The Role Of Citizen Journalism In China’s International Communication

The Communist Party of China has always attached great importance to international communication.During China’s War of Resistance and Liberation,The leaders of The Communist Party have met with all the famous 3S:Edgar Snow;Agnes Smedley;Anna Louise Strong,all American journalists,which have well established the image of the Communist Party of China and the government.Since the reform and opening up,China’s international communication has gone through several cognitive and practical stages,such as external publicity,external communication,international communication,cross-cultural communication,strategic communication,and has constantly deepened the understanding of the law of communication.From the foundation of the central organizations responsible for international communication,the building of the international communication capacity of the main medias,the strategy of Chinese culture going global,to the current "online celebrity "strategy,China’s international communication capacity has been continuously enhanced.At the same time,China’s international communication is also facing an increasingly serious international situation.On the one hand,the western media,with their media communication credit accumulated after the war,reported untruthfully about China,constantly hyped "China threat","China debt trap ",etc.,which damaged China’s international image.Since the outbreak of COVID-19,the West has used the epidemic to "stigmatize" China,constantly hyping the "China virus" and demanding that China be "responsible" for it,which is also the spread of stigmatization.On the other hand,the West has used rumors such as the so-called "forced labor of cotton farmers in Xinjiang" to discredit China’s international image.In addition to the media,the West is also using the think tanks,experts and other media to carry out all-round encirclement and interception of China in the field of communication,which has caused great damage to China’s international image and created huge obstacles to the expected goals of international communication.In the face of such a situation China has also formulated corresponding countermeasures,such as the foundation of CMG(China Media Group)which merge CCTV,China International Radio and China People’s Radio,gathering superior forces,and vigorously supporting the enhancing of international communication.In addition of which,building overseas stations,purchasing local media were also implemented to break the physical obstacle.In order to curb the expansion of China influence,some western social platforms which claim "freedom of speech",such as Twitter,have taken such measures as "labeling" some Chinese media.For this,Chinese media have also made a reasonable argument for self-defenseIn view of such a severe international communication situation,the author tries to extract the rules of citizens’ involvement in international communication from the current successful cases,and try to help China’s international communication through the path of public communication.On March 14,2008,a vicious beating,smashing and looting incident took place in Lhasa,Tibet.In order to resist the slander of foreign media,Chinese netizens spontaneously released news on the Internet,clarified rumors,forced western media to change their reporting,and successfully reversed public opinion,which initially demonstrated the unique role of civil opinion in international communication.Li Ziqi,who has more than 10 million fans on YouTube,far higher than the mainstream media,shows the unique charm of "online celebrity".In view of this,the author attempts to find and dig the development history,communication characteristics,and cooperation methods with the media of citizen journalism under the theoretical framework of public communication,and to study,analyze,and prospect the combination of citizen journalism and international communication by means of text analysis,questionnaire survey,interview.In the past research’s on citizen journalism,scholars mainly studied the development of citizen journalism,the definition of citizen journalism,the characteristics of citizen journalism,communication effects,social effects,the impact on traditional media,and the construction of the public sphere.There is few research on citizen journalism in the field of international communication.In the field of international communication,some scholars have analyzed the role of "Internet celebrity" or social platforms such as "TIKTOK" in international communication,and summarized the methods of using citizen journalism for international communication by media such as CNN.The innovation of this paper is that it comprehensively demonstrates the role of citizen journalism in international communication,placing citizen journalism under the background of the times and at the new stage of international communication,in order to find the best combination of citizen journalism and international communication.In terms of methodology,it adopted a methodology that combines speculation and empirical research.In addition to text analysis,it also conducted a survey of 300 people in 20 countries around the world,obtained preliminary data samples that can be used for research,and concluded that citizen journalism is the preferred news form for the audience,and citizen journalism helps the media to gain credibility.According to the research results,the author gives corresponding suggestions:First,mainstream media should focus on the use of citizen journalism and establish a mechanism for cooperation with global citizen journalists.The advantages of such measures are,on the one hand,to enhance the information access capacity of the media itself,especially in the global scope;On the other hand,it provides the media with multiple perspectives and the ability to be close to the audience.Second,we should try to build an independent citizen journalism platform to break through the stereotype of western audiences on our official media,and gradually accumulate"media credit".When the "media credit" reaches a certain level,the improvement of communication effect will be more obvious.