| The transformation of production mode brought by the development of digital media technology has spawned a new form of labor,and online emotional labor is one of them.This new form of digital labor has been embodied and practiced in the work of live social media platform anchors.As a new type of cultural entertainment and visual consumption product,webcasting has become a dynamic social platform because of its unique visibility and real-time performance.At the same time,the blowout development of "Red Man Economy" has made online celebrity anchor a new career sought after by young people in China.However,the previous studies mostly stayed at the disciplining mechanism contained in webcasting,ignoring the story behind the live broadcast industry,that is,how MCN organizations continuously produce online celebrity anchors to provide emotional performances,and the dynamic relationship "construction" and emotional "management" between online celebrity and the audience.Based on the perspective of emotional labor,the discipline of MCN institutions is included in the research category of emotional labor.By using the methods of literature research,participatory observation and in-depth interview,the field survey is conducted for more than one year,and information is obtained through in-depth interviews with 27 research subjects.The interviews cover more than 500,000 anchors,small and medium-sized anchors and the operators and management personnel of MCN institutions,so as to analyze the emotional control,emotional strategies and emotional reproduction of network anchors in the process of live broadcast labor.It is found that the live broadcast room can be regarded as a large-scale performance,and MCN has arranged a clear "performance area" to discipline network anchors through emotional control and emotional correction.From the salary structure to the reward and punishment of aesthetic discipline,from the image building to the packaging and training of interactive principles,from the collaborative performance of multi-stakeholders to the organization and manipulation of persuading overtime,online celebrity anchors all show "dancing with shackles".Secondly,in this performance practice,the anchor’s emotional labor can be divided into three stages: emotional adaptation,shallow performance and deep performance.During the period of emotional adaptation,the anchor debugs his psychological state to present an "ideal role".In the stage of emotional performance,the appearance,expression and action of "people’s design" are forged through shallow performance,while the inner emotion remains unchanged.Then,through deep performance,the performance skills are constantly honed to present different roles according to different situations in the live broadcast room,showing more sincere emotions.It can be said that the process of live broadcast is that the anchor goes to the front desk with the help of the camera,enriches the individual image and performs a "conscious performance".Finally,the interaction between the network anchor and the fans rearranged the anchor’s working space.In order to obtain long-term and stable income,the anchor has to extend and expand the scope of emotional labor through continuous reproduction of emotion.On the one hand,in order to gain more fans and audiences and further expand their influence and appeal,network anchors need to build trust with fans and cultivate consumer demand by constantly "selling" their personal images and sharing their personal lives on social media platforms.On the other hand,in order to avoid the crisis of losing fans and improve the stickiness of loyal fans,the anchor has to give fans corresponding emotional feedback by means of the fiction of kinship in speech,the exchange of offline gifts and the appointment in real life.However,the reality is that excessive emotional labor has prompted the anchor to bring his burnout from the live broadcast room to the outside,and from the live broadcast discourse system to his private life.The accumulation of negative emotions is harmful to the physical and mental health development of anchor individuals,and it is easy to produce adverse effects such as emotional alienation,emotional exhaustion and job burnout.How to explore and construct a benign discipline,realize the full liberation of flexible professional individuals,protect the basic labor rights and interests of digital practitioners,such as income,rest and freedom rights,promote the healthy development of online celebrity’s economy,and improve the happiness index of society deserves our further attention. |
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