A domineering but popular science, a new way of playing skits by blue Vs

How can official media innovate in communication? Shenzhen Health Commission's new model of popular science short dramas on Douyin balances fun and knowledge transfer, providing new ideas for new media operations. Recommended to media operators, content creators, and readers interested in government new media innovation.

Interactive topic: Do you like the short dramas produced by official media?

"Woman, you have successfully caught my attention."

"I'll give you five minutes to get your dean to see me. Bring the best team in Jiangcheng, or the entire city will be buried with me!"

"This is 10 million, leave my son!"...

You read that right. These earthy love words and domineering speeches are not from a new short drama on a certain platform, but a short video released by the official Douyin account of Shenzhen Health Commission on the eve of Nurses' Day. Recently, the official Douyin account of Shenzhen Health Commission has begun to frequently release a series of short videos, such as "Being a Resentful Person in the Domineering Drama" and "Difficult Clinic", which incorporate elements of time travel and domineering in the short drama craze into the video creativity. It is humorous and funny, and popularizes a lot of health knowledge, which has won unanimous praise from netizens.

The sudden popularity of "Shen Xiaowei" has also triggered many blue V official media to imitate it. Why are official media involved in "short dramas"? Can this "short drama imitation show" really help official media and the general audience?

1. The "interesting soul" of serious official media

In fact, the Shenzhen Health Commission, which is jokingly called "crazy" by netizens, is not the first time to become a "prominent package" in the government new media. As early as the era when WeChat public accounts were mainstream, the official Weibo account of the Shenzhen Health Commission has always been an all-powerful joke teller, such as playing memes, making up stabs, and telling earthy love words. For example, it is clearly a practical tweet explaining the "thalassemia gene", but the title and introduction are as follows:

Not to mention those "weird" emojis and tweet covers of Shenzhen Xiaowei. After entering the era of short videos, Shenzhen Health Commission continued the high-speed surfing sense and professional new media popular science quality, and released a large number of interesting popular science works through short and medium video platforms such as Douyin and Bilibili. As of May 17, the official Douyin account of Shenzhen Health Commission has 2.44 million fans and more than 15 million likes, and the official account of Bilibili has 711,000 fans, which can be said to have "captured the hearts of netizens."

As short dramas have become popular on short video platforms in the past two years, the Shenzhen Health Commission has incorporated elements of time travel, domineering bosses, rebirth, etc. from short dramas into videos, used various classic short drama languages ​​and plots to write plot scripts, and launched a large number of short video works in the style of short dramas.

But if you think that the Shenzhen Health Commission is just using the skit format to attract attention, you are wrong. For example, in the series of skits "Difficult Clinic 6: Heartbreak Clinic", the editor still incorporated a rustic speech at the beginning:

"Doctor, I always have some strange sexual fantasies."

"Oh? Is it S or M?"

"Neither. I fantasize about someone loving me."

In just a few sentences, the doctor not only played a joke to arouse the interest of young audiences, but also cleverly pointed out the theme of depression. Next, the doctor used a stethoscope to "listen to what was in the child's heart." After this seemingly playful action, what the doctor heard was the flashback moments of family disputes, the departure of pets, academic pressure, school bullying, etc. in the child's memory... and these are exactly the common causes of depression in teenagers.

Parents who don't understand this are still nagging their children, saying "How can a good person suddenly become depressed?" And this is perhaps the blame that every depressed person will hear. At this point, the audience found that the use of memes, earthy flavors, and clichés is just "to trick the audience in." The Shenzhen Health Commission tried to use popular online forms such as short plays to reduce the heaviness of disease issues, but it never eliminated the seriousness of health issues.

Therefore, under the packaging of interesting plots and bizarre forms, the audience truly felt the effect of "edutainment". Not only did they think it was "good-looking" and "love to watch", but they also began to be willing to actively and attentively follow the Shenzhen Health Commission to understand and learn health knowledge points. Of course, the Shenzhen Health Commission is not the only official media that has taken the "short drama express". Starting in March this year, official government media in various places have begun to try the integration of "short drama + publicity" .

For example, the 6-episode short play "Rebirth: I am a Traffic Policeman in a Cool Short Play" released by the Hunan Traffic Police used the extremely common and popular rebirth plot in short plays and online literature. The protagonist, the president of the Li Group, was hurt by love and insisted on driving after getting drunk, but was stopped on the spot by the traffic police; President Li was about to run to his ex-girlfriend, but was interrupted by the police because he did not look at the traffic lights when crossing the road... Behind the funny plot is the positive energy of the Hunan Traffic Police - "In this life, I want everyone to obey traffic rules!"

Tianjin Political and Legal Affairs Bureau directly borrowed the common plots of the domineering boss skits and launched the "Judge Zhou Zhou Travels Through Time" series of skits, allowing the judges to travel directly into the domineering bosses' plots and report the various illegal behaviors of the domineering bosses. While the audience laughed, they also had a clearer legal understanding of the various plots in the domineering boss skits. It can be said that Tianjin Political and Legal Affairs Bureau's move is not only "innovating official media", but also "rectifying skits".

In short, with the help of this year's short drama craze, many official media have released new media works with popular short drama themes and plots. Many of these high-quality works are not only innovative in form, but also embed various soft knowledge into them, bringing the audience a dual experience of knowledge value + emotional value. When serious official media have an interesting soul, who wouldn't love it?

2. The official team’s “Internet-sense brain hole”

So, what is the magic that turns serious official media into interesting souls? For the Shenzhen Health Commission, perhaps this magic is "a young team, for a young audience, doing young things." As early as 20 years ago, in an interview with Southern Metropolis Daily, the new media team of the Shenzhen Health Commission mentioned that they are a team dominated by "post-waves." Although there are people in charge of the 70s and 80s, the main writers and producers of the new media accounts are basically the young generation, mainly born in the 90s or even 95s.

As witnesses and natives of the self-media era, they understand the Internet better and love to play with it. Therefore, when operating the Health Commission account, they also deliberately benchmarked the big Vs and KOLs in the medical field, actively integrating online and social hot spots into the work of official media, and capturing the emotional resonance between official media and young audiences. The leading actors Dr. Koukou and Dr. Youmole, who frequently appear in the Shenzhen Health Commission's Douyin, are not only professional doctors in their own fields, but also have a young soul full of Internet sense. They operate their own Bilibili and Douyin accounts, and have become "popular science joke tellers" who often "confront" young netizens online.

In addition to the vigor of work, the young team also brings an audience-oriented Internet operation mindset. Based on the platform attributes and audience circles of Douyin, Bilibili and other platforms, the Shenzhen Health Commission has drawn a core audience portrait of Generation Z, who like to receive fragmented information, love online hot spots, and have a wide range of hobbies and information.

Therefore, the team members also start from their own and people's various interests and hobbies, as well as short-term hot topics on the Internet, and frequently use short dramas, online articles, emoticons, popular memes, online terms, short dramas and other forms to enrich the video content and increase the fun and readability of the content. In addition, the creators are also interested in learning the marketing routines of commercial short videos, such as incorporating the screenwriter's thinking of commercial short dramas and setting strong reversals at the right time; or like the implantation of oral broadcasts in short videos with goods, implanting health knowledge at appropriate plot nodes.

These communication rules, which have been summarized and tempered in the market in commercial short videos, have also been organically integrated into the propaganda of official media discourse, empowering the communication power of official media.

3. The long road ahead for the "Shenzhen Xiaoweis"

After the Shenzhen Xiaowei account went viral, official media from all over the country also followed suit. This imitation has set off a trend of official media skits, which has indeed increased the influence and spread of official discourse to a certain extent. However, if we look at the future of official media accounts rationally, there are still many obstacles or hidden dangers.

1. Objectively, the long-term operational capabilities cannot keep up

New government media with an "interesting soul" need to build a new media team with strong network sense, strong execution, broad interests, and good operation skills . Not all official media have accumulated fans since the era of public accounts, and not all official media can quickly invite professional actors like Dr. Koukou. The scarcity of such talents has led to the inability of most new government media to truly replicate the achievements of the Shenzhen Health Commission.

Even Shenzhen Xiaowei, which is already at the forefront, recently pointed out the weakness and bottleneck in content production in an interview, saying that it will temporarily slow down for a while. Therefore, it is really difficult for government new media to achieve mass production and sustained updates like commercial short dramas or other popular forms. In terms of content, it is also easy to have various problems such as poor integration, homogeneity, and insufficient production level.

Having the will but not the ability may be the primary dilemma faced by many blue Vs in official media.

2. Unable to let go of subjective "status"

The new media works of traditional official media are too didactic and too blunt in their propaganda; the short plays are too earthy and melodramatic; how to find a balance between "blunt preaching" and "letting go of oneself" , and between publicity and fun, professionalism and universality , is also a positioning problem that official media have long faced on new media platforms.

In this regard, skits are only short-term quick-acting "painkillers" and are far from being a "magic pill" to eradicate this problem. What the official media need is to change their mindset from being a transmitter to being a receiver, and truly "get down to business" and become good friends who sit beside netizens, tell them stories, and provide them with scientific knowledge.

3. The problem of homogeneity

Shenzhen Health Commission became popular through skits, so various official media also started to make skits. This phenomenon of following the trend seems familiar. After "Sichuan Observation" became popular, "Guangdong Observation" and "Shandong Observation" and other imitative local official microblogs emerged in an endless stream, but most of them eventually disappeared. The form and plot are replicable, but the audience will not pay for simply copied content. This law exists in commercial skits, and it is also true in the propaganda field of government new media. Low-cost skit production may be possible for everyone, but whether the theme and core behind the content of the skit can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people is another question.

Therefore, the skit format should never become the new standard for official media to “roll up.”

Conclusion

The explosive popularity of Shen Xiaowei is the result of "a young team, for a young audience, doing young things". Such cases are replicable, but they need to be more innovative. The official discourse field in the new era does not need 100 "Shen Xiaowei", but there will always be the next "Shen Xiaowei" and "Sichuan Observation" to continue to appear.

Author: Meng Wenyu; Source public account: Media No. 1 (ID: 1093893)