This article is from WeChat official account:See ideal (ID: ikanlixiang)< span class = "text-remarks">, author: Su if, Su seven, editor: Su seven, head Figure from: vision China
Not long ago, discussions on the translation of a new book “Truce” on Douban caused various controversies. Later, due to a report letter, a huge “One Star Movement” and collective protest.
In the article “Douban “One-Star Campaign” Triggered by a Report Letter”, Douban user @ increasinglyzhai carefully sorted out the ins and outs of the incident, and restored the “overreaction” caused by the “overreaction” through the voices of all parties. Cultural events allow us to see how an otherwise normal discussion gradually becomes out of control.
Compared with the past, the scope of discussion and subsequent disturbances of this “One Star Movement” are even greater. And behind this movement, we have seen the individual’s resistance after being oppressed, and we have also seen Douban becoming a battlefield. The current dilemma and worries of the single scoring system it represents.
One, one-star movement, a large-scale power struggle
“One-Star Campaign”, as the name suggests, means that a large number of users give a work “one-star” (the lowest score in the scoring system) , To express some kind of collective action of protest. This has a long history in the Douban scoring system, especially in the field of reading.
When talking about the beginning of this kind of movement, we will refer to “The Little Prince” published by Guomai in 2013 and translated by Li Jihong. The initial slogan printed “The best translation so far, correcting the existing 56 versions More than 200 errors of “(later deleted).
Such “false propaganda” has triggered many responses. Many readers have been complaining about the publishing house’s exaggerated propaganda copy for a long time, and it broke out in this campaign. Many users give a one-star rating without reading this book, and hope that “shameless publishers and editors will take warning.”
Later, “Youth Edition·Dream of Red Mansions”, “May you go through a thousand sails, and you are still a teenager”, “Lifelong Learning”, and “Genius Typewriter” and “Shui Shui”, which also caused great controversy in marketing and themes. “Moon in Hand” all triggered a one-star movement.
The history of Douban Reading’s one-star campaigns actually entrusts users with a certain strong emotion to protest against the producer.
On the one hand, users are often dissatisfied with the publisher’s “insufficient respect” for book publication, such as untrue propaganda, one-sided or even distorted interpretation of the work, and such dissatisfaction is difficult to express normally, and may even be complained Delete bad reviews.
On the other hand, users often empathize with possible oppression: the party with power (such as publishing organizations, “predecessors” with discourse power )Unfair treatment was imposed on “vulnerable” individuals (such as newcomer creators, individual readers).
The collective one-star movement often symbolizes that a large number of users feel that the existing normal-evaluated content system has encountered some kind of external invasion, or a crisis of trust in the feedback mechanism. Users use the one-star movement to resist the oppression of power and exercise justice, which can be regarded as a silent shout out by the collective.
Judging systems like Douban use a parallel model of scoring and message feedback. Message feedback can reflect the specific evaluation of a single user, but the massive information of the message is not easy to extract and present in (Information Extraction), and it is far worse Scoring can provide a concise and effective feedback on the collective attitude of users.
Thus, The most intuitively reflected and also the most eye-catching “scoring”, Among many feedback mechanisms, it has become the most willing tool to resist when expressing collective like-and-no attitudes.
Foucault(Michel Foucault) believes that power in modern society is more embodied in productive In practice, this kind of power dispersed in all knowledge production influences each other and “disciples” each other.
When scoring Douban, every ordinary user who does not have special weights is actually exercising the micro-power expressed in the Foucault sense with the help of language symbols. In daily life, it constantly helps us to present individual attitudes, and it naturally becomes an outlet for self-expression that we attach great importance to. In this sense, it is not only the power of Foucault meaning, but also the actions of each user. The most important individual rights of natural persons.
Therefore, when Douban users are accustomed to exercising this natural right in their daily lives, they are also highly sensitive to its loss. When individual users’ rating freedom is disturbed, they form spontaneous resistance.
This is also the special feature of the “One Star Movement” triggered by the “Truce”. The first fermentation point in the rapid expansion of subsequent events is that Gao’s comment was named “anito anago” by a netizen. “” users reported to the school and claimed in the report letter that “this will not only help establish the academic image of your department, but also save a student who has missed, which is the original intention of education.”
This report letter not only affected users’ right to score in the online scoring system, but also caused substantial impact on real life, and touched the issue of the impact of public power on individual lives.
This influence involves Weber(Max Weber) linear, one-way political power. Weber believes that specific forms of power are the foundation of all organizations, and there are statutory powers (such as statutory jurisdiction), extraordinary powers (such as worship and follow) has the characteristics of structural oppression.
For all users, this is not only the loss of individual scoring rights, but the fear that the normal exercise of rights may bring real impact.
At this time, when users collectively use one star to express their protest, it is no longer just a daily scoring exercise to exercise the right to express themselves. Instead, it expresses the individual micro power in the Foucault sense.
It can be said that in essence, the “One Star Movement” is a game and counterbalance between individual power and structural power. Users hope to form constraints through resistance and achieve certain realistic demands, such as: Sincerely apologize, let latecomers take warning and so on.
The second fermentation point of the expansion of the situation is that Douban Books will encounter the “One Star Movement” “Truce” and the grading area of related books will be closed.(“lock points”). This directly led to the demand of the “One Star Movement”, which was difficult to achieve by itself, which led to the further spread of the protest movement.
Second, the reason why Douban score has become a battlefield
It must be said that the reason why Douban scores have become the main battlefield of the one-star movement is an inevitable prerequisite that Douban scores are of great “reference value” for all parties.
As a community of users who are highly sensitive to the quality of works, Douban scores have almost become an important basis for judging the quality of a work at the moment. (even in many cases, it becomes The only standard).
The scoring of a large number of “core book, audio and video users” who have accumulated reading and watching movies has allowed Douban to form a set of effective scoring system for the quality of works for a long time.Letter feedback ability.
Douban users will expect the One Star Movement to become an effective protest movement. It is precisely because the works are sensitive to the Douban scoring system, and this sensitivity depends on the credibility and influence of Douban’s scoring system.
Therefore, in this one-star campaign, there are also many worried voices: “Scores are used to reflect the quality of the book. For other reasons, one-star rating seriously damages the scoring ecology.” (Netizen@QYW)
Assuming that too many one-star campaigns affect the correlation between Douban’s scoring and the level of the work, it will undoubtedly reduce the influence of Douban’s score, which in turn will also affect the protest effect of a single one-star campaign.
This may be a helpless knot. Since the scoring protest of the One Star Movement is a shout and protest against the power structure, it is bound to be expected that some uncertain realistic effects may be achieved through public opinion pressure(such as Affect the sales of books, etc.), thereby promoting the improvement of unfair situations; but in fact, it often only has linguistic symbolic meaning, and cannot form more realistic empowerment, and it is difficult to obtain other collective votes.< span class="text-remarks" label="remarks">(such as voting) can lead to a clear result.
On the other hand, we have also seen the reality behind Douban’s ability to judge: Douban has the deepest and broadest user aggregation effect in the book field, and almost no other community can systematically replace it. As the number of book buyers continues to decrease, Douban scores have even become a decisive factor in the marketing of many new books.
In this campaign, a message pointed out , “Why is there only one Douban”?
Yes, when we want to buy a new book or watch a new movie, what reliable information is available to help us choose? Looking around, we will find that, except for the Douban scoring system with a certain “prestige”, effective and suitable discussions for every individual are scarce.
In the past, there were magazines, music critics, film critics, including personal recommendations from bookstore owners. We had various criteria or dimensions to judge the quality of a work. Accurately speaking, maybe it’s not just a simple good or bad, but the subject matter and technique of a work, Whether the form of expression meets the taste of “I”.
Douban’s emergence is due to the background of the times, such as the gradual shrinking of various discussion platforms, and the few film festivals and book festivals. The rise of Internet platform giants and the emergence of information cocoon rooms have also made Douban, which also pays attention to the book, audio and video sector, highlight its value.
Because of the more and more “involved” era, the effective cultural leisure/learning time left for us is becoming less and less. We unknowingly are occupied by faster and faster short readings and short videos. attention. This also leads us to rely more on various “scores” to make a quick and simple judgment.
This undoubtedly leads to such a result: The “popular rating” system that can more directly reflect preferences and is more convenient to comment is getting more and more weighted. The situation is the same whether it is Douban in China, IMDB and Goodreads in foreign countries.
When only a few scoring platforms such as Douban are left, we will find that this system of judging all works using only scores brings new problems.
For example, the scores in Korean dramas, Japanese comics, American comics and other fields are generally high, especially when the audience for the sequel is relatively fixed, high scores such as 9.8 often appear. Some film and historical works and classic books are often scored relatively low because of the high threshold and the need for better reading ability.
While a single scoring system provides value judgment more conveniently than before, it also poses a problem in front of us: When all works are judged in one dimension, it is difficult to cross between them. Compare.
There was an article on Iris called “Douban Netizens Don’t Wait to See Domestic Movies, Is It Really the Same?” “The article talks about the complexity behind the score: “In other words, the evaluation and status of movies often fluctuate over time like stocks. The score at each moment can only represent the state of that particular moment. We can Review and review at any time to re-evaluate the value of a movie.”
This is true for movies, and even more so for books. Even if a book has a guide and a trial reading, the time cost to choose it is even greater.
We have to rely on our own judgment (sometimes blind guessing) to determine the value of these platforms to our ownReference value. We will find that behind the same score, there are actually completely different information and judgment systems. A single scoring system has long been unable to carry the complex information behind it.
To be fair, the Douban score can indeed reflect the quality of the work to a certain extent. All of this establishes the authority of Douban scores. Today’s single “prestige” scoring system tightly binds users and the evaluated party, making us anxious and fought in this single system, and sometimes even lose-lose.
Three, “One Star Sports” out of control: when the system can’t carry more information
Such a single quantitative evaluation system will inevitably bring about “information congestion.”
Behind the scoring mechanism, there are a variety of information(As mentioned above, scoring carries a variety of user values), this information does not It is effectively reflected through the only quantitative index. What is the competitive relationship among these pieces of information, whose weight is higher, and how they influence each other, none of them can be shown.
A simple example: the score of a movie does not reflect the difference in support between fans (niche) and the public (Competition between information cannot be presented). Then, the final result of a single quantitative evaluation is often that one type of main information shields the rest of the information, or makes multiple types of information ambiguous. For example, fans who get high scores for works often confuse the public, and high scores for works by the public may not necessarily meet the needs of minority users.
Because the system obscures the information behind it, people often have simple interpretations of a single quantitative evaluation. As a result, the “information congestion” behind it will evolve and intensify among different groups, eventually leading to information asymmetry.
In the absence of an effective communication mechanism, these accumulated asymmetric information will inevitably aggravate identity separation and gather various group emotions. (such as employees’ aversion to the check-in system and managers’ inability to use the check-in system to achieve the expected management effect Criticized andConspiracy theory)
Therefore, if a single evaluation system lacks the assistance of other communication channels, it is easy to cause a phased system breakdown. For example, around the scoring, the reviewer and the reviewer may be dissatisfied with each other, believing that the other party did not provide/get a more fair score, thus forming a dispute.
Therefore, when problems arise and have to go to collective protests to vent anger, venting anger alone cannot directly help the single evaluation system to improve itself, especially when people still use a single evaluation system to convey the message of checks and balances and protests.
In the late stage of Yixing Movement, Douban user @PomBom also talked about the loss of control of the movement.
As a behavior that relies on a single scoring system to combat the structural drawbacks of the system, the One Star Sports may achieve various realistic goals, but it is difficult to promote the improvement of the scoring system itself.
Even, when a single evaluation system is used as the main resistance tool in sports, and there is no better multi-level communication channel, sports tend to deviate from their original intentions more easily. As the movement expands, people will try to express more emotions and become more angry about structural power, but it is difficult to really change anything with such a strong emotional catharsis, and the result is often nothing.
For example, the simple and effective protest formed by the One Star Movement is based on a single-index “good-bad” scoring standard. Then, in addition to expressing dissatisfaction, as a signifier, it can’t convey more of what it refers to: it cannot pass a score, and carry more content of resistance: it may include the quality of the book, the attitude of the author and the translator, and the publication Fang attitude and so on.
These specific protests are different in the feelings of different individuals. At first, they can be expressed with one star, but when one star cannot carry more, the anger will overflow and turn to more ways of expression, such as more Human flesh, report, give bad reviews to new books, etc.
Ending
On the one hand, we can only rely on the scoring system, which has pushed up the weight of Douban’s scoring industry; on the other hand, the entry of “fan circles” and the scoring and nourishment of accounts, coupled with the attention and interference of all parties on scoring, make Douban The scoring bears more weight than it should have been.
Rather than simply scoring, what we may need more is a recommendation mechanism rich in effective information. For example, the score of Rotten Tomatoes is different from that of popcorn. Some critics and media interpretation can also bring about a more diversified evaluation system, such as the domestic “indicator” movie scoring.
In the book evaluation system, maybe we can improve the reading guide system, comprehensively accept the feedback and recommendation system of all users, and combine more offline and online communication. Enriching more accurate personal recommendations with real people’s participation, such as the “precise recommendation book” legend of the owner of the “Shengshi Love Bookstore” who announced that the store was closed some time ago, and the “Hansheng Book Garden” published every month with both timeliness and quality Sales list”.
All of the above can reduce the information barrier to a certain extent, and effectively help us realize the diversification of the scoring system. But we may still wonder, why is all this so scarce?
Perhaps the more cruel fact behind it is that only a few people really care about cherishing content and fighting for a living space for good content.
Reference materials
1. “Self-Technology-Selected Works of Foucault III” by Michel Foucault, translated by Wang Minan, Peking University Press
2. “Governing Sociology-Weber’s Works III” by Max Weber, translated by Jian Huimei, Guangxi Normal University Press | Utopia
3. “Anger, capital, resistance, what does Douban’s “One Star Movement” bring? “, Warmth, Hedgehog Commune
Pictures: “Social Network”, “Social Phobia” and the Internet, This article comes from WeChat publicNo: look ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , Author: Su if, Su seven, Editor: Su Xiaoqi