Author(s)

Xinyi Cheng ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Hunan Shangya Culture Communication Co., Ltd, Xiangtan, 411100, China

Corresponding Author

Xinyi Cheng

ABSTRACT

With the popularity of ICH content on TikTok, scholars have begun to pay more attention to its digital preservation function and its role in ICH protection. On the one hand, TikTok can introduce intangible cultural heritage to a wider audience through fragmented narratives, new perspectives, micro-expressions, and interesting stories; on the other hand, it can also increase the commercial value of its carriers. However, there are still some problems such as homogenization and repetition, lack of connotation, and cultural authenticity distortion. Previous studies mainly focused on the platform, ICH carriers, and short video creators, but ignored the user's point of view. Based on this background, this paper takes the protection of ICH on TikTok as the research background and selects Jiang Xunqian's (September) iron flowers creation video as the object of study. By analyzing the comments of the video, this paper explores the public participation function of TikTok short videos for ICH digital preservation. The results show that public participation has a positive effect on ICH digital preservation. In particular, women as viewers, creators or potential ICH carriers actively participate in ICH protection through public participation and revitalize it. This not only shows the importance of adding female perspectives but also reveals the new vitality brought by public participation to ICH protection.

KEYWORDS

Intangible Cultural Heritage, digital preservation, TikTok

CITE THIS PAPER

Xinyi Cheng, Understanding the Role of Public Engagement in the Digital Preservation of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage—Taking TikTok as an Example. Media and Communication Research (2024) Vol. 5: 174-187. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/mediacr.2024.050326.

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