Introduction
In recent years, short videos have become an important channel for the dissemination of excellent Chinese culture, including traditional culture, intangible cultural heritage, urban culture, and sports culture. At present, cultural short videos have entered a new stage of high-quality development, with diverse types and rich content. The "small but beautiful" and "small but exquisite" cultural content they contain further meets the diverse needs of users for information acquisition, knowledge sharing, and entertainment and leisure, while also enriching the forms of cultural dissemination. Today, with the application of digital technology and the improvement of user participation, the development of cultural short videos presents new forms and trends, and also faces new situations and new tasks.
1. Current status of the development of cultural short videos
1. Rich and diverse content, with strong growth in traditional culture
The diverse content of cultural short videos meets the current audience's demand for cultural diversity. From the perspective of the presentation of existing cultural short video content, it covers many aspects such as history and culture, knowledge popularization, tourism and leisure, food exploration, and rural life. Vertical subdivisions include folklore that explains customs, costumes, and rituals; knowledge popularization that tells classic literature, history, and philosophy, and analyzes ancient inventions, creations, architecture, and art; cultural stories that analyze famous people and events; and red culture that explores the footprints of martyrs.
Data shows that in 2023, traditional cultural short videos ranked first among the content types preferred by short video users for the first time, accounting for 43% of users. Among them, the two fields of intangible cultural heritage and traditional customs showed a strong growth trend. In the field of intangible cultural heritage, the number of related video playbacks, works, and users of major short video platforms have increased significantly. In 2023, Douyin's intangible cultural heritage-related content received 372.6 billion views and nearly 10 billion clicks from users, and the number of related videos increased by 33% year-on-year; a total of 13.79 million netizens shared their intangible cultural heritage experiences, driving the number of related topic videos to be played more than 112 million times, and the cumulative sharing rate increased by 33% year-on-year. The number of intangible cultural heritage-related video playbacks on Kuaishou increased by 40% year-on-year, with more than 11 million intangible cultural heritage creators with 10,000 fans, a year-on-year increase of 30.5%, and more than 95 million users with a deep interest in intangible cultural heritage.
In the field of traditional customs, interactive data has achieved a substantial increase. During the 2024 Spring Festival, more than 3 million Douyin users actively participated in and forwarded short video challenge activities such as "Dancing Dragon China Red" and "One-click National Trend New Year AI Photo", which enlivened the atmosphere of the Spring Festival and promoted the popularization and inheritance of Chinese traditional culture. The number of video playbacks related to traditional Chinese festivals such as the Lantern Festival and the Spring Festival on the Kuaishou platform in 2023 reached 96 billion times, and the number of video playbacks related to New Year paintings increased by 271.8% year-on-year, and the number of likes increased by 1014.9% year-on-year.
2. Mainstream media strengthens short video creation and promotes the linkage between long and short videos
"Short, flat and fast" cultural short videos provide a new path for mainstream media to promote mainstream values and strengthen mainstream ideology and public opinion. Short video creation by mainstream media often involves intercepting and splitting a complete cultural program for secondary editing. The purpose of video production has evolved from diverting traffic to the original video to grabbing short video users. After watching the "sliced" short video, the audience helps the program's reputation ferment. China Media Group establishes its own new media account for each traditional cultural program to carry out differentiated publicity and promotion. Among them, the "CCTV National Memory" Douyin account is a representative example of the station's vertical cultivation in the field of short videos. It is also one of the earliest new media accounts of the station to enter Douyin. As of August 2024, the number of fans has exceeded 15 million and received 490 million likes. The account re-edits the exciting plots in the long documentary, tells the story of the hero in 20 seconds, and spreads the red culture. Henan TV has split programs such as "2024 Henan Spring Festival Gala", "Wonderful Night of Lantern Festival" and "Wonderful Tour of Qingming Festival". Yang Liping's original choreography "Phoenix Singing in the Morning Sun" and "Dragon Dance" and the dance "Dancing for a Thousand Years" inspired by Zhu Ziqing's essay "Back Figure" have all received over 500,000 likes.
The narrative logic of traditional long videos is relatively long, which does not meet the audio-visual needs of short video users. Simply slicing the program can easily lead to problems such as unclear theme and incomplete content, which makes it difficult to meet the deep cultural communication needs. In response to these problems, mainstream media actively changed the narrative logic when producing programs, designed time nodes according to the theme content, and weakened the external connectivity of the content, so as to facilitate the secondary cutting of long videos and strive to bridge the contradiction between long and short video conversion. For example, "China in Intangible Cultural Heritage" divides the content according to the plot focus and can be divided into multiple modules. Each part can be independently narrated and also implies the overall clues, thus taking into account the multi-screen adaptability at the program production level. The "China Short Video Conference" program directly uses short videos as the output of the program, with Chinese civilization as the background, looking at China from eight tracks such as food, rhythm, sports, exploration, and vision. In the first and second stages of the program, nearly 30 short videos with "100,000+" likes were launched.
(III) Platforms strengthen support for creation and drive the development of offline economy
Major platforms support cultural short videos from three aspects: content operation, creative support, and rights protection, and increase traffic support. Bilibili provides two weeks of systematic learning for up masters, activates the original protection function, and starts creative data analysis. Douyin's "Renewing Intangible Cultural Heritage" industrial belt support project continues to penetrate all parts of the country, and plans to support more than 300 intangible cultural heritage inheritors and arts and crafts masters within a year; the "Museum Adventure" project plans to connect experts, scholars, museums, and creative talents from all over the country to promote the cultural knowledge behind cultural relics and encourage the creation of high-quality short videos. Kuaishou launched the "New Market Craftsmen" feature IP to create a related online community to bring traditional culture closer to the public.
Short video platforms also help cities create their own cultural symbols, promote local culture, and drive the offline economy. Local cultural and tourism departments actively use short videos to spread local cultural characteristics. The popularity of videos related to dragon boats, hairpins, March 3, Yingge dance, etc. has increased dozens of times. Short videos have attracted a large number of tourists to check in at their destinations, driving the year-on-year growth of 131%, 110%, 146% and 45% in the number of wine and travel orders in Foshan, Quanzhou, Nanning and Chaoshan respectively. Data show that among offline consumers, 66.5% of short video users have watched cultural short videos. Among them, nearly 80% of the audience choose to go to the museums, archaeological sites and experience centers introduced in the short videos, or participate in related immersive experience activities; nearly 60% of the audience show a strong interest in traditional cultural products, or purchase traditional costumes and cultural and creative derivatives, or choose to pay to watch performances and exhibitions. Short videos have released the vitality of cultural communication and have become a "booster" for cultural and tourism consumption.
4. Focus on storytelling and create a series of works
In order to attract users' attention in a short time, cultural short videos should provide in-depth, interesting and inspiring cultural knowledge, so that the audience can feel the beauty of culture. At present, the narrative method of cultural short videos is very different from the past. It breaks through the past method of attracting users' attention by visual impact, repeated shots and music card points. It focuses on careful arrangement from the beginning to the end, emphasizes plot design, and attracts users' interest with meticulous stories. The series of original animated short videos "Dreams as Horses" launched by CCTV.com uses the horses in ancient Chinese famous paintings - "Lion Jade" and "People Riding Pictures" as the protagonists, allowing cultural relics to speak. By telling interesting stories such as their apprenticeship, going to Dunhuang, and visiting the seabed, a series of important historical events and cultural nodes are connected in series, attracting countless fans. "Danqingyou" produced by Z Vision APP has designed plots such as rowing, Cuju, uneven bars, and weightlifting for famous paintings handed down from generation to generation, allowing traditional culture to be reborn under the empowerment of modern imaging technology. In the first half of the video, the protagonist from the modern era shuttles between ink paintings and interacts with the ancient people in more than a dozen paintings; in the second half, the ancient people jump out of the paintings and come to the Hangzhou Asian Games Stadium to cheer for the athletes. These short videos convey cultural connotations through a cinematic sensory audio-visual experience, interpreting traditional culture in the present while achieving a refined presentation of the content of the works and innovation in aesthetic style.
Due to their size, short videos often tell stories from small cuts, making it difficult to explain the complete cultural background and evolution process. Series works have overcome the above weaknesses, and in the process have formed a program brand and gradually developed into IP works. CCTV's series of micro-documentaries "If National Treasures Could Talk" has been launched for four seasons, telling the stories of 100 national treasures and introducing the Chinese spirit, Chinese aesthetics and Chinese culture behind them; Guangming.com and Galaxy Studio launched a 58-episode short video "Lovely China" that tells the "intangible cultural heritage" stories of ethnic minorities; Z Vision launched "Danqing Tour 2: Joy and Politeness" to further promote IP creation. The serialized content arrangement and creation allow the audience to fully understand the cultural background and form a deeper understanding of cultural themes and connotations.
(V) Integrate the past and the present to cultivate high-quality content and accelerate professional production
Cultural short videos are no longer limited to the single presentation of traditional culture, but instead cleverly integrate the profound cultural heritage of historical allusions, poetry, calligraphy and painting, folk customs, etc., with modern technology, fashion elements, popular culture and even natural sciences, to achieve the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese traditional culture. With her unique creativity and keen fashion sense, the internet celebrity blogger Xianmu cleverly combines "makeup and intangible cultural heritage" and launches creative makeup with four themes: Suzhou embroidery, Taihu kiln, velvet flower and printmaking, giving the ancient intangible cultural heritage handicrafts a new vitality and form of expression. The fifth-generation inheritor of Shaanxi Wang's shadow puppetry, @汪氏皮影·真的牛皮, made the shadow puppet dance "Subject Three", reproduced Michael Jackson's classic dance, interpreted Nowitzki's basketball career, and broke the dimensional wall of ancient skills. Ling Yun, the representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project Emei martial arts, combines martial arts with the beautiful mountains and rivers of his hometown, leading the audience to appreciate the charm of Emei martial arts. This fusion of ancient and modern cultures gives new vitality to traditional culture and intangible cultural heritage.
With the vigorous development of cultural short videos, the requirements for the knowledge reserve, editing level, expression method, and post-operation of content producers for high-quality cultural short videos are constantly increasing. More and more bloggers are beginning to develop in a professional direction, forming a transformation from user-generated content (UGC) to professionally generated content (PGC), jointly promoting a profound change in the content ecology of cultural short videos. Blogger Jiang Xunqian (September) made a video of his apprenticeship and learning to make iron flowers, which was widely circulated on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou. The video was professionally produced and took a long time to produce. It not only captured the spectacular scene of the thousand-year-old intangible cultural heritage of making iron flowers, but also showed the difficulties of learning the skills of making iron flowers and the stories behind the intangible cultural heritage. It received 7.05 million Douyin likes and more than 4.74 million Kuaishou likes, which aroused the interest and attention of netizens to this endangered intangible cultural heritage. The huge traffic of cultural short videos not only allows some traditional skills that are on the verge of being lost to be seen again, but also allows related practitioners to gain market attention and further convert attention into purchasing power. The "2024 Intangible Cultural Heritage Data Report" released by Douyin shows that the number of intangible cultural heritage merchants in the platform has increased by 215% year-on-year, and the number of group purchase orders has increased by 356% year-on-year. In addition, more people with professional knowledge and skills have begun to participate in the production and dissemination of short videos. For example, Professor Dai Jianye of Central China Normal University made classical poetry popular on Douyin through a 15-second short video; short video blogger Li Youxi analyzed the connotation of phonology, oracle bone inscriptions and Sinology culture through a series of short videos, sharing Chinese characters and ancient culture with the audience. These professional people have brought more high-quality, in-depth and valuable content to the audience.
2. The development dilemma of cultural short videos
1. Content is becoming more and more standardized and homogenized
The culture of short videos itself originated from the "grassroots", and the dissemination of traditional culture depends largely on the diversified creation of many users. However, in the era of self-media where "everyone can be a creator", problems such as lack of innovation, homogeneity, and obvious entertainment tendency are gradually rising. Under the wave of pan-entertainment dissemination, once a hot content and form appear, it will trigger imitations from the entire network, and a batch of "changing soup but not medicine" and stereotyped content will emerge in a short period of time. For example, after the explosion of short videos of Chinese style cross-dressing, Chinese style cross-dressing content shot all over the world emerged in an endless stream. The shooting techniques and video texts are mostly the same, only the shooter and background are changed. Such short videos are only for traffic and popularity, and have a low effect on the dissemination of culture itself. After Li Ziqi's series of videos became popular in 2019, a large number of imitators swarmed in. For a while, content related to rural life, rural culture, traditional food, etc. emerged in an endless stream, but the shooting content and scripts were not differentiated, which caused aesthetic fatigue to the audience to a certain extent.
2. The Dissolution of Deep Culture Brought about by Fragmentation and Spectacle
Due to the time limit of short videos, creators often do not present a story in full, but select a few frames with good visual effects, storylines, and emotional creation for dissemination, reproducing and interpreting Chinese culture through fragmented partial puzzles. The popularity of some cultural short videos is sometimes not due to their content, but to the spectacular scenes. This way of becoming popular makes the surface symbols the core of the creators' attention, obscuring the inner deep value. For example, on the Douyin platform, cross-dressing activities such as "Wang Baochuan's cross-dressing is so amazing" use montage to achieve non-linear narration, and through the contrast of switching between modern and ancient costumes, it inspires the audience's enthusiasm for simulating opera performances and exploring Hanfu culture. However, most people focus on showing their ancient costumes, ignoring Wang Baochuan's character experience and the historical and cultural background of the Peking Opera "Red Mane Fierce Horse". Some short videos use Chinese classical books such as "The Book of Changes" and "The Book of Changes" as content, and attract audiences through the title of "divination of the future", but in fact they only interpret and apply the ancient Chinese worldview and methodology in a one-sided way, without a deep explanation.
3. Lack of copyright protection makes it difficult to manage copyright infringements
The short production cycle and low production threshold of short videos have further caused serious infringement problems. Some short videos imitate popular videos in terms of storyboards, copywriting, and planning; others are unauthorized, and carry out partial elements of other people's works, simple strip cutting, secondary creation, etc. These infringements have seriously damaged the enthusiasm of the original creators of short videos and are not conducive to the healthy development of the industry. On the one hand, current users have a low level of awareness of short video infringements, and lack of understanding of what infringement is and the consequences of infringement, resulting in low infringement costs for short videos. On the other hand, the relevant entities of short videos include video producers, platforms, advertisers and other parties, and it is difficult to divide responsibilities and obligations. These have led to the slow establishment of short video copyright protection mechanisms and frequent infringements.
3. Development trend of cultural short videos
1. A new model to help Chinese culture go global
According to a report released by Statista, as of April 2024, TikTok has been downloaded more than 4.92 billion times worldwide, with more than 1.582 billion monthly active users. In the Internet era, short videos provide a new model for cultural "going overseas" and have become an important breakthrough for international communication. The creation of short videos for cultural "going overseas" can be divided into two modes: "self-shaping" (that is, Chinese media and creators telling Chinese stories) and "other-shaping" (foreigners telling Chinese stories). In terms of "self-shaping", China's food culture, martial arts culture and intangible cultural heritage have received heated discussions on the Internet, but such short videos are often branded as propaganda and will only achieve good results in specific areas. "Other-shaping" to a certain extent "silently" influences the world audience's perception of China, providing new possibilities for international communication.
In particular, a group of new "foreign Internet celebrities" in China have emerged in short videos. With their unique language style and novel "other" identity perspective, they have recorded the cultural differences they felt during their lives in China, covering various fields such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. They have been widely disseminated through social media, effectively breaking foreigners' prejudices against China. For example, "Igbo" interprets the daily life in Northeast China through situational dramas; "Foreigner Research Association" explores current hot issues in Chinese society through street interviews; African daughter-in-law "Rose" records her happy family life in China, conveying her recognition of Eastern culture and lifestyle.
(II) AI technology enables high-quality development of cultural short videos
The Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization, which was reviewed and approved at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, mentioned artificial intelligence four times. The Guidance on the Catalog of Industrial Structure Adjustment (2024 Version) also included the research and development and application of high-tech videos such as VR video and immersive video in the encouraged items for the first time. This fully demonstrates that the top-level design attaches great importance to artificial intelligence technology.
AI technology has shown strong advantages in video editing, animation and special effects creation. It can produce images in people's imagination, form an unfamiliar visual experience, and comprehensively improve the presentation effect of the picture. The short film "Dragon Births Nine Sons" uses AIGC technology to deeply explore the legend of "Dragon Births Nine Sons, Each is Different". "Spring Equinox", which shows the traditional solar terms, presents 15 pictures generated by artificial intelligence in just 35 seconds, and introduces the characteristics and customs of the Spring Equinox in detail. "Along the River During the Qingming Festival in the Eyes of AI" uses AI to reproduce the grand scene of Bianjing in the Song Dynasty, bringing an immersive cultural experience to the audience. AI has become an important driving force for the development of new quality productivity of cultural short videos.
AI technology has reduced production costs and improved production efficiency, making "single-soldier combat" possible. Douyin has launched AI special effects for generating videos with one click, which can generate photos of women wearing hairpins and Chinese red cartoons of dragon dances. The usage rate of "AI rabbit paper cutting" has exceeded 8.7 million. The micro-short drama "Chinese Mythology" launched by CCTV, the entire process of art, storyboards, dubbing, and music are all completed by AI. The short video "Time and Space·The Goddess of Luo River" produced by AI took only 5 days from planning to implementation.
3. Deepening integration with various industries
Different from cultural documentaries, variety shows and evening parties that require high-standard equipment and complex technology, the popularity of cultural short videos lies in the interesting and popular content, lightweight production, rapid dissemination, and they are closer to people's daily lives and easier to integrate and co-exist with other industries.
Cultural short videos can show the essence of local cultural symbols to the greatest extent, tell local stories, and show the local image. They are increasingly closely integrated with the tourism industry, and "traveling with short videos" has become the choice of more and more people. In this context, cultural and tourism departments at all levels have opened short video accounts, actively produced and used cultural short videos to spread local food, beautiful scenery and culture, giving birth to new models such as "short video + live broadcast" and "short video + agricultural assistance". Driven by short videos, Harbin's cultural and tourism market is booming. According to data from the Harbin Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, as of January 1, 2024, the city has received a total of 3.0479 million tourists and achieved a total tourism revenue of 5.914 billion yuan, with both the number of tourists received and the total tourism revenue reaching historical peaks. Tianshui, Gansu, also became popular with the help of short videos, and the number of tourists and tourism consumption increased significantly. According to data from the Gansu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, from March 1 to April 9, Tianshui City received a total of 6.627 million tourists and achieved a comprehensive tourism income of 3.83 billion yuan. With the help of short videos, Zibo has opened 21 "customized barbecue special lines" and provided tourists with online "Zibo barbecue navigation" with the help of digital technology, gradually forming a weekend tour siphon effect and further realizing the integrated development of "culture and tourism +". Cultural short videos help create a diversified cross-border collaborative integration development model and promote the construction of a modern cultural industry system integrating culture, tourism, technology, commerce, education and other fields.
(Author's unit: Development Research Center of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television)
