Education, Science, Technology, Innovation and Life
Open Access
Sign In
  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. Media and Communication Research
  4. Vol 4, Issue 5, 2023

Public Compassion under the Mediation of Suffering: Taking the Videos of "Second Uncle" on Social Media as an Example

Download as PDF

DOI: 10.23977/mediacr.2023.040507 | Downloads: 5 | Views: 349

Author(s)

Dingtai Li 1, Zihang Zhang 2, Yucheng Zhang 3

Affiliation(s)

1 Department of Advertising and Communication, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China
2 Department of Network Communication, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
3 College of Natural Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, America

Corresponding Author

Dingtai Li

ABSTRACT

All along, the media has been keen on writing about suffering. This paper takes the video "Three days back to the village, my second uncle cured my mental depletion" as an example, and uses a combination of discourse analysis and content analysis. Based on explaining the video's strategy of mediating suffering in terms of narrative subject, narrative content, and narrative perspective in the perspective of nonfiction narrative, the paper explores the interaction between mediating suffering and public compassion through the analysis of the text in the comment section. It is argued that media-mediated suffering can, to a certain extent, evoke various forms of public compassion; the paradox of authenticity in non-fiction news texts constrains the generation of public compassion; "compassion fatigue" prompts the public to show emotional resistance to media suffering narratives; media suffering narratives cannot touch all the public, and in the case of "compassion avoidance", we need to be wary of the "post-truth" trap.

KEYWORDS

Suffering Mediation, Public Compassion, Narrative

CITE THIS PAPER

Dingtai Li, Zihang Zhang, Yucheng Zhang, Public Compassion under the Mediation of Suffering: Taking the Videos of "Second Uncle" on Social Media as an Example. Media and Communication Research (2023) Vol. 4: 46-58. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/mediacr.2023.040507.

REFERENCES

[1] Zheng W., Shi C., Gui Y. (2021) The era of underclass subjectivity": a new perspective of understanding China' Cyberspace. University of Journalism, 10, 16-29+117-118.
[2] Zhang L. (2013) Opinion on "Grassroots Media". Editors' Friends, 03, 61-63. 
[3] Chen Y. (2020) Mediated suffering and public compassion – a case study on news reports and comments of Sri Lanka bombings. Shanghai International Studies University.
[4] Li Y., Fan. (2019) The Mediation of "distant suffering": the transport of an underclass text across class boundaries and implications for the politics of recognition. Journalism & Communication, 26 (11), 55-74+127.
[5] Hoijer B. (2004) The discourse of global compassion: The audience and media reporting of human suffering. Media Culture and Society, 26 (4), 513-531. 
[6] Chen Qi., Song H. (2008) Consumed Public Opinion: On the consumption Trend of contemporary Public Opinion. Journal of Jiangsu Institute of Administration, 01, 43-47.
[7] He M. (2018) The construction, cause, and influence of Public sympathy in the public opinion of the new media in China. Shandong University.
[8] Qiu J. (2022) "Second uncle" overnight screen brushing, what cured our spiritual internal friction. CCTV.
[9] Huiberts E.,&Joye S. (2018) Close, but not close enough? Audience’s reactions to domesticated distant suffering in international news coverage. Journal of Media, Culture & Society, 40 (3), 333-347. 
[10] Zhang F., Li K. (2022) National cultural memory and transmission of real events: on the non-fiction narrative elements of New mainstream films. Film Literature, 19, 9-13.
[11] Wang J., Song T. (2019) Narrative mode of non-fictional news discourse in new media's anti-epidemic report. Modern Communication (Journal of Communication University of China), 43 (01), 61-65.
[12] Huang H. (2019) The discourse and narrative analysis of short news videos in mobile Internet era. Journalism & Communication Review, 72(05), 120-128.
[13] Yue W. (2020) Analysis on narrative Perspective and Rhetoric of non-fiction news. Youth Journalist, 14, 17-18. 
[14] Yuan G. (2015) The composition of "compassion" and "publicity" in public opinion: Rethinking the "Xia Junfeng Case". Shanghai Journalism Review, 11, 31-43. 
[15] Pan Y., Shi L., Qiu Y. (2020) Application of quality control circle management in relieving compassion fatigue of pediatric medical staff. Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Disease, 05, 433-434.

All published work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2016 - 2031 Clausius Scientific Press Inc. All Rights Reserved.