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2013年一月，中国内地的湖南卫视推出的一个新的电视节目“我是歌手”。这个节目由湖南电视台制作和播出，引起了广泛的讨论。随着每一集的播出，讨论的范围也越来越多。每集播出后，在“新浪微博”中占据第一的搜索量，提供微博网站服务.、。用户可以通过网页、外部程序和手机短信、彩信、上传图片、链接视频等方式发布汉字信息，进行实时共享。在整个知名网站的点击率已经提高了一亿二千万倍以上.。它拥有最高的节目收视率，这远远超出了其他电视节目。掀起了一股“我是歌手”的风潮。随着“我是歌手”的成功，其他电视台也推出了同类型的音乐节目来划分观看市场后，“我是歌手”节目结束。
1.0 Introduction 简介
In January 2013, Mainland China's Hunan Satellite TV launched the first new TV show called “I am a singer”. This show is produced and broadcasted by Hunan TV and yet broadcasted, it has evoked the widespread discussion. With the broadcast of everything single episode, the extent and scope of the discussion became more and more. After every episode broadcast, it occupied the first rank of the searching volume in “Sina Weibo” (which is launched by Sina, providing micro-blog site service. Users can publish the information with Chinese characters through webpage, external program and mobile phone short message, multimedia message, and upload pictures and link videos for real-time sharing). And the click through rate has gained more than one hundred and twenty million times in the overall well-known sites. It has the highest program ratings, which was far beyond other television programs at the meantime. It set off a wave of “I am a singer” discussion. With the success of “I'm a singer”, the other television stations have also launched the same type of music program to divide the viewing market after “I'm a singer” show ended.
In this program, one of the Hong Kong singers, GEM Tang became popular in a short period because of this program. Worth to enhance, reputation also got higher. At the same time, the people who against her voice are relatively more and more. Among that, which include a variety of reasons. There are identity problems, contradictions between China and Hong Kong, also some personal point of views. Hong Kong people like her from the beginning, to slowly become hate her. She become the object of discussion, and even spoof of the object. Discuss from her appearance, to discuss her singing skills, attitude, behavior and clothing, which have become the subject of Hong Kong people gossip. In this discussion, we will study the reasons why the above problems happened, how the political environment in Hong Kong changed, and how these affect Hong Kong celebrities’ perceptions.
2.0 Review 回顾
Encoding – construction
According to Stuart Hall’s Encoding/ Decoding model (1973), Mass media is always a concept of communication of circulation circuit which has been known as linearity – sender /message/ receiver. Nevertheless, a further specificity forms have been being proposed by Marx was production/ distribution/ production which appears in our media system. Stuart Hall has fully elaborated what television discourse is. In terms of encoding, he claimed that the production of message is to encode message, which is sent to audience for being decoded. Which means the TV program “I’m a singer” that producer made which sent to audience to decode. The most important thing is how the message is encoded for audience to receive and understand. The producer (sender) will use codes including images, sound, words, body language, and facial expressions to deliver messages. It refers to messages delivered in an easier way.
Decoding – interpretation
As the terms of decoding, it actually is the opposite meaning of encoding. It is about how it works on the audience (receiver). When the messages are delivered by the sender, the receiver would understand and interpret the messages by their own way. And it is a process of translation of the information which transformed to be a completed message. Sometimes, “distortions and misunderstanding” can happen because the receiver can understand the message in different way from the sender wanted to tell. Here is a problem. As Stuart Hall claimed, “The codes of encoding and decoding may not be perfectly symmetrical. The degrees of symmetry refer to the degrees of ‘understanding’ and ‘misunderstanding’ in the communicative exchange established between the position of the ‘personifications’, encoder – producer and decoder – receiver.” The receivers decode the same messages can be totally different depends on their gender, ages, identity, social status, class and etc. With the consideration of it, the audience who watch the television may have a variety of points of views with the same TV program.
In the early 1900s (Hall, 1973), the theory of communication sciences took audience as passive audience of information communication, the research on communication effect still mainly focused on the communication system itself, but in reality, television producers found that their information was not properly understood by audience, TV program makers wanted to take a series of measures to promote the "effectiveness" of communication. However, based on these traditional communication theories did not help to improve communication results. Decoding is to extract information from communication symbols. Hall divides the position of viewers for TV decoding information into three parts.
2.1. Dominant-hegemonic position
Dominant - hegemonic position refers to decoding practice of TV viewers within the scope of dominant codes, they make sense of meaning directly from TV news broadcasts or current affairs program, and according to the reference codes of information encoding to decode information (Hall, 1973). Hall calls this ideal television transmission mode "fully transparent communication". In simple terms, dominant - hegemonic position is that the decoding position of viewers and the encoding position of television producers or position of professional codes are exactly the same, encoding and decoding accord.
2.2. Negotiated position
Hall explains that television audience on the one hand recognizes the authority of dominant ideology, but on the other hand, they also emphasize their particular circumstances, there is a consultation process full of contradictions between the two (Hall, 1973). Hall cites an example, workers watching television news can agree with the point of view of news - a wage increase will lead to inflation, but they still participate in a strike for higher wages.
2.3. Oppositional position
Hall believes that TV viewers may fully understand the twists and turns of changes of literal meaning and connotation that language brings, but in a completely opposite way to decode the information (Hall, 1973). This means that television viewers can understand the “code” of TV words, but they choose their own decoding position, based on their experience and background to interpret entirely differently from what coders mean.
Hong Kong is a relatively open society, the culture and ideology of the society is diverse. Under these conditions, people in Hong Kong are no longer the audience under the authority to only accept the views of the mainstream media passively, but the audience who can analyze independently and speak out fully (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2017). Therefore, although the media in mainland China praise GEM highly, the people in Hong Kong will not decode according to the information conveyed by the mainland media, they will take more account of their position. Therefore, they took a oppositional position in interpretation of GEM’s performance.
The directness, interactive, open, arbitrary characteristics of the Internet provide a platform for people to discuss and show themselves freely. This advantage is not available in traditional media. In the Internet age, people are not passive recipients of information, they can use the network to convey their different views (Porten-Cheé and Eilders, 2015; Lee, Chen and Chan, 2017), therefore, although GEM is belaud by the media in mainland China, the people in Hong Kong will decode her performances according to their position, and they show their dissatisfaction with GEM through the Internet, in fact, there are Internet users in Hong Kong who criticize GEM most, they are through online message to discuss the dissatisfaction with GEM. Pang et al. (2016) put forward that the theory of psychological spiral believes that people always have more or less group psychology. People are always afraid of being isolated, when their opinions are not in agreement with the opinions of the majority, they are unable to speak out their opinions. Thus, dominant or increasingly supportive opinions will gain ground. And more and more individuals who find these trends will correspondingly change their views, then this group will be more dominant, the other is even worse, in this process, the views is continuously established as the main views (Pang et al., 2016). Considering from the case of GEM, there were a part of the audiences who have supported GEM at the beginning, once they found that there were opinions on the Internet attacking GEM, they would probably abandon their own support opinions and understanding to avoid being isolated, turning to support the majority of confrontational opinion.#p#分页标题#e#
In general, it is up to audience's position factors, such as race, class, sex, age, occupation, educational level, social status and economic strength to decide their position in interpreting a TV program (Brown, 1990; Hall, 1973). Different viewers will interpret a same TV program differently, and the same audience will interpret a same TV program at different times and in different contexts differently (Hall, 1973; 2011). The theory of oppositional position is a good explanation of why Chinese mainland and Hong Kong audiences have different attitudes towards GEM's performance in the TV program “I’m a singer”.
Significance of Hall’s theory lies in that he has abandoned the point of view that in the past, audience was believed to be only passive in decoding television program, he believes that based on understanding of television text and understanding a coder's intent, audience can be according to their needs and take the initiative to take a dominant, or negotiated, or oppositional position to decode television program, acceptance of television viewers is not passive, a sender's own interpretation does not mean a recipient's own interpretation, information transmitted is not smooth and intact all the way enter the concept of recipients (Brown, 1990; Hall, 1973). Decoding in this essay is a social activity and a social process of negotiation. The audience can take any attitude to deal with it.
Hong Kong people used to like GEM. When she was a very young girl, she held several concerts in Hong Kong. However, her more took a shouting style in singing in the TV program “I’m a singer”. Hong Kong people like more gentle and literary singing style , and shouting style is what people in Chinese mainland prefer, GEM’s choice of this singing style makes Hong Kong fans think that she choose this style to meet the preferences of Chinese mainland people’s, while ignoring what Hong Kong fans like. In addition, when GEM became famous in Chinese mainland, she refused interviews of Hong Kong media with no reason, and she clearly stated her support for Leung Chun Ying, who was disliked by young people in Hong Kong. These actions are interpreted as a kind of indifferent attitude towards the audience in Hong Kong and pleasing the mainland audience after she was famous in Chinese mainland. It is for these reasons that when fans in Hong Kong saw the performance of GEM in the TV program “I’m a singer”, they tended to take an oppositional position to interpret her performance, while the audience in Chinese mainland liked her performance very much, and fans in Hong Kong show their strong dissatisfaction.
3.0 Research Method 研究方法
An interview refers to a conversation involving one or more persons who are asked by one party and answered by the other. Interviews are also a way of gathering information about news interview, market research and other activities. The Interviewer in the conversation will ask interviewee the questions. The word “interview” refers to the role of one person in the interview, and the other in the role of the interviewee. When the interviewer asks the question, the respondent responds, the participant speaks in turns. Interviews usually involve information, from interviewees to interviewers is usually the main purpose of the interview, but the information transmission can occur in both directions simultaneously. One can compare two-way communication involving one-way flow of information.
Interviews usually occur face-to-face with people, although modern communication technologies such as the Internet have enabled conversations to take place where the parties are geographically separated, such as with video conferencing software, and of course there is no visual contact possible to telephone interviews. Interviews almost always involve spoken conversations between two or more parties, although in some cases, “conversations” can occur between two people who type questions and answers back and forth. Interviews can range from unstructured or freewheeling and open dialogues to highly structured conversations with specific issues of pre-arranged questions, where there are no predetermined plans, which occur in the specified order.
3.1 Objectives
Since 1997, when Hong Kong was ruled by Britain to return to Chinese territory, the people of Hong Kong have been disturbed. They would consider that under the rule of China, Hong Kong would have a huge change, and also fear of China's communism. Until the Chief Executive CY Leung took office, Hong Kong's anti-social mentality has become out of control, also broke out in 2014, “Umbrella Revolution”. Although GEM Tang did not participate in this incident, her demeanor has made her from Hong Kong's “the future stars” into Hong Kong “the target of public criticism”. Based on this, it forms the following research objectives:
1. To explore the Hong Kong young people decode a local celebrity GEM
2. To examine how the decoding of a star text may have articulated to the decoder’s cultural identity and how it has changed due to the changing political environment
The data collection methods were made of individual in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted between May and June 2016 by the author to collect information. The author randomly selected 8 audiences of I am a singer 2 in school and streets in Hong Kong as research objects. All interviewees have watched this program before. The background information of the interviewees has shown below.
Table 1 Background information of 8 people informants
Name Age Gender Occupation Nationality
Jess 23 Woman Student Hong Kong
Ivy 25 Woman Retail Hong Kong
Nathan 23 Man Clerk Hong Kong
Ritchie 40 Man Wholesale Hong Kong
Allen 27 Man Marketing Hong Kong
Raymond 38 Man Clerk Hong Kong
Cherry 22 Woman Student Hong Kong
Celina 30 Woman Retail China
3.2 Background of “I am a Singer”
“I Am a Singer” is a large-scale singing reality show, which produced by Hunan Satellite TV. Seven famous singers compete on the same stag. The 500-site audience in every round decides the ranking of singers. The total number of votes of the singer in two weeks (first round) or the vote (second round onwards) who rank the lowest will be eliminated and replace by another singer’s vacancy. The singers who participate in this program, have a higher visibility in the Chinese music circle and actual strength. Music director of this program is Kubert Leung. This biggest difference between other singing competition show and this program is that other programs are focusing on mining grassroots star from the civilian population, and this program is passed between those singers who have already been famous to have contest. In addition, the singers need to sign “confidentiality clause” before the program execute so as to remind participants would not reveal to the media whether they would join the competition or not. So all the singers would not know all the competitors before the program begin until the singer appeared on stage.
3.3 Background of GEM Tang
Tang Tsz-Kei, born on August 16, 1991, also known as G.E.M. (it means “Get Everybody Moving”, which means “Get everyone move up”), is a Hong Kong singer born in Shanghai, China. She moved to Hong Kong at the age of four. She is a singer who has a strong influence in the Chinese area.#p#分页标题#e#
July 2008, debuted at 16 year old and appeared in Hong Kong's major music awards. In 2012, released a new album called “Xposed” and won the highest annual sales of female singer in Hong Kong IFPI. In 2013, by virtue of “Xposed”, she nominated the best female singer in 24th Taiwan Golden Melody Award. She became the youngest female singer in this ceremony. In 2014, due to participate in China Hunan TV singing contest “I was a singer”, her dazzling performance in China that made her quickly becomes popular. In March of the same year, she won the 27th KCA American children's choice award, “the most popular Asian artist”. In May of the same year, boarded the Forbes China's largest celebrity power list No. 91 and climbed to No.11 in 2015. In July 2015, she completed 80 individual concerts under the age of 24. In August, her concerts in Beijing Stadium attracted nearly 40,000 people to watch. In November of the same year in London, she completed the 73 times of “XXX Live World Tour” in London Wembley Stadium. At the beginning of 2016, Forbes announced the most promising music list that is under 30 year old in the world's, GEM Tang is the only Asian musicians in the list. GEM Tang’s incredible profile cannot be doubt.
3.4 Results of interview
1. Do you enjoy watching I am singer 2? Why?
3 of the respondents enjoy watching I am singer 2. 1 respondent does not enjoy it very much. And 1 respondent has no comment with this question.
2. How do you feel when you are watching this show?
1 of the respondents, Jess, said she has the feel of freshness in this show. And those singers are very awesome. But the Hong Kong singer in this show is worse than other singers. The second respondent, Ivy, said that it feels like watching a live show and the singers performed in every song very seriously. The third respondent, Nathan, said he could feel the singers have paid full efforts on this show. He also feels nervous when he was watching. The fourth respondent, Ritchie, said the show could draw his attention tightly and those performances of singers were very eye-catching which persuade the audience to vote them. The last respondent, Celina, said that this show comes with excited, happy, and many competitive singers. She would like to follow every episode.
3. Do you prefer Chinese or Hong Kong singers? Why?
3 of those respondents preferred Hong Kong singers and 1 respondent, Celina, preferred Chinese singer. The former respondents preferred Hong Kong singers because they would support Cantonese songs with cordial feelings and they would like to support Hong Kong singer since they are all from Hong Kong. Also, they think that Chinese singers act differently. They would like to choose Taiwan singers more than Chinese one. The latter respondent preferred Chinese singer because she think that those Chinese singers have real stuff and they are unbeatable. Only 1 respondent, Nathan, doesn’t prefer Chinese or Hong Kong singers since he always loves the foreign singers.
4. Do you have preferred selection of singers when you are watching this show?
1 respondent, Jess, said she preferred G.E.M. Tang, who is a competitor of Hong Kong District, because she is from Hong Kong and they would like to support her. They also think that it was good to hear G.E.M. could participate in this show and represent Hong Kong. Another respondent, Ivy, said she would prefer Shila, who is a Singapore singer, because she is very sentimental when she is singing. Another respondent, Nathan, said Gary Chaw is the only one singer that he prefers in this show. He can see Gary Chaw’s passion through his voice. The rest two respondents, Ritchie and Celina, do not have any preferred singers. Both of the would depends on the every single performance only.
5. What are the conditions on choosing your favorite singer?
4 of those respondents would choose the voice of the singer at first. The second condition is the outlook of the singer. Only 1 respondent, Jess, would choose the woman singer (gender) at first.
Hall explains the decoding process as that audience is on the basis on understanding of television texts to take a dominant, or negotiated, or oppositional position. That is to say, after understanding the coding intent of coders, audience is based on their own needs, by using different decoding positions to decode. Hall points out, decoding model includes dominant-hegemonic position, negotiating position, oppositional position (Hall, 1973; 2011).
In terms of the survey results, the majority of the respondents held the encoding mode of a negotiating position, which means that television audience on the one hand recognized the authority of dominance ideology, on the other hand, they also stressed their specific situation.
On the one hand, most of the interviewees indicated that they liked the program “I am a singer”, showing that they identified with the form of the program produced, on the other hand, most of the respondents said that they preferred Hong Kong singers, followed by Taiwan singers, because their singing style were more in line with their aesthetic needs, and the last were the mainland singers, which indicated that the decoding process of the respondents was affected by their culture and identification.
4.0 Discussion 讨论
4.1 Introduction of GEM
The reason why the respondents enjoyed this show is due to the selected songs in the show are less quiet, lyrical type. In addition, the audience would resonate and enjoy those singers who selected to sing with treble, who made the atmosphere livelier songs that can often get a higher number of votes. The audience will be inclined to those singers who can affect the atmosphere and produce excitement, and therefore vote to singers who sing this type of song. Some singers who sing with quiet genre, music arrangement is relatively simple. Although it is able to move the audience, the poll results vastly low because there are no treble characteristics. Such as warm, unpretentious singer Victor Wong, Taiwan singer, was welcome to the show, but the audience still reject such singer.
Hong Kong singer, GEM Tang, battled those senior singers, including Taiwan singer Phil Chang, Malaysia singer Gary Chaw, Chinese singers Han Lei, Wei Wei, Lo qi and Zhou Bichang. 90s GEM Tang sings "bubble" in this competition. She is very unfamiliar for China viewers, but her performance impressed the audience. Those China fans left messages which praising her pretty and sing very well. Thus she instantly becomes a sensation overnight.
Hong Kong music circles and many of senior Hong Kong celebrities, including Alan Tam, Na Ying, Alfred Hui, Chrissie Chau, etc., all appreciate GEM. Alan words, “I saw you in I am a singer was very touching, proud of you!” Na Ying said, “The first super like is GEM Tang!!” Chrissie also said, “Shocked by GEM’s performances and very pleased to see the new generation of Hong Kong have chance of competing against the mainland singers. Support G.E.M.” People feel for GEM only appreciation because of her performances have delighted and moved Hong Kong people. And Hong Kong people think that this is part of the pride of Hong Kong people. Brown (1990) claimed, “The experience of reading about women as audiences is reminiscent of reading anthropology. ‘Women’ are objectifiable, somehow a unified whole, a group. The qualities that divide women, like class, ethnicity, age, education, are always of less significance than the unifying qualities attributed to women.” Most of the women and the women interviewees (with different class, age, education) would think that Hong Kong singer or any women singer is better in the same show by their subjective thinking.
The first season of “I am a singer” won by Yu Quan, indicating that the result was predetermined. There was a word spread of the winner will be the mainlanders, the hot pick singer Han Lei also has the home field advantage. Home is defined as “a place where people or animals live and are cared for by people who are not their relations or owners”; Field is defined as “a place where you are working or studying in real situations, rather than from an office, laboratory, etc.” Both can be found in Cambridge Dictionary. But for the meaning of home field advantage, it always uses to describe a sporting event. Urban Dictionary indicated, “To have an advantage in a sporting event with your home fans, city, state, etc. Visiting teams have a higher chance of losing because the home team has more support of winning.” Thus, the term “Home field advantage” at here is meaning as the singer Han Lei is competing in this show on his home field which perceived advantage. It is because the competitor would feel more confident at the place that is familiar to them mentally. Competitor would rather choose familiar place than other unfamiliar place. This is an advantage for competitor spiritually. There was a word spread of champion of second season would be the mainland singer. Under the shadow of this suspicion, GEM still goes on.
GEM Tang’s career moves well since participating in the show “I'm a singer 2”. But many reports claimed that she is pretentious and being spoiled. And most people think that she doesn’t feel grateful of what she is possessing now. Nevertheless, her manager Dan kept a poor attitude, bad news keep followed. Despite her amazing vocals, people will think that she just wanted to earn the RMB, which make people hate her more. #p#分页标题#e#
GEM Tang, one of the “world's top stars” in her own mind, has seen a lot of negative news in recent years. Last year In November, when a press conference was held in Hong Kong, the manager of the company forced the media to ask questions with microphones, and if they did not agree to the arrangement, they would immediately cancel their visit.
GEM returned to her “hometown” - Hong Kong. Her concert “GEM XXX Live Hong Kong concert”, held at the Hong Kong Coliseum. The “international class” also upgraded. Breaking the Hong Kong singers’ convention, follow the foreign singers’ concert’s convention, only photojournalists can get inside the concert. There are no seats to sit; only 30 minutes of “valuable” opening of shooting time, then leave immediately. No visit is allowed on the wake field. GEM's manager explained that the reason for rejecting this reporter's interview is too much negative news broke out earlier, so GEM is very resistant to Hong Kong journalists. “I would like to clarify when I want to be interviewed.” Although the organizers have strongly opposed it, GEM is still bent on doing so. The media before the show begin, want to interview at the off-site parking. They were repeatedly obstructed by the scene security. The notice in the site said “The audience are no admission with external light stick” Obviously, only allow the audience to buy the official sale of shiny hand strap. It is quite overbearing.
GEM’s concert tickets also achieve to “international class”. The VIP tickets are up to $1,880 Hong Kong dollars. Not only over the super singer-class, but also more than American singer Lady GaGa’s tickets price when she came to Hong Kong with the most expensive 1,280 Hong Kong dollars per ticket.
Bore (2010) and Kuipers (2006) point out that the three decoding positions of Hall's audience should not be static, they are constantly changing based on changes in the transmission process of television discourse, as well as changes in the environment and conditions of coders and decoders. The transmission of television discourse is not ended after information is transmitted from coders to decoders, it is a cyclical process. Therefore, for a steady flow of television discourse, the decoding position of a decoder is also adjusted and changed. As changes in the decoding position of Hong Kong audience for GEM’s performance in the program named “I am a singer”, in the beginning of the program, for the recognition of Hong Kong culture, they supported and liked GEM, but GEM's style of singing in the program, as well as her news off-site, such as refusing interview of Hong Kong media badly affected Hong Kong audience’s impression on GEM. Therefore, their decoding position towards GEM’s performance in the program changed from a negotiating position into a confrontational position. It indicates that audience in decoding process is not passive, but positive, they will adjust their decoding position in accordance with external situation at any time.
One case that has greatest impact on her was in 2014. GEM participated in mainland talent show “I am a singer 2” is booming and has become the “International G.E.M.”, “universe G.E.M.”. Her development of career mainly focused in the mainland. Hong Kong “netizens” think she is a forgetting, has no gratitude singer which makes her feeling even worse. In the period of “Umbrella Revolution”, she took ambiguous attitudes. A slogan “共狗棋” appeared in occupied area. “Hong Kong-mainland contradictions” happened.
Bore (2010) and Kuipers (2006) point out that the three decoding positions of Hall's audience should not be static, they are constantly changing based on changes in the transmission process of television discourse, as well as changes in the environment and conditions of coders and decoders. The transmission of television discourse is not ended after information is transmitted from coders to decoders, it is a cyclical process. Therefore, for a steady flow of television discourse, the decoding position of a decoder is also adjusted and changed. As changes in the decoding position of Hong Kong audience for GEM’s performance in the program named “I am a singer”, in the beginning of the program, for the recognition of Hong Kong culture, they supported and liked GEM, but GEM's style of singing in the program, as well as her news off-site, such as refusing interview of Hong Kong media badly affected Hong Kong audience’s impression on GEM. Therefore, their decoding position towards GEM’s performance in the program changed from a negotiating position into a confrontational position. It indicates that audience in decoding process is not passive, but positive, they will adjust their decoding position in accordance with external situation at any time.
The above discussed is from the angle of audience to analyze why Hong Kong audience negatively decode GEM’s performance, but it is worth noting that the negative decoding of Hong Kong audience’s has deeper reasons.
Hall’s (1980) “Theory of Articulation” believes that considering two different transactions, because of their homogeneity in some way, at the same time, in a certain external conditions, when the two different transactions articulate with each other, and this kind of articulation is not invariable but necessarily exists, this articulation is affected by the external environment. “Theory of Articulation” is a significant contribution in the field of cultural transmission, it provides a broader perspective to explain cultural transmission.
Taking GEM as an example, before she participated in the program “I am a singer”, actually, her singing style was a shouting style, and she has the title of a “iron lung singer’, but Hong Kong fans did not hate her at that time. In the show of “I'm a singer”, Hong Kong fans linked her singing style with making up to fans in mainland China, because in Chinese mainland, when they were singing patriotic songs, they liked to use this kind of shouting style, and this kind of songs were often thought as songs used for brainwashing by people in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong fans combined GEM’s way of singing with singing style of brainwashed songs, so they expressed dissatisfaction with GEM. Then why Hong Kong fans decoded GEM’s performance before and after participating in “I am a singer” differently, Hall’s (1980) “Theory of Articulation” explains that the reason lies in the influence by conflicts between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland in political, cultural identity, values and other aspects. The existence of the conflicts led to that the fans in Hong Kong have negative decoding for GEM’s singing way, of course. In future, if the conflicts can disappear, so Hong Kong fans’ negative decoding for GEM may become positive. In the following content, it is from politics, cultural identity, values to analyze the conflicts between Hong Kong and Chinese mainland.
4.2 Political atmosphere in Hong Kong
Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), joined with 25 tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, started a one-week student strike on September 22, demanding the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) withdraw its framework for Hong Kong's political reform. The HKFS said it had a historic participation of 13,000 people. They vowed that this strike is only the first wave of a series of uncooperative movements in Hong Kong's civil society. Students of the strike will be relocated to the Admiralty and will surround the Chief Executive's Office before the Executive Council meeting. They will hold a direct dialogue with Chief Executive CY Leung.
Most of the participating students responded to the appeal of HKFS, wearing a white top with yellow ribbon to attend this assembly. The backboard of the venue was written with the words “Democracy Now”, and the banner of “anti-colonial and anti-screening of Hong Kong people's way” was hung on the left and right.
Judging from the above news, the political atmosphere between Hong Kong and mainland China is not very harmonious. On the one hand, from the perspective of universal values, the political demands of Hong Kong citizens are reasonable. Pursuing freedom, democracy and the rule of law has been Hong Kong people's consensus, they have also held a number of large-scale social rallies and demonstrations, the people's appeal is growing (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2016). On the other hand, with the strengthening of China's comprehensive national strength, its economic, political, military control towards Hong Kong is also improving, it is the use of this power to suppress Hong Kong people's democratic aspirations (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2016). The result is that the public in Hong Kong is increasingly dissatisfied with the Chinese government and the Hong Kong government. Political dissatisfaction will inevitably affect the public's dissatisfaction with many matters related to mainland China, such as entertainment, culture, sports and so on. As a result, when Hong Kong viewers watch TV, they are more likely to adopt a coordinated approach to people or those who can embody Hong Kong's cultural identity and values while, while taking an oppositional position towards those who embody the cultural identity and values of mainland China.#p#分页标题#e#
After the reunification, the absolute political power of the Chinese government, coupled with the rise of economically powerful capitalism, corruption in mainland China has intensified, sovereignty politics and corrupt economy has shaken Hong Kong's social foundation of original free rule of law, the inherent core values was on the verge of disintegration. In the early years of the reunification, Hong Kong people generally did not realize that China was not able to tolerate the rule of law in Hong Kong. Until 2003, the 23 legislation dispute made Hong Kong people awakened and 500,000 people marched to ask for returning the power of government to the hands of the people. While arousing the democratic consciousness of people’s in Hong Kong, it also awakened the totalitarian Chinese government and it felt that its absolute power was challenged, thus it changed its commitment of "Ruling Hong Kong by Hong Kong people and a high degree of autonomy". Since 2003, people in Hong Kong have wanted to establish a democratic system, which conflicted with the increasingly strengthened control of the Chinese government towards Hong Kong, the intensification of the contradictions between people in Hong Kong and the Chinese government has been superficialized.
One of the respondents of the interview, Allen, has comment about GEM Tang. GEM is a beginning singer debut at online platform. She then put out an album with high popularity at online platform. She is a singer-songwriter, coupled with her skillful piano background. So she has a lot of fans, and many people repute that she is the most influential new singer who can quickly open the first concert. After that, she participated in a singer contest with the identification of Hong Kong singer in mainland. Her performance aroused the mainlanders’ wide concern after this show. And Hong Kong people began to hate her because she became “Mainland – orientated” in those social networks of the mainland. She lost the debut of personal style and changed to the favorite of mainland – soprano style, kept shouting style. The costumes on the shows tend to be “Mainlanders”. In order to make money, completely lost the shadow of Hong Kong people, that is why Hong Kong people hate her so.
Another man respondent, Raymond, claimed that GEM Tang is a public figure who is able to demonstrate a majority of the people in Hong Kong who are identity-oriented and respect on their identity. And GEM can express their own sense of superiority and a certain degree of confidence of Hong Kong people.
Instead, GEM is the portrayal of most Hong Kong people, but the paradox is that the Hong Kong people on their own values and behavior was shameful. GEM is precisely as largest quotation of Hong Kong's Contradiction.
Another woman respondent, Cherry, claimed that Hong Kong people do not like GEM normally. Most Hong Kong people knew that she participated in the mainland TV show, I am a singer 2, and famous. After that, she stayed in Mainland and developed her career of singing. She starred in different television programs in Mainland. She even refused to participate in the awards ceremony in Hong Kong. She has publicly supported CY LEUNG, the Hong Kong Chief Executive. Hong Kong people will think that she is the “Hong Kong dog” who does not know about the political environment in Hong Kong and the public opinion of Hong Kong people. Cherry believes that if GEM did not support CY LEUNG in public, Hong Kong people would not hate her that much.
Combining with above comments of three interviewees about GEM Tang to present the characteristics of cultural identity and factors affecting constitution of cultural identity, this discussion is based on theories relating to cultural identity from Hall, Bauman, Frith (2011).
4.3 Cultural identity
Hall (2011) believes that cultural identity is not consistently maintained, he holds that cultural identity in a modern society tends to be more broken, it is the multiple construction containing many different (and often interlaced, opposite) discussion, practice and positions, it is in the course of change and transformation from time to time. Identity is the process of collecting a lot of history, language and cultural resources to make a person become people of a certain kind. Bauman notes that when people are in different places, at different times, according to the different social roles that they play, they will have different perceptions for cultural identity. Considering from the interviewees' views on GEM, the characteristics of their cultural identity are in line with what Hall describes. First interviewee thought that in the past, GEM was a very good singer-songwriter with a lot of fans in Hong Kong. After she participated in a program in mainland, in order to better meet the interest of fans in mainland, she changed her musical style, so Hong Kong people became to hate her. The interviewee's comments indicate that cultural identity is not fixed but dynamic, it will change as social context changes. Second interviewee mentioned that he appreciated GEM’s attitude of expressing their own sense of superiority and a certain degree of confidence of Hong Kong people. Third interviewee thought that she hated GEM because she publicly supported CY LEUNG, the Hong Kong Chief Executive. This shows that the formation of cultural identity is not only affected by race and origin, but affected by multi-dimensions, considering from the point of view of different dimensions, different people have different, even contradictory attitudes towards cultural identity.
Cultural identity answers the question of who we are. Zolfaghari et al. (2016) have pointed out that people of different nationalities often respond to "who we are" with what is the most meaningful to them, namely, using ancestry, religion , language, history, values, customs and institutions to define their own and take some kind of symbols, such as flags, crosses, crescent, and even head cover and so on as a symbol to express their cultural identity. Its core is the recognition of the basic value of a group; it is the spiritual bond of a group and the spiritual basis of continuing life of a group. Cultural identity has more profound connotation than political identity, social identity and ethnic identity. Compared with other identities, it has more "self-identify" character. Loss of cultural identity will cause more far-reaching impact of pathological anxiety (Zolfaghari et al., 2016)
In decoding GEM’s performance in the program of “I am a singer”, most of Hong Kong audience take a oppositional position. On the face of it, it is because they do not like her singing style and some inappropriate behavior of GEM, but it should be noted that fans in mainland China also notice GEM’s inappropriate behavior, she is still very popular in mainland China. Therefore, it is superficial to explain the unpopularity of GEM in Hong Kong simply with the reasons of GEM’s singing style and her disordered behavior. From a deeper level, this is a problem of cultural identity. Cultural identity is the common spiritual basis of a group. The performance of GEM in the program has a great conflict with the cultural identity of Hong Kong people, resulting in that most of Hong Kong audience has resented her.
Hong Kong audience’s antipathy towards GEM is actually Hong Kong people’s reduced degree of cultural identity with Chinese culture. In the current Hong Kong society, for the degree of cultural identity with Chinese culture is reduced increasingly, this is a strange phenomenon. Before 1997, Hong Kong was under the rule of the British government, people in Hong Kong did not have much antipathy towards Chinese culture or culture in mainland China, most Hong Kong people thought that they were Chinese people, Hong Kong culture was a part of Chinese culture, but after the return of Hong Kong in 1997, under the management of the Chinese government, Hong Kong people’s esteem for Chinese culture in reduced. The author will use the strong cultural identity and cultural nationalism to explain this strange phenomenon.
Strong cultural identity refers to that the degrees of social, economic, political, cultural development of a nation, a country or a region are higher than other nations, countries or regions, so they always want to disseminate their own culture, values, system successfully, thus forming acceptance and recognition with their own culture (Zolfaghari, Möllering, Clark and Dietz, 2016).
Cultural nationalism refers to the tendency that in a cultural field, it emphasizes the common cultural identity and maintains the independence and autonomy of the national culture (Hall and Gay, 2011). When a national culture is threatened by a foreign national culture, the deep feelings for the national culture in the inner of the ethnic group will be activated and turned into a strong sense of autonomy against foreign cultural influence to maintain the independence of local culture.
Although Hong Kong people can be regarded as Chinese from a blood line, the degrees of political, economic and cultural development of the Hong Kong community are much higher than that of Chinese mainland. Therefore, the Hong Kong culture should be a strong culture for Chinese mainland. Hong Kong people’s cultural identity is certainly higher than Chinese mainland culture. However, the reality is that the government in Chinese mainland makes use of its immense political, economic and cultural influence to have greatly affected Hong Kong's local culture. This has undoubtedly affected Hong Kong's cultural nationalism. The performance is to maintain local culture and increase antipathy towards culture in mainland China, the cultural identity for mainland China is decreased.#p#分页标题#e#
Hall (2011) believes that identity is constructed through differences. Only through comparing with the other can a certain ethnic identity be show. Identity is able to play the role of identifying, because it can exclude the other. First interviewee figured that they criticized GEM as she abandoned the debut of personal style representing Hong Kong culture and changed to a “mainland – orientated” style. This difference in ways of interpretation of songs is on behalf of differences between Hong Kong and mainland cultures, GEM changes her way of interpretation of songs, naturally she lose Hong Kong fans’ approval and has been excluded be Hong Kong fans.
Frith (2011) points out that music is not equal to some kind of class, race, nation, cultural identity of audience towards music depends on audience’s feelings and communal values towards music. Although GEM still sing Guangdong language songs, her changed music style brings Hong Kong fans poor music experience, resulting in that fans which are similar to first interviewee do not identify with her music, and as some Hong Kong people do not support CY Leung and GEM has supported him in public, and GEM once refused to participate in the awards ceremony in Hong Kong, these behavior are contrary to communal values of this part of fans, resulting in that fans who are similar to the third interviewee do not identify with GEM’s music.
All in all, cultural identity is not static. The construction of cultural identity is affected by many factors, such as differences between groups, individual perception, communal values and so on. The interviews show that attitude of part of fans in Hong Kong towards GRM has undergone a process from identification to exclusion, because the style of interpretation of GEM’s new songs does not meet the characteristics of Hong Kong’s culture and brings Hong Kong fans a bad experience, and it is contrary to communal values of some people in Hong Kong.
4.4 Values
Values are the overall evaluation of an individual’s on objective things, including people, things and the meaning, function, effect and importance of results of its actions. Values are the important psychological tendency system that people use to distinguish the good and the bad, distinguish what is right and what is wrong. People can not only know what the world is, but also know what they should do, what they should choose to find the significance of things for their own to determine and achieve their goals (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2016; Flowerdew, 2004). These are governed by values of each person’s. Communal values means that the majority of members of a society share the same values. This concept is an important basis for cultural identity. These values are accepted by the members of the society and guide their political, social and cultural activities. Communal values have the function of orientation, cohesion, restraint and encouragement of members of a society (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2016; Yang, 2007). Hall believes that audience’s decoding process is proactive, it is precisely because communal values play such an important role, so in the decoding of television programs, people can not avoid being affected by communal values.
Considering the communal values of Hong Kong people’s, equality, justice, freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law are deeply rooted. This is also an important cultural foundation for Hong Kong to become the world's leading economy. However, the mainland China now is still a society of the rule of man, it is not free, which conflicts with the values of people’s in Hong Kong (Lee, Chen and Chan, 2016; Cheung, 2011), and GEM’s many acts are contrary to communal values of the Hong Kong society, and she meets the values of the mainland society, her behavior is interpreted as meeting what the mainland market demands, as well as the choice for making more money. Therefore, for this reason, many Hong Kong audiences take a oppositional position to decode her performance in the program “I am a singer”.
5.0 Conclusion 结论
“I am a singer” is a variety show with the highest audience rating in mainland China in recent years, the program's viewing groups are throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Southeast Asia and other places, the number of audience has reached more than 100 million, by participating in the program, many stars have gained high visibility in mainland China and overseas Chinese communities. However, there was a special star named GEM from Hong Kong. On the one hand, she was through the program “I am a singer” to win a high reputation in mainland China, which helped her to earn a lot of money. On the other hand, she was very popular in Hong Kong before she participated in the program, but since she appeared in the program, Hong Kong audience has become to hate her. From the perspective of Hall’s theory, the hatred from Hong Kong audiences towards GEM’s performance comes from their oppositional decoding. What position that audience takes to interpret a TV program depends on the position of decoders’, Different audiences have different interpretation for a same TV program because of their different positions. Theory of Oppositional position is a good explanation for why mainland and Hong Kong audiences have different attitudes towards GEM's performance in “I am a singer”. There are two main reasons for why Hong Kong audience adopts a oppositional position. Firstly, GEM’s singing style and behavior conflict with Hong Kong audience's cultural identity, causing that most Hong Kong audiences dislike her. Secondly, at present, the political atmosphere between the Hong Kong society and the Mainland society is not very harmonious. There is a great difference in communal values between the two societies. Many acts of GEM violate the communal values of the Hong Kong society and cater to the values of the mainland society. Her actions are interpreted as meeting the needs of the mainland market to earn more money. As a result, many Hong Kong audiences took an oppositional position to decode her performance in “I am a singer”.
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