1. Introduction
China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 49th Statistical Report on the Development Status of Chinese Internet in Beijing. The report shows that as of December 2021, the size of Chinese Internet users reached 1.032 billion. This is an increase of 42.96 million from December 2020, and the Internet penetration rate reached 73.0%. With the advancement of Internet technology and the popularity of mobile terminals across geographical boundaries, the new media era has arrived and the integration of traditional industries and new media is inevitable. [1] Many new industries have emerged, and live streaming is one of them. In addition, in the special environment of the outbreak of COVID-19, offline catering and physical shop consumer economy suffered a serious blow. In order to promote Chinese post-epidemic era economic development, online shopping timely develop, so that people’s consumption habits gradually change, without leaving home can meet the basic requirements of three meals a day in the post-epidemic era environment. And the contactless and highly interactive live-streaming with goods grew wildly and broke into the limelight. Live streaming can meet people' s basic daily physical needs while also providing spiritual satisfaction.
Faced with the severe economic environment and hindered sales channels, the problem of stagnant agricultural products has yet to be solved, while live streaming with goods is obviously well suited to the current shopping environment. In addition, under the background of rural revitalization, the live broadcast of agricultural products has shown strong momentum of development due to the special nature of the commodities and the strong support from the national policy. The strategic cooperation between agricultural products and live-streaming is also an inevitable step forward for the e-commerce industry.
Oriental Selection is one of the subsidiaries of New Oriental Education. One of the reasons for its explosion is that users and consumers are optimistic about the combination of agricultural products and live webcasts. The number of fans in the live stream broke 10 million on the 16th. By July 11, the number of fans had exceeded 36 million. Among the goods brought by Oriental Selection, more than 80% of the goods are food-related.
This paper takes Oriental Selection as an example, and analyses the various communication phenomena in the process of live ecommerce of agricultural products based on the theory of journalism and communication and literature review. In the context of the analysis of Oriental Selection the phenomenon of topicality and explosion of communication is proposed for the sustainable development of agricultural live streaming and the regulation of the development of the live streaming industry.
Under the strategy of rural revitalization, Oriental Selection has realized the integration of Internet + agriculture by using agricultural products as the main products. The secondary activation of agricultural products in the promotion channels enhances the dissemination of agricultural products and helps farmers to get rich. This promotes the development of the rural economy, which is in line with the current major deployment of China' s fight against poverty. It is hoped that the research on this topic will provide recommendations for the standardized development of live agricultural communication and generate new economic vitality for rural revitalization.[8]
The explosion of Oriental Selection has not only eased the plight faced by farmers today, but has also brought a higher degree of focus to the entire live agricultural industry. Exploring the current situation and ways of communicating agricultural products live in the context of the rural revitalization strategy provides directions and strategies to inform the integration of new industries and social issues.
2. The communication phenomenon of Oriental Selection
2.1. Multi-level Dissemination : KOL—Yuhui Dong
Early studies of the concept of "opinion leaders" focused on the role of opinion leaders in information dissemination, and defined them as people who influence people's opinions, attitudes and behaviors." Compared with traditional opinion leaders, online opinion leaders have a unique advantage in terms of the speed and scope of information dissemination, and based on the Internet, opinion leaders have a wider and deeper influence on online users. Lian Huan defines an online opinion leader as a person in the Internet who can significantly influence the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of other online users based on his or her high level of expertise, insight or knowledge in certain fields. Research on this concept has focused on the identification of opinion leaders in social networks and their influence.[4]
Yuhui Dong, the anchor of Oriental Selection, is a typical live opinion leader with the characteristics of the new era. With the development of Internet technology and the enhanced speed of information dissemination, online opinion leaders have a deeper and wider influence on the audience compared to traditional opinion leaders. [2]
Yuhui Dong is an English teacher with 8 years of English teaching experience in the New Oriental. Therefore, based on his strong cultural background and unfolding teaching style, he mainly used bilingualism during the live broadcast room. It quickly formed strong personal color and officially spread on the live broadcast platform. The live clip is also widely distributed on WeChat, Moments and TikTok, creating the effect of Yuhui Dong 's presence. At the same time, his unique language style, deepens the impression of users, such as "When bad luck comes, you don't hide, but when good luck comes, you can hit it full on" and "The low price of grain hurts the farmers". It makes it easier to spread among user groups and helps it expand its reach quickly.
Unlike the traditional non-stop shouting approach of other live broadcasters, Yuhui Dong takes a "Buddhist" approach to selling, a self-service buying approach without sales pitches. This influence is subtle, as people’s opinions, attitudes and emotions are influenced during the real-time communication with users. As a result, users often believe that they are not buying rice, but emotions.
2.2. Collective Memory
By setting up the live broadcast room in a classroom style, the dark green blackboard, and the chalk with the product introduction can be used as a historical medium to carry memories to make the audience more integrated into the live broadcast room situation. The "reenactment" of the spatial field and the various details evoke memories of learning English as a child, and activating the audiences collective memory. It also arouse the sense of identity and belonging to the Oriental Selection. In this way, the audience is fully engaged and the user stickiness is enhanced.
In the Oriental Selection live broadcast, it is as if the audience is not just a simple consumer, but a participant in the specific scenario constructed by the live broadcast, as if they are participating in a class with every teacher in the live broadcast, learning the history behind each product. The construction of this special scenario allows the audience to identify with the product from the heart, gathering and reinforcing their collective identity with the Oriental Selection.
2.3. Symbolic Interaction Theory
Homogenization is a problem that has been gradually exposed in the development of live streaming in the new media era. This is one of the reasons why Oriental Selection stands out from the rest. The team of Oriental Selection is made up of a group of teachers with many years of teaching experience, whose own cultural heritage and outstanding eloquence is difficult to replicate in other live streaming teams. Therefore, the knowledge dissemination interspersed with the introduction of the products in the Oriental Selection live broadcast is a unique symbol of "high knowledge" and "cultural consumption". These symbolic meanings are transmitted between the recipient and the transmitter, thus achieving a process of interaction and mutual influence. The symbolic interaction in the process of live streaming is a two-way process of constructing the meaning of teaching and learning between the teacher and the student in the teaching field. The audience and the communicator, under the same meaning space, construct the common psychological foundation of human society, have the same understanding of "live knowledge" and both agree with it. In an era of massive information quantification, people' s reading habits have changed and they are used to receiving fragment information and their thirst for knowledge is increasing. The audience is naturally happy to see an increase in knowledge and information in addition to consumption, which is in line with the changing characteristics of the times, and the brand guarantee of New Oriental for more than ten years and its own IP traffic is also one of the reasons for its explosion.
2.4. Me in the Mirror
The American sociologist Cooley' s concept of the Mirror of the Self states that human behavior depends to a large extent on the perception of the self, which is formed mainly through social interaction with others. Other people' s opinions and attitudes towards oneself are a mirror of the self, through which the individual knows and understands himself. In the same way, in the Oriental Selection live broadcast, high knowledge team and cultural consumption have been used as a label in the Oriental Selection live broadcast.
The communicator goes to great strength to confirm this symbol in order to fulfil the expectations of the audience. For example, the other anchor of Oriental Selection, Mr. Dundun, also indicates that he has some poetry base himself and will go on to accumulate more poems for the broadcast in private. This kind of selective disclosure of information through purposeful and controlled disclosure, ultimately choosing to show others the parts of oneself that one is satisfied with, is aimed at gaining positive comments from others. And even more social capital. This is in essence the process by which individuals continually shape their self-image and influence their self-perception.
3. Economic Phenomenon of Oriental Selection
3.1. Increasing the Market Share
The "Double Reduction" policy in 2021 has hit New Oriental Education hard. The market value of New Oriental Education has shrunk from $30 billion to $3.1 billion, and the cash outlay for fee refunds and rent reductions is nearly $20 billion. At the end of 2021, Minhong Yu made his first live broadcast on TikTok, announcing the transformation of New Oriental. And at the same time, he launched Oriental Selection to start the live streaming of agricultural products. New Oriental chose to make a bold transition during the education downturn, responding to the new media era where e-commerce is now prevalent. With this move, New Oriental hopes to increase its market share, with the aim of significantly increasing and sustaining its market share. As a newcomer to the live-streaming world, New Oriental has not blindly followed the trend in its transition and has cleverly combined its educational beginnings with live e-commerce, which is one of the main reasons for its successful transition.
3.2. Building a Differentiated Brand
In today’s world of homogenization and low-quality live-streaming with products, Oriental Selection is building its brand image through a cultural format strategy. In the live broadcast, the anchor will introduce the product in both Chinese and English, for example, from how to say steak in English to the anecdotes or traditional culture behind it, and then summarize it with a positive golden sentence at the end. This adds a certain degree of value to the product, as consumers are able to buy what they want and learn English at the same time.[5] New Oriental teachers used to have to consult a lot of information to prepare for an offline class, and these accumulated experience and strengths make them unique in the live broadcast of e-commerce. The anchors use their strengths to sell products while spreading knowledge, culture, and values to achieve positive energy output. This differentiation also forms a competitive advantage for Oriental Selection, a newcomer to the live-streaming world.
3.3. Helping Farmers out of Poverty and Creating Social Recognition
The underlying culture in China is still farming culture, so Oriental Selection chose to use agriculture related products as the main products to sell, using "helping farmers" as a selling point for sentiment. This allows the customer to not only buy the product but also to help the farmers. This type of product has the broadest customer base, which is in line with the live-streaming market that needs to be broadened enough and has a high enough sales ceiling.
China has been committed to poverty alleviation. Internet technology and the cross-regional production and sales network that it has created has made the countryside a new possibility for economic growth. The arrival of the live streaming industry in rural areas has increased its competitiveness in the new media age. The booming live-streaming economy has led to an improvement in production relations and a rapid increase in productivity efficiency in rural areas. It has enabled farmers to have higher incomes and improved the structure and level of rent in rural areas. Oriental Selection is actively following the national policy direction to impress customers and gain social recognition for its farming sensibility. [6]
4. Development and Outlook
4.1. Encouraging the Creation of a Differentiated Live Image
In the post-epidemic era, rural e-commerce is developing rapidly. The live economy is also quietly changing the way people shop. However, there is now homogenization of live sales because of the low threshold for live streaming. So, it should encourage more knowledge dissemination live broadcasts like Oriental Selection, which has a unique brand image, to stop exaggerated propaganda and false deception of live streaming for selling. This is the only way to achieve long-term development in the live streaming economy.
4.2. Combining Public Service Live to Help Farmers
Up to now, live streaming has entered thousands of households, and there are countless agricultural products sold through live streaming. Under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, many remote and impoverished areas have experienced the problem of stagnant agricultural products. The emergence of e-commerce and live streaming has played a great role in helping places to resume work and production, especially opening up sales channels for special agricultural products from impoverished areas. This shows that live streaming has become one of the effective measures to help farmers out of poverty and increase their income, and to achieve rural revitalization, as well as an important driving factor to release and stimulate consumption potential. Helping farmers through public service live-streaming not only creates a safe and reliable rural brand, but also attracts more developers and tourists. In turn, it will promote the development of the rural agricultural economy, industry, tourism and catering.
4.3. Raise the Threshold of Entry and Strictly Control the Quality of Goods
Those who enter the live platform for sales are required to pay a certain fee deposit. Once The live streaming platform found that the account have the majority of customer complaints, they should immediately check and suspend their sales behavior. If the situation is true, it should be transferred to the public security organs to deal with. Secondly, the platform should increase the quality supervision and popularity. A wise audit of the quality of the products of the e-commerce users should be conducted once they are found to be not in line with the provisions of the business to be handled seriously.[3]
4.4. Pre-sales and Post-sales with Protection, to Combat False Propaganda
Promotion is required for live streaming of sales goods in order to build a solid reputation and provide consumers with real service. The anchor or video creator should set up a perfect selection mechanism so as to be responsible for the products and consumers. At the same time, after-sales service should be established to implement the responsibility of all parties to prevent issues from arising after the goods are sold, such as consumers are unable to identify the actual person in charge. For the false propaganda of the anchor, the platform should give the corresponding punishment to fulfill their responsibility of supervision and combat false propaganda, such as ban live ask, pull into the blacklist.
4.5. Control the Implantation of Commercial Advertisements
New media platforms should regulate all types of commercial advertising, develop a series of guidelines for advertising placement, and establish an effective reward and punishment mechanism to reduce those who are prosecuted for product quality issues. Moreover, platforms ought to emphasize the responsibilities and obligations expected of individual creators. Self-media entrepreneurs should also continue to improve their overall quality.
In summary, new media has become the primary means of social information dissemination, bringing new opportunities and challenges for the development of e-commerce. E-commerce platforms should make better use of new media communication technology and focus on the application of marketing toolsto achieve the deep integration of new media and e-commerce development.
5. Conclusion
The rapid development of e-commerce has given rise to the emergence of new marketing methods, and live streaming of agricultural products has continued to expand the market after the rise of live streaming with goods. During the epidemic period and the post-epidemic era, the continued power of agricultural products’ live streaming with goods has helped open up agricultural products’ sale channels and enrich the ways of agricultural products. Due to the vigorous promotion of the national rural revitalization strategy, research on e-commerce to help the poor and live streaming of agricultural products has been increasing. Promoting the healthy development of live streaming of agricultural products and forming a perfect communication system is also conducive to the upgrading of the entire agricultural products sales industry.
Under the deployment of the rural revitalization strategy, Oriental Selection takes agricultural products as its main products to integrate the Internet and agriculture. This promotes the development of the rural economy, which is in line with the current major deployment of China's fight against poverty. It not only alleviates the plight faced by farmers today but also brings a higher degree of focus to the entire live agriculture products industry.
This article analyses the reasons for the rapid development of live streaming of agricultural products, but this market form is based on a special social-economic context and the reasons for its formation are complex. This article only analyses it from the perspective of communication and economic phenomena, so is not comprehensive. At the same time, has not been able to make a quantitative analysis with scientific statistical tools because of the time problem, so the conclusions are mostly at the theoretical level. In the future, we hope that more scholars will pay attention to this field and make more practical and theoretical in depth research, so as to promote the healthy and orderly development of live agricultural products with goods.