Kopi Chat with Professor Jiang Changjian: New Generation of Media and Social Trends
Professor Jiang Changjian from the popular Game Show in China, 最强大脑, garnered a full house at the Hangar by NUS Enterprise in just 2 days. Read more on his experience with new media and his take on social trends.
THE HANGAR by NUS Enterprise saw a full house at the most recent Kopi Chat — “New Generation of Media and Social Trends”, by Associate Professor Jiang Changjian on 4 August 2018. Professor Jiang, who is famous for his role as the charismatic host of the highly popular Chinese reality game show in Jiangsu, China, The Brain, spoke to a crowd of more than 350 enthusiastic listeners on changes and developments in the social media landscape today.
Content creation or contest for time?
Professor Jiang kicked off his sharing by highlighting the phenomenal changes in the media world, marked by a large scale shift of the consumption of media, from previously predominant traditional media outlets to the popularity of social media networks that we all know of today. These advances in the audience’s consumption of media has inevitably brought about a drastic transformation in the creation of content.
According to the engaging reality game show host, time is the essence in the world of social media today. Instead of focusing on producing hours of content (say a movie or documentary), content creators are now pressured to tell a good story in minutes, or even seconds. There is no shortage of social media options for consumers, and producers are thus in a bid to attract consumers to choose to spend time on their content, over the content of others. This is especially so in the era where everyone is now his or her own producer, and user generated content is rampant on social media.
More than just story-telling
Professor Jiang also emphasized that though it is important for one to tell a good story online, the portrayal of oneself on social media is equally essential in keeping the audience coming back for more. To prove his point, the audience were asked what attracted them to Hollywood movies. Their answer? The cast.
His speech shone a light on how the social media landscape has shifted remarkably, not just in the production of content, but in its consumption as well. Professor Jiang mentioned two prominent observations seen in social media users today. Firstly, one’s interests are highly shaped by the interests of their social media following. This could be attributed to algorithms such like the one Instagram uses, which determines what content you see on your news feed. Another development observed by Professor Jiang is the shift from using text in social media posts, to visuals like pictures and videos. Social media users adopt the mindset of “pictures or it didn’t happen”, and this phenomenon occurs throughout users around the world, from Singapore to China. Indeed, most of the audience were seen using their smartphones to document the professor’s talk on social media.
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