short videos construct mobile and variable relationship networks, form the co-production of public space and further strengthen the personal sense of place.

The news space constructed by short videos of TV stations focuses on the characteristics of space mobility, thus becoming a fluid place. The fluidity here mainly refers to the nature of the content of short video news. Short video news includes not only news information, but also all kinds of recent place information extended from news in a broad sense. This information covers various topics and presents a local space composed of multi-dimensional information. Mobility is an important driving force in the construction of short video news. The visibility of short videos shapes the liquid space with public vitality. In the short videos of various provinces, the public can praise and comment on the content presented by the short videos, express their own opinions or interact with others on specific short videos. The platform developed by the short videos become a public sphere for the public to express their opinions, it is also a field of supervision. Some uncivilized and immoral behaviors were exposed in short videos, which played a more distinct role in popularizing the law. Short videos show an interactive communication mechanism between places and between places and countries. Short videos have become a communication space shaped by media, and TV stations create a local space with public vitality and flowing texture, which shows the important influence of digital media embedded in life.

A Image Performance with Local Characteristics

In China, the places constructed by short videos have distinct regional characteristics, which are important links to TV publicity and an important part of grass-roots governance and cultural governance. The place of short video news is a structural place, which refers to the characteristics given to the place by the construction carrier. Various visual presentation forms and auditory expression techniques make the short video news vivid, enable the audience to activate their visual and auditory perception to create spatial and cultural significance, form distinct visual narrative and auditory narrative, and accommodate multiple elements and meaning. This is of great significance to the construction of local image and the structure is a basic feature of short video news construction. The visibility of short videos has shaped the image performance with local characteristics and participated in local governance. In the short videos, we remembered the huge rice field paintings in Zhejiang, the beautiful scenery of reed flowers in Jiangsu and the rape flower sea in Liaoning. Tik Tok builds local visibility, interactivity and performance through various functions, and the short video production units of provincial TV stations combine local characteristics and produce digital content through various creative labor to pursue the visibility of short videos among more audience groups. The short videos broadcast of provincial TV stations can be regarded as continuous production of local visibility. The emergence of short videos gives TV stations a new right to construct and present place. This kind of production of place based on short videos is essentially a kind of management of local image, forming the performance of local identity and the production practice of spatial visibility.

In short videos, the meaning of place is shaped by multiple subjects, forming a multi-dimensional charm which constitutes the foundation of local culture and the basic logic of people's lives in that place. Short videos provide a place for people to communicate, which endows daily new cultural connotations and emotional commonness between provinces and the whole country, gradually forms a companion effect of technology and people, people and local culture, generating a fixed structure of expression of local self-subjectivity. Short videos report news according to natural laws, such as geographical solar terms, effectively and orderly, construct daily life and public life and help various provinces gain visibility for their regional customs. As a result, short videos form intermediary objects and characteristic images that connect the same regional groups, carry with them an attachment to the local community and a sense of local identity, form more complex dimensions of local perception and local attachment, thus escaping from the limitations of traditional typological narratives of journalism. In the short videos, we can see the warmth of the society and feel the common charm of the local from Xinjiang police who rescued wild animals, Hunan doctors who kept nucleic acid testing in high temperature, Shanghai firefighters who bravely put out the fire and others. The news narrative construction of short videos in China presents the public a more multidimensional and clearer production of local space, where the subjectivity of place is strengthened, and shows the uniqueness of the image of the increasingly homogeneous place. It further micro-explores the rich emotions in the place, displays the local connotation in more dimensions, forms a three-dimensional local space expression and becomes a reinterpretation of life via modern media technology. This effectively responds to the question of whether the Internet is improving locality or not, which has become an effective improvement of local convergence or placelessness, and a reflection of media construction. The popularity of short videos has become not only a popular culture, but also a power for constructing social cognition, which further reminds the provinces to attach importance to the use of short videos.

A “Visible Community” with Synchronic Symbols

Short videos have many functions and have become a link between people. The like function of emotional expression, the comment function of opinion expression and the forwarding function of emotional communication make the whole relationship between people full of possibilities for meaning transformation. Short videos have become a driving force for identity change and spiritual background of the whole place, thus providing a theoretical perspective and methodological framework for understanding the production of discourse in short videos. Because of the widespread popularity of short videos, we have reasons to believe that the use of short videos has become a part of daily life and has formed an important mechanism for shaping the place, skillfully weaving public life through different time and space and forming a unique witness to the relationship between people and places. Short videos create a brand-new relationship between human and environment, form a multi-dimensional mode of meaningful production, exhibit a hypertextual representation, effectively weave the local cyberspace, become the basis for constructing the sense of place, and provide a new reference for the theoretical construction of place, expanding the research on place. In the short videos of various festivals and anniversaries, many comments form emotional resonance and form unforgettable memories of this day. By watching short video news, local people internalize their thinking and experiences into behavior patterns and knowledge structures, form the centripetal power and cultural identity of TV station, local people, regional people and the whole country. This paper has tried to give a new definition of short videos: They are an important vehicle for building a virtual platforms which can connect the visibility of images to users, and they also reflect a relationship between people and place.

The short video news also has connectivity, which is a function of short videos. The information of short videos comes from daily life and serves the public, and the experience is closely related to public life. Each province has a distinct locality, and the place of short videos also has some characteristics that are mainly manifested in place frame, diversity and stability. It shows the memory link and news link when establishing links with other provinces. Inevitably new links will be made, and the establishment of new links depends on other links. Connectivity is a core feature of short video news construction. The visibility of short videos promotes the formation of “visible community” and becomes the link between individuals and countries. The nation is regarded by Benedict Anderson as “an imagined political community-and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson 1991, 6). Short videos constitute a new path for local cultural production and consumption, presenting a unique visibility construction logic and visibility display mechanism, and forming local characteristics in the group's viewing. At the same time, they form a “visible community” through synchronic symbols, and become a medium to connect people in local and national places.

Limitations

This paper has certain research limitations. This paper focuses on Tik Tok software, and the narrative analysis is based on the same framework of Tik Tok, this is closely related to the function of Tik Tok, whose narrative logic has certain limitations. In addition, only 24 short videos are selected in each province, so the number of samples is limited. Short videos construction are different. Among provinces, which is closely related to the economic strength of each province. When only focusing on the Tik Tok platform, the short video samples selected in this paper may also ignore some provinces which less use Tik Tok for short video news, resulting in the bias of visibility of the research results.

The research of this paper leaves some questions for further analysis. Does visibility mean equality? The construction of place via short videos brings the popularity of the place. Does this really enhance the vitality of the place? Will short videos blindly chase traffic? Will excessive visibility of some places strengthen stereotypes, form aesthetic fatigue, or bring new invisibility? It should also be noted that although the space constructed by short videos is wonderful and diverse, we should be aware that the space presented by short videos is still fragmented, this kind of fragmented space construction not only has certain advantages, but also has the disadvantages that the content is not easy to be memorized and depicted vaguely.

In the future, with the increasing number, types and coverage of short videos, more large-scale quantitative research is-needed to form a theoretical breakthrough based on the existing qualitative empirical research and theoretical results, We need to explore the presentation rules of internal elements of short videos, audience effects and comment construction analysis, pay attention to the meaning of continuous visibility, and provide more insights into the local research of short videos. This paper hopes to bring the theory of spatial narrative innovatively into news research and explore a broader positioning of news value.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).