Bright Era of China Entertainment

Chapter 792 Public Opinion Begins to Brew

The program recording ended in less than two hours, and everyone present left with sighs.

It turned out that Zhang Shaohan's money was taken away by her mother. Zhang Shaohan, who had no money to treat her illness, warned her mother over the phone that she would sue her in court if she didn't pay back the money. Zhang's mother seemed to be frightened and took the initiative to manipulate public opinion to bombard her daughter, so that her daughter would have no basis to sue...

Is this the truth of public opinion?
For some media outlets that have benefited from and discredited Zhang Shaohan before, they don’t know the specific truth, let alone who the client is. They just do the job they are given. Now they find out that the work they did before was like this, and they all have mixed feelings.

Among this group of media, there were two old acquaintances of Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei, one was Cao Mei and the other was Cao Ping.

"Sister, we have done something dirty again." Cao Ping sighed as he got into the van.

Cao Mei was sitting in the passenger seat, wearing her seat belt. She didn't say anything and had a complicated expression on her face.

Outside the car window, a nanny car passed by them. It was Chu Xuan, Liu Yifei, Zhang Shaohan and others returning to Shenzhen.

Cao Mei subconsciously took a look when she saw the nanny car. The windows of the car were closed and she couldn't see who was inside.

Chu Xuan in the nanny car also glanced at Cao Mei. In the past two years, he had not recognized such an acquaintance, and the two of them missed the chance encounter.

In 06, the brother and sister were paparazzi who had just entered the industry. They accidentally witnessed Xia Yu cheating on his wife and completed a deal with Brilliant Times, getting their first pot of gold of 10 yuan. In their excitement, they made a plan and waited at the gate of Donglin Villa in an attempt to get more celebrity news. Thus, they became acquainted with Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei who often went out for a walk at that time.

In 07, the Korean Wave public opinion incident against Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei occurred. The biggest fuse was that Luo Xiaozhong maliciously fabricated black material to discredit Liu Yifei because his family lacked money for medical treatment. In order to catch Luo Xiaozhong, Chu Xuan turned to the siblings Cao Mei and Cao Ping for help, mobilized the paparazzi power of the siblings, and found Luo Xiaozhong in Yanjiao area.

Chu Xuan learned about the cause and effect relationship of Luo Xiaozhong's desperate measure to treat his family's illness, and also discovered that Luo Xiaozhong had outstanding ability among global entertainment reporters. He asked Luo Xiaozhong to make up for his mistake and go to South Korea to find solid evidence of Korean Wave in China to solve the "Korean Wave Gate" incident at that time.

It was this decision that not only changed Luo Xiaozhong's life and made him one of the current leaders of Brilliant Times' subsidiary in Los Angeles, but also changed the lives of brother and sister Cao Mei and Cao Ping.

During their trip to South Korea, and also during the "Korean Wave" incident, the brother and sister made a considerable amount of initial capital by selling negative information about the Korean Wave. After returning to their country, they transformed themselves and established the Star News Media Company, rising from paparazzi to media professionals, completing their promotion in the industry class.

The reason why the company was named "Xinghui" was because the brother and sister had always regarded Chu Xuan as their benefactor. Chu Xuan's company was called "Cuican", so they copied the name and named it "Xinghui".

When the company was first established, the siblings followed their philosophy:

"We are unique paparazzi. We reject dark and dirty deals. We are the eyes of the people."

"In order to uphold justice in the entertainment industry, we have the obligation to expose the filth within it to the people, and never allow those with glamorous appearances to engage in treacherous activities and deceive the pure hearts of the people."

"Our mission is great. When the sky of the entertainment industry breaks at dawn and the sun rises, we will be that light!"

Cao Mei, who had a very immature soul at that time and was like a crazy woman, shouted out her ideas with boiling blood.

However, ideals are full and reality is skinny. The ideas they once had seem like a joke to them now.

Paparazzi are relatively free and their style of doing things is not restricted much.

The media with companies are completely different. They are no longer free to act as they please. If they want to survive, they have to follow the rules of the industry. They cannot develop by just having a little money.

As they got to know the industry more deeply, they truly discovered how terrifying it is.

"If criticism is not free, then praise is meaningless!"

This sentence was very popular last year. On the surface, it seems to be correct and seems very fair and just.

However, this is a topic caused by foreign media bribing domestic public intellectuals. Who dares to believe it?

If they didn't have some inside information, they would still be confused. How could this situation happen?
If you think about it carefully, this statement seems fair and just, but its main message is to encourage people to be more critical of society. After reading this statement, you will have such a logical thinking and feel that it makes sense, but in fact it is seriously misleading people's consciousness and thinking.

This kind of ideological propaganda is very terrifying. When it radiates to the entertainment industry, it will cause the opposition between the people and the entertainment industry to deepen over time, and a series of anti-entertainment industry ideas will emerge, such as "stars' pay is so high", "they don't donate even though they earn so much", etc., making the entire public opinion field more and more chaotic. This is the purpose of foreign media.

From then on, Cao Mei and Cao Ping realized how deep the water of the media is. If they spread the so-called "light of righteousness" according to their philosophy, their competitors would not only be their domestic peers and so-called public intellectuals, but also overseas media forces.

In order to survive, the brother and sister had to seek profit and avoid harm, and they reduced the company to a studio and registered it under Xinlang News.

The person who helped expose the negative information about Hallyu during the "Korean Wave Gate" was Xinlang's helmsman Cao Guowei, and the person who liaised with these paparazzi was Xinlang News' newly appointed chief operating officer Li Hong.

They had once had a collaboration that transcended class boundaries under the leadership of Chu Xuan. It was precisely because of this relationship that their studio was smoothly accepted by Li Hong.

I thought that with the support of Xinlang, Weiyu and Li Hong, they would not go against their ideals and do journalism work again, right?
However, things went against my wishes and the only work assigned to me was some mediocre stuff.

Either they praise artists or they criticize them, either they praise movies or they criticize movies...

When a certain artist goes on a fashion stage and wears nice clothes, she will beautify herself as "stunning". In order to highlight her characteristics, she will also step on a few innocent artists whose outfits are average.

A certain movie was released and did well at the box office. In order to give other movies a way to go, some people chose to say that the movie with good box office performance was not artistically strong, and they found fault with it in every possible way.

After getting some information about a celebrity's bad deeds, we also need to see if the celebrity is deeply involved in the matter. If so, we need to take the initiative to help suppress the celebrity's bad deeds before beautifying the situation.

"Is this the media industry? It's just a bunch of nonsense!"

The brother and sister Cao Mei and Cao Ping hated it, but what could they do in order to survive?

In order to spread the so-called "light of righteousness", they can't even afford to eat enough, let alone support a studio with dozens of people.

By following these rules in the circle, they can live a comfortable life and the scale of their studio is getting bigger and bigger.

"What's wrong with this world?"

Brother and sister Cao Mei and Cao Ping often express such sentiments, but such a philosophical question is unsolvable for them. No matter how much they think about it, it will not help. They can only be forced to do work they are unwilling to do in order to seek a better living space.

As a year or two passed, they had become accustomed to all of this, until they received a new job last month, and the topic assigned to them was [Zhang Shaohan’s private life is not good]. Just eight words were enough to easily write a story for an experienced copywriter. They did not ask the reasons or pursue the truth, and habitually completed the job "to perfection".

It was indeed "perfect", and the topic successfully became a hot search. Relying on reading volume bonuses, advertising revenue sharing, and employer compensation share, they earned over a million, which made them happy for a while.

But with the end of the recording of this program, the truth that left the siblings stunned and enlightened deeply pierced their hearts again.

One of the rules in this industry is that if you are asked to do a job, you should do it. If you don’t want to do it, you should return it. Don’t ask why or whether it is true or not. It has nothing to do with them.

Therefore, they have been working in the media for one or two years and have created over a hundred topics, but they are unable to fully understand the relationships behind any of them.

If the media executives can hide the truth from them, what about the general public who cannot distinguish truth from falsehood and are easily led by the public?
They felt very uncomfortable when they thought that the people had a huge misunderstanding of Zhang Shaohan because of the topics they made up. Perhaps it was because their deep ideals and consciences had not been completely worn away.

After returning to the Beijing studio, Cao Mei and Cao Ping immediately started writing. Perhaps because they felt guilty, the copywriting was originally done by the staff, but faced with such a situation, the brother and sister took up the task themselves, with a feeling of atonement, and typed on the keyboard the words to reverse Zhang Shaohan's image.

Looking back, this is the first time in the past one or two years that they have done truly good things and regained the original intentions of media professionals and the essence of the industry.

At this point, they missed the time when, under Chu Xuan's organization, they triggered a wave of public opinion about the "Korean Wave" and accomplished the feat of driving the filthy Korean Wave out of the country in one fell swoop.

At that time, they stood with the people. Anyone would feel disgusted to see such despicable Korean artists pretending to be good people and making a lot of money in their own country.

Under the motivation of national justice and patriotism, these paparazzi, the media in the circle, the people and even the official media were surprisingly able to unite together and face the outside world together. How exciting it is!

This is also the most glorious moment of their lives.

Unfortunately, the past is like smoke and clouds. With the rapid development of the domestic public opinion field over the past two years, we may never see such a media event as that year again.

"Chu Xuan is really awesome. He is an outsider who has accomplished something that people in the circle cannot do." The brother and sister sighed.

"What's the situation with this reversal of public opinion?" The brother and sister turned their attention to the current situation.

Not only did he let Zhang Shaohan appear on "Lu Yu You Yue", but he also asked them to work together to turn the tide. If we only talk about the latter, Li Hong is qualified to command them, but looking at the former, Li Hong does not have this ability.

So, there must be someone behind Li Hong controlling all this. Who is this big boss?
Cao Mei and Cao Ping could only think of this. As for who was controlling this matter, they knew the rules and didn't ask or guess. However, they were very curious about this mysterious boss. Mainly, this matter was a good thing. Which capital boss would be so kind?

If they knew it was Chu Xuan, they would definitely be excited. The two great things done two years ago and two years later were both led by Chu Xuan. This would make them feel like they had found the leader of the organization.

But no matter who is behind this, this new job is always a good thing. It allows them to be their true selves. It has nothing to do with personal interests. It is just a way to make up for the mistakes made before they knew the truth. They just want peace of mind.

The brother and sister spent several days carefully revising the key points that Zhang Shaohan had stated during the program recording and wrote them into exquisite documents, which they saved in computer documents and were ready to go.

And on this day, a piece of news came and caused a commotion in their internal group chat.

"Phoenix TV has a program preview! Brothers and sisters, the heat is on!"

The group chat is not a QQ group, but a friend group on Weiyu. It is not a general public group chat, but a functional space that runs independently on a server that has been encrypted by Xinlang.

Just like Penguin also has an encrypted QQ group, Xinlang naturally also has its own secure and non-eavesdropping online communication channel.

"Work!"

Seeing the message in the group, Cao Mei's eyes lit up. Cao Ping shouted excitedly to the employees, and the sound of typing on the keyboard immediately spread throughout the studio.

Considering that Zhang Shaohan has been in the spotlight recently, and after his initial counterattack in front of the media failed, he has been at a disadvantage in public opinion and has not appeared in public since then, the program preview of "Luyu Has a Date" reveals that Zhang Shaohan is going to fight back, and even the program preview is expected to attract a lot of attention.

Under the planning of Li Hong and Chen Luyu, they started to build up momentum for the reversal of the Zhang Shaohan incident during the program preview stage, building up the heat and guiding a group of viewers to think in a favorable way in order to sustain the reversal wave of public opinion after the program was broadcast. This would be a more favorable way for them to plan.

The editing clips of Phoenix TV program previews are planned by Chen Luyu's team.

As for online topics, it is naturally Li Hong who controls and coordinates.

"Promote activation, retention, recommendation, and become a hot topic!" Li Hong skillfully applied the "one-click four-link" principle of online marketing.

To promote activity means to stimulate the activity of events.

As it has not been long since the negative public opinion about Zhang Shaohan subsided, the memory of the Internet is still fresh. When the topic #Zhang Shaohan appears on "Luyu Youyue"# appeared on Weiyu, it immediately caused an extraordinary response and the topic activity quickly climbed.

"Zhang Shaohan is on 'A Date with Luyu'? Is it true? How dare she?" Netizens have doubts. Under the influence of negative public opinion some time ago, they concluded that Zhang Shaohan is extremely bad. How dare such a person be on the top domestic talk show? Isn't this asking for trouble?
"The fact that she dared to appear on the show shows that things have turned around, and perhaps the direction of public opinion is wrong." Some netizens made a rational analysis. Since a person surrounded by negative news dared to appear on a domestic program with strong credibility, this more or less shows that the public opinion in the past period of time may have been doubtful or false.

The event activity has started to gain momentum, and the next step is retention.

Retention means keeping as many interested and active users as possible to follow this event.

While a group of netizens were still discussing the topic #Zhang Shaohan appears on "Luyu Youyue"#, a new topic #Chen Luyu: She is the misunderstood queen# appeared at the right time.

This topic is not centered around Zhang Shaohan, but around the host Chen Luyu. With the well-reputed show "Luyu Has a Date" to her credit, this topic is more convincing.

"I told you, how could Angela be that kind of person? She must have been misunderstood!" Some netizens who like Zhang Shaohan were very excited, as if they saw the moment when Zhang Shaohan was about to face the world with his innocence.

"No comment, let's wait and see after the program is broadcast." Rational netizens did not comment and will wait and see after watching "Luyu Youyue" in a few days.

Combining the two topics, what was Zhang Shaohan doing on "A Date with Luyu"? After giving netizens some time to spontaneously discuss and boost their activity, the official column team of "A Date with Luyu" came to the final word and told netizens the answer: Zhang Shaohan, the queen of pop, was misunderstood.

Well, the outcome of the incident triggered by this topic is already clear, and Zhang Shaohan is going to go on the show to prove his innocence.

The person who was criticized by the entire Internet last month now wants to prove his innocence?
Regardless of whether they are disdainful, doubtful, expectant, or happy fans, they all have the motivation to follow and pay attention to this matter, and have reserved a group of audiences who can arouse enthusiasm in advance for the reversal of events.

Once there is activity and retention, the next step is promotion.

Under Li Hong's command, over 180 media outlets that participated in the program recording expanded on their descriptions of the two topics and published articles around them.

#Zhang Shaohan on "A Date with Luyu"? She is so brave, I don't believe she is a bad girl#
#Hearing Zhang Shaohan's secret, Chen Luyu was heartbroken and cried#
#Zhang Shaohan's confession made the entire "Lu Yu You Yue" program crew shed tears on the spot#
#This diva deserves care, and the truth deserves more attention#
A series of related topics spread on the Internet. The core top-level links of these topics are all on two topics. When netizens have read the related topics, they will automatically receive related recommendations for the two topics on the top-level links, or spontaneously find and click on these two topics to read related content.

As a result, the popularity of these two topics has soared and they have been promoted by a large number of related topics.

That night, #Zhang Shaohan appears on "Luyu Has an Appointment"# and #Chen Luyu: She is the misunderstood queen#, these two news topics were naturally pushed to the top of the hot searches.

These two topics are the points that can guide the audience to a higher degree and trigger netizens' ideological logical thinking that "Zhang Shaohan was misunderstood". They can allow more audiences to view subsequent public opinions with such thinking, thereby completing the reversal plan of the Zhang Shaohan incident more quickly and more beneficially to avoid unnecessary complications.

In just one day, Chen Luyu's program preview, Li Hong's hot search planning, and the promotion of hundreds of media outlets caught the entire network off guard and saw this reversal of public opinion before the media industry could react. The negative public opinion from some time ago was also dug up again, and the media once again focused their attention on this matter.

But this time it’s different. This time, it’s obvious that someone is helping Zhang Shaohan to reverse his image, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve such a high level of marketing in such a short period of time.

But what does it matter? Whether it is to help Zhang Shaohan or to blacken him, as long as there is heat and topics, there will be benefits. Many media have also begun to take advantage of the heat to help reverse the situation, and have been looking for "prehistoric" news that is favorable to Zhang Shaohan on the Internet to attract the attention of netizens. Even the media that had blackened Zhang Shaohan in public opinion some time ago, now they are shamelessly following the trend.

Then why not find some negative information to gain popularity?

Last month, negative news about Zhang Shaohan was all over the place. Zhang Shaohan couldn't be any negativeer. The audience and netizens were tired of it. There were few favorable news about Zhang Shaohan, and even less heat.

In this case, in order to give the audience a sense of freshness, it would be naturally easier and more beneficial to take advantage of the popularity and spread good news about Zhang Shaohan at this moment. This was also within the expectations of Chu Xuan, Li Hong and Chen Luyu.

Just like this, last month all media outlets criticized Zhang Shaohan, and this month all media outlets have a trend of public opinion praising Zhang Shaohan. It happened in such a horrifying, absurd, inexplicable and miraculous way.

The media was making profits, netizens were discussing it, audiences were watching the show, industry leaders were wondering who was behind the scenes, and the people behind the scenes Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei were happily immersed in the atmosphere of the crew of "My Love from the Star" which was about to be completed with Zhou Jielun and Zhang Shaohan.

They were very happy. When the media reported the news to Taiwan, some people there were very panicked...

(End of this chapter)