Critical Heritage Studies as a Lens to Understand Short Video Sharing of Intangible Cultural Heritage on Douyin

Title of the Paper

Understanding the Dissemination of Intangible Cultural Heritage Short Videos on TikTok from the Perspective of Critical Heritage Studies

Bibliographic Information

• Research Domain: Digital Cultural Heritage, Intangible Cultural Heritage Dissemination, Human-Computer Interaction
• Keywords: Intangible Cultural Heritage, Critical Theory, Online Video Platforms, TikTok, Short Video Dissemination, Audience Response, Cultural Identity, Innovative Dissemination, Cultural Politics

Research Background and Issues

• Issues or Challenges:

  1. Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) faces multiple threats, such as insufficient documentation and protection measures, especially in low-resource communities.
  2. Short video platforms can effectively disseminate cultural heritage content, but there is insufficient research on how different stakeholders showcase, interpret, and manage ICH through short videos.
  3. Short videos face challenges such as content commercialization and algorithm-driven uneven attention distribution, while lacking comprehensive studies on the dynamics of power, identity, and knowledge.

• Importance of the Research: ICH is crucial for maintaining cultural diversity and social cohesion. Exploring how to effectively promote and protect ICH on digital platforms, especially short video platforms, can provide new perspectives and solutions for its sustainable development.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • Critical Heritage Studies (CHS) are often applied to tangible cultural heritage research but are rarely used for ICH.
  • There is a lack of comprehensive analysis of cultural heritage dynamics and stakeholder conflicts on digital platforms like TikTok.
  • The motivation is to uncover dissemination patterns of ICH in short videos and explore how various parties shape the structures of power, identity, and knowledge.

Solutions

• Proposed Solution: The authors utilize the Critical Heritage Studies (CHS) framework to propose a classification system for analyzing TikTok ICH short videos and the behavior of their creators, as well as examining audience responses to different video content.

• Innovative Contributions:

  1. A framework for categorizing ICH short video content is proposed, including four categories: "Documentation" (e.g., showcasing, inheritance, knowledge dissemination), "Community" (e.g., local and cross-community), "Innovation" (e.g., dissemination and content innovation), and "Commercialization" (e.g., traffic or commercial purposes).
  2. An analysis of power dynamics, cultural identity connections, and knowledge-sharing interactions on social media, exploring the relationship between governments and local communities, as well as challenges to authority by ordinary users.

• Implementation Steps and Core Techniques:

  1. Data Collection: Over 25,000 TikTok videos related to ICH were collected through keyword searches and manual screening to obtain standardized data.
  2. Classification and Annotation: Open coding was applied to 200 sample videos to establish a classification system.
  3. Quantitative Methods: Machine learning models were used to classify comment semantics, and regression analysis was conducted to reveal the correlation between video types and audience responses.
  4. Comment Analysis: Pre-trained language models were employed to analyze comment categories (e.g., knowledge exchange, attitudes) and their sentiment tendencies.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:

  1. Video Classification and Features:
     • Four major video frameworks were proposed: "Documentation," "Community," "Innovation," and "Commercialization."
     • "Documentation" videos (e.g., showcasing and inheritance) accounted for the highest proportion, while some "Commercialization" videos exhibited misuse of cultural elements.
  2. Group Dynamics Analysis:
     • Governments and professional organizations dominated knowledge dissemination, but their video formats were monotonous and struggled to engage viewers emotionally.
     • Ordinary individuals challenged authority and gained greater audience preference.
  3. Audience Responses:
     • Videos with cross-community perspectives were more popular, while knowledge dissemination videos received less audience feedback.
     • Comments were mostly positive or neutral, but effective "dialogues" and debates were limited.

• Advantages and Contributions:

  • The study provides an empirical research framework based on CHS, filling a gap in the digital dissemination of ICH.
  • It identifies audience preferences for "de-authoritization" trends and proposes methods to promote cross-cultural exchange through short videos.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  1. Limitations: The study is limited to the TikTok platform and may not be applicable to other platforms or cultural contexts; furthermore, it does not delve deeply into the direct processing and implementation of machine learning models.
  2. Future Directions: Expanding the scope of video data analysis, introducing cross-platform comparative studies, exploring the long-term impact of ICH videos, and enhancing research on comment interactions and their cultural significance.