Presentation, Alienation and Reconstruction of Female Media Image in Modern Network Live Broadcast ()
1. Introduction
Traditional mass communication is from the sender to the receiver, and the receiver passively receives the information carefully selected and checked by the sender. The sender and the receiver are in an unequal information exchange state, and the feedback of the receiver cannot be timely transmitted to the sender, and the receiver cannot control the feedback results (Guo, 2011). The emergence of network communication media has changed the old mode of communication, replacing point-to-point one-way communication with point-to-point two-way interactive communication, and the speaker and recipient have equal rights to speak. This mode breaks the boundary between sender and receiver, and the roles of the sender and receiver can be transformed into each other, thus making the identity of sender and receiver dual.
Mark Poster, the author of The Second Media Age, defines the “decentralization” of online media in terms of “two-way decentralized communication.” Decentralization is manifested in three aspects: one is the non-centralization of technical logic, the other is the dissolution of the main body of communication, and the third is the decentralized thinking consciousness of Internet users. Hierarchy of traditional media, as well as the control relationship between each other are parallel, replaced the spread of the diversity of subject relations, the center of the network media identity, resolution of the center of power, everyone can participate in the network communication and equally, spread in the sense of the traditional concept of “gatekeeper” ceased to exist (Peng, 2001).
Network media, as a brand new mass media, has expanded the discourse space for women to some extent. Women use network media to obtain a platform to fully display, enhance female awareness, and improve the social status of women. On the one hand, the Internet has expanded the discourse space for women, gained a certain right to speak, and provided them with an unprecedented and extremely attractive communication platform. On the other hand, as mass media, the information content, social gender awareness and value orientation disseminated by network media have a great impact on women’s self-awareness, self-development and self-improvement (Chen, 2004).
A large number of women to participate in the live webcast create a huge social ecological group, they are popular in the situation of public performance, and free to display their image, show their talent, chase fame and profit, and seemingly achieved “grassroots” counter attack, revealed the women liberation thought, discourse and independent consciousness. However, women have the right to display their images and express their opinions on live streaming platforms. However, under the action of the profit motive, women collectively unconsciously give up the construction of self-image and the expression of power, and unconsciously alienate themselves into “objectification” roles, so that they become objects of “consumption” (Yang, 2021).
2. A Historical Review of “Media and Gender Studies”
After the 18th century, western feminism experienced two waves. The first feminist movement took place between 1840 and 1925. Its main goal was to fight for equal political rights with men, such as the right to vote, the right to education and the right to employment. The second wave of feminism occurred in the United States in the 1960s. Its main goal was to oppose the inequality between men and women, criticize sexism, gender discrimination, and male power. Different from the past, feminists no longer regarded men as enemies, but began to reflect and criticize themselves. Although there are many schools and different viewpoints on feminism, all feminist theories share a common goal: to strive for equality between men and women (Bao, 2002).
Since the 1960s and 1970s, the development of feminist research has shown a trend of interdisciplinary and diversification, and feminist researchers began to extend their research horizons to various fields of humanities and social sciences. It was during this period that feminist ideas and research methods began to be introduced into the field of communication studies. Since the 1970s, “Media and Gender Studies” has become an important research content of the critical school of communication studies (Cao & Wu, 2010). Since the 1980s, various feminist media studies have emerged in the field of communication studies. Since then, the female media image in mass communication has become the focus of research in this field. Through its own unique guidance of public opinion, mass media constructs female images and gender roles, makes value judgments on female characteristics and female gender roles, subtly influences the audience and makes them agree with the views conveyed by the media (Kaplan, 2000).
It is precise because of the dual significance of mass media in reflection and construction that more and more feminist researchers begin to pay attention to how mass media reflect and strengthen gender consciousness in real society. In media and gender studies in Europe and America, Dutch scholar Zoonen’s “Feminist Media Studies” and “News, Gender and Power” compiled by British scholar Carter are more systematic and comprehensive. The former discusses the relationship between gender, media and culture, systematically showing the heterogeneity and richness of feminist media studies, while the latter studies the relationship between journalism and gender, and discusses how gender affects journalism practice, news organizations and news audiences. Up to now, western scholars’ research on “media and social gender” has established a certain foundation, with mature theoretical framework and abundant empirical accumulation.
In China, the study of “media and social gender” started late. In the 21st century, the research in this field gradually began to attract attention, and many piece of research literature added the research content on the relationship between women and media. For example, Chen’s “Sexism on the Internet” (Chen, 2000), Chen’s “Gender and Communication” (Chen, 2001), Liu’s “Social Gender and Media Communication” (Liu, 2004), Shan’s “Contradictory Expression of Female Discourse in Mass Communication” (Shan, 2005) and Wu’s “Women’s Presence on the Internet” (Wu, 2006) are all research achievements in this field during this period. Compared with the end of the 20th century, Chinese scholars have been paying more attention to this field in recent years, with the research scope expanding and the research depth strengthening, and the research perspective and theoretical application becoming more diversified. However, from the perspective of gender, there are not many studies using gender theory or feminist theory. Most of the studies either describe and analyze the publishing status and content of women’s fashion journals or discuss female images from the perspective of consumerism.
3. Research Status and Characteristics of Network Female Media
According to the Report on China’s Online Live Streaming Industry from 2020 to 2021 released by iiMedia Research (iiMedia Research, 2021), the number of online live streaming users reached 587 million in 2020. According to data released by iiMedia Research, entertainment, games and shows are dominated by women, accounting for 47.4 percent of live streamers. Among them, 43.3% are entertainment anchors, 27.3% are game anchors and 23.5% are show anchors. 67.24% of anchors are between 18 and 25 years old.
Li & Zhang (Li & Zhang, 2012) believed that the emergence of Internet media changed the lifestyle of contemporary young women and educated women, and the extensive communication space on the Internet increased the scope of self-identification of women in society. The diversified evaluation and reference system in the network enables women to examine themselves from multiple perspectives, which is conducive to the awakening of female subject consciousness. Yang (Yang, 2015) explored and studied the influence of face scores on women from the perspective of female image construction by online media. Du & Guo (Du & Guo, 2021) believe that the development of new media promotes the progress of social gender consciousness, and the combination of feminism and online media gives birth to online feminism, which brings feminist critical thoughts into the field of media communication and focuses on social gender issues in the field of media culture. Liang (Liang, 2022) used feminist theory to study the female images in online media and analyze their causes, and finally advocated that the society should treat women with an equal perspective and attach importance to women’s rights.
For the network media, although people have not divided the network space, many people still believe that men occupy a dominant position in the network space, including the network technology, entertainment, etc., all prove that the network is more suitable for men’s public domain. Postmodernism emphasizes the importance of “discourse” and holds that “discourse” is power and discourse is everything. French scholar FOUCAULT’s theory of discourse power holds that discourse and power are inseparable, and any power is realized through discourse (Foucault, 2017). In the male-dominated society, men exert their power through “discourse”, the formation of gender hierarchy and the existence of gender oppression is fundamentally caused by the unequal distribution of “discourse” power. Men’s absolute control of discourse power has led to women being forced to be “aphasia” for a long time. Most nations in the world have formed a patriarchal system, and the concept of patriarchy is deeply rooted in the social culture. Most media producers who have the right to speak cannot be divorced from their cultural background. Therefore, in the hegemonic society of male discourse, the whole media discourse is male-centered discourse, and women are doomed to be deconstructed in symbols, that is, condemned, trivialized, or not presented at all. Women are absent and aphasia in the patriarchy, and they are excluded from the language system that regulates power.
3.1. Online Women Gain Unprecedented “Discourse Space”
Communication studies show that mass media is the main channel for people to obtain information from the outside world, and it affects people’s judgment of the surrounding environment to a great extent (Du, 2003). The analysis of media discourse finds that the male perspective and dominant position of media make media discourse usually take the standardized male discourse orientation as the standard, and the orientation of discourse is difficult to achieve ideological neutrality, so it is impossible to have the so-called “neutral language”. Women’s operation and control of discourse rights are still very limited, often in the “aphasia” or “speechless” foil situation.
Women in mass media are often reduced to symbols, symbols and objects to be appreciated. Female images in mainstream media are mainly family roles. Mainstream media often copy the old rules of male and female roles in exposed or obscure ways, construct social gender discourse of “good wife and good mother”, and marginalize women. The edge position of women in the mainstream media determines that they could not find the true expression of their own space; with infinite interactivity, openness, virtual and anonymous network media, the women have been attributed to the private sector to enter the public domain, using the network the platform, the infinite communication space, diversification of discourse space and the object of communication. They abandoned all gender bondage and scruple in real life, let oneself of discourse is unprecedented spread widely in the public domain, that for those in the real inconvenience express themselves in a patriarchal society and with discourse narrative desire provides women talk discourse field, women, this has obtained certain discourse space in the network.
3.2. The Dilemma of Female Expression in Network Media
In the 1920s, Lippmann, a famous American journalist, believed that the reporting activity of mass media was an activity to create a “mimicry environment”, which formed “images about the external world” in people’s minds and thus influenced people’s behavior. Mass communication studies show that the media’s reporting of the external world is a purposeful selection activity. According to their own values, the media “select” the most important part from the realistic environment. It is processed and then presented to the audience as “reported facts”. As the main channel for people to obtain information from the outside world, mass communication media affects people’s cognition and judgment of the surrounding environment to a great extent, and influences the objective realistic environment by restricting people’s cognition and behavior. While guiding and constructing social culture, mass media plays an essential role in maintaining the existing gender hierarchy and reinforcing gender stereotypes. It makes the existing male-centered culture and social rule more solid and reasonable. The mass media exerts a long-term and subtle influence on the “subjective reality” of the vast audience through the dissemination of content containing gender discrimination, “cultivating” the “stereotype” of the social roles of men and women from generation to generation. Thousands of years of cultural heritage, the formation of male-dominated gender inequality system, the “male-centered theory” has been deeply rooted in the root of the tree of culture, and the male-dominated culture controls the media and thus controls people’s values.
The Internet is not naturally associated with gender equality, but is influenced by strong cultural backgrounds and dominant ideologies. Mark POSTER once defined network media as “two-way decentralized communication”, and he believes that the network communication structure makes network media show distinct “decentralized” characteristics. However, although the Internet exists in a network structure, it is always inseparable from the “server-client” mode, and “server” is the central point of transmission. At this center are male-dominated scientists, mathematicians, computer talents, businessmen with strong economic power, and scholars as cultural authorities who have mastered key technologies of the network. Network culture is developed gradually constructed by them, with men as the center of the male culture, anyone into the network to abide by their rules for network operation, network logic and way of life, the most authoritative and influential news sites and online news channel. Tend to be a continuation of an authoritative news agency in real life. The discourse power of these news organizations is dominated by men, and ultimately the dominant power of communication is still in the hands of men. Network communication has been “centralized” again, and the mainstream is still the traditional male-dominated values and gender concepts.
4. External Representation of Female Media Image in Network Broadcast Environment
With its characteristics of mass, interactivity, timeliness and anonymity, the network innovate the communication path, abandons the communication complexity of the non-network era, can reduce the threshold and cost of fame, accelerate the speed of fame, thus creating a group of network female celebrities (Chen et al., 2005). For example, female anchors in the network broadcast environment are paid attention to because of their unique personalities and behaviors that are not in accordance with traditional norms. At the same time, they are regarded as “idols” due to the amplification effect of the network.
4.1. The Image of Self-Packaged “Beauty Girl”
Image aesthetics is a two-way cognitive behavior of men and women, which will form differentiated standards in different social environments and cultural backgrounds. However, the self-image shaping is always constrained by social regulations and ethics and keeps the balance of the subject’s cognition, which constitutes the aesthetic cognition and performance situation of the social image. Live online platform to create a “pass” and “by the” virtual situation, break the balance of image cognition and performance in real life, female anchors as the main body of content, whereas the male Internet users as the main body of content to accept, on the basis of men’s aesthetic standards to construct a self-image, as a female anchor provides an important content.
Therefore, the image of beauty has become a universal image style displayed by female anchors in the network broadcast environment. Their image packaging methods are mainly shown in the following two aspects: first, they are self-dressing. They have big eyes, white skin, slim figures, long hair, and wear delicate makeup and bright clothes. The second is technology empowerment. With the help of the “beauty technology” of the live broadcast platform, skin scrubbing, acne removal, skin color adjustment, and even eyes enlargement, round face into the melon face. Female anchors respect the aesthetic standards of modern social images, make themselves the ideal object for men to pursue and even for women to admire, push the secular and lifelike aesthetic to the extreme in the virtual situation, and strengthen people’s understanding of beautiful images in the network live broadcast environment. Female anchors self-package themselves into stereotypical “delicious food”, which is the most intuitive media image of women in the network broadcast environment, in pursuit of becoming popular online celebrities.
4.2. The Image of “Talented Girl” in Situational Performance
Network broadcast belongs to a content construction and dissemination platform. Mainly include entertainment live broadcast platform, game live broadcast platform, shopping live broadcast platform, etc. Each platform has a large number of female anchors, and the most striking and impressive images are the talented female images created by some anchors in the prescribed performance situation. In the indoor scene with bright light, soft colors and beautiful decoration, they perform dances, sing songs or introduce commodities, shaping talented women with good artistic accomplishment and performance ability.
Live webcast in form, become modern women show ego, free voice, make an individual public character and the important platform, changed people disregard for the average woman talent ability, like a “star” appreciation, examine female anchor, up from the image of the ordinary aesthetic prefer worship, which gave rise to the core factor of web celebrity. The female group concentrated their professional or amateur talents on the live broadcast platform, creating a modern image of talented women who are both talented and beautiful, making people admire and pursue women in the new era.
4.3. The Image of a “Gentle Lady”
Since the 1950s, Women’s rights in China have been emancipated as never before. From the traditional society of “ husband as wife’s master” to the social situation of “women hold up half the sky”, both the outstanding women touted by society and the female characters in mass media and audiovisual programs all show the characteristics of “strong women”. Today, China’s social and economic development is booming, and people’s thinking is greatly open. Under the guidance of the concept of weakening the pursuit of development and pursuing a better life, gentle, considerate and cheerful female aesthetic standards have gradually been formed.
Network broadcast has a prominent advantage of “interaction”. In addition to presenting beautiful images and special talents, female anchors will also carry out communication and exchange activities with the audience. It follows contemporary female aesthetic standards and caters to male aesthetic appeals, forming a lovely, simple, delicate, no scheming language behavior, shaping a gentle and pleasant “gentlewoman” image. System carding the anchorwoman found in network media, it generally show a gentle, pure linguistic feature, tender and delicate voice, words and simple, quietly elegant is lovely, naturally, to communicate with the audience, showing a wet behind not deep, pure and fresh and free from vulgarity characteristic, even negative language, will also be easily resolved. In the network broadcast environment, female anchors follow the aesthetic appeal of men in real life to the ideal woman who is gentle and pleasant and build themselves into a “lady” image, so as to transcend the image characteristics of real women and present an unreal media image on the virtual platform.
4.4. The Image of a “Lustful Woman”
In real society, there is no direct interest motive for women to shape aesthetic images, and they are restricted by social regulations, ethics and kinship atmosphere. They unconsciously follow the “invisible” regulations, ethics and moral bottom line and form the female images accepted by the public. Due to anonymity, network anchors have a strong profit motive and are easily affected by the surrounding environment in the highly competitive virtual situation. Therefore, they subtly create a graceful “lustful woman” image to attract a male audience and achieve the goal of large flow and high profit. Some female anchors wear revealing clothes. It is common to wear suspenders, hip-hugging skirts and slit corsets. Some even wear underwear to broadcast. Some female anchors constantly move their hair, play with their body posture, show their breasts, buttocks and other parts, and tease men through language, or echo the pornographic language of male viewers. Frivolous actions and ambiguous language walk on the edge of the bottom line of “morality” and “law”, graceful and graceful, highlighting the charm and hint of “sex” everywhere, creating a distinct image of “lustful woman”.
These extremes show the concept of “openness” and “freedom” of modern women, breaking through the conventional cognition in the real society and the female images accepted by the public and causing people to have a mismatched understanding of contemporary female images through virtual live broadcasting platforms. On the optimistic level, this understanding is expressed as openness and freedom, which is an intuitive expression of the progress and upgrading of women’s rights; on the pessimistic level, it is expressed as satisfaction and catering, and even the overflow of sex and sexuality, which implies the degradation or even alienation of women’s rights. Feminism in the network broadcast environment no longer simply appeals to the freedom of language, behavior and occupation, but deconstructs the regulation and freedom behind women’s “unconscious” behavior, and image alienation is undoubtedly the most accurate description of it.
5. Internal Alienation of Female Media Image in Network Broadcast Environment
Modern feminist media research indicates that the female images and gender roles in mass media are alienated. Mass media deliberately cater to the patriarchal culture ‚ in an extremely hidden way to strengthen the stereotype of both sexes in social life and strive to maintain the gender hierarchy order of “men are superior to women”.
Male visual culture places men and women in the mode of “seeing” and “being seen”, and women become aesthetic objects and ornamental objects watched by men. When women are merely objects to be seen, their appreciation becomes the only standard to measure their value, and their independent personality, self-consciousness and creativity are erased. American feminist theorists Laura Mulvey think the male body is a medium text viewer, while women are viewed as object, “see” and “watch” is the first step for the implementation of discourse power, mass media are always in the characterization of practice make women symbols into “her” and “look”, which carry more business information.
5.1. Female Media Images Tend to Be Consumed
French scholar Jean Baudrillard wave in describing the contemporary phenomenon of physical consumption stressed: “in contemporary consumption of a complete set of equipment, have a kind of is more precious than anything else, more beautiful, more brilliant, it than the load of the connotation of all car load the connotation of more heavy, this is the” body “, especially the female body in the marketing and consumption situation completely. Everything today proves that the body has become a redemptive object” (Baudrillard, 2014). In the era of consumption, the female body has become a deliberately designed and carefully packaged commodity, which naturally enters into various marketing and consumption situations and becomes the most beautiful consumer good. Network broadcast has the dual properties of marketing and consumption. In the social environment and specific situation of body consumption, the majority of female anchors become the object of body consumption unconsciously, and the media images formed by this also show an obvious tendency to be consumed.
“Reward” is the core basis for network broadcast platforms to evaluate the value of female anchors, and the dress, language and talent attached to the body are all reduced to naked transactions. A female anchor according to the male audience’s aesthetic appeal to production and packaging to “goods”, the beauty of the image, which is formed by the intuitive level of talented woman image, fair maiden, female image, are a direct result of the commercialized production and packing body, is behind the male audience using the click, watch, thumb up and a reward to “buy” female anchor body. The body has become a tool for women to make money. In particular, exposure, frivolity, flirtation and ambiguity have become the “bright spot” or even the “core value” of body commodities. The consumption of female media images leads to the degradation of women’s rights, the alienation of female images and the derogation of female roles. However, women are not only unaware of it, but also happy with it, which has to be said to be the sorrow of contemporary women.
5.2. Female Media Images Have a Strong Sense of Discipline
Michel Foucault, a French scholar, believes that “discipline reflects a personalized power technology formed in modern times, which is not only a technology for power to intervene, monitor and train the body, but also an important means to produce knowledge” (Foucault, 2017). In the traditional feudal society, “the king is the minister, the father is the son, and the husband is the wife” established the basic social relations of human relations. Regulation, ethics and morality constituted the power discipline of traditional female behavior and image, and the punishment means full of violence and bloodshed were taken for granted. Today, women’s rights to get unprecedented liberation, but women’s marginalized position, discrimination phenomenon still exists, power discipline in mass communication and combination of a commercial society of male gaze, female landscape environment, exerts a subtle effect on women’s bodies, according to the male standards and its male fantasy to dress up and show. Michel Foucault described this as “the discipline model of PANOPTICISM prison”, that is, “there is no need for physical violence and material prohibition, but only through” staring, “in which all people are reduced to violent monitors, seemingly universal and extensive external surveillance, but actually imposed by individuals” (Foucault, 2017).
In form, female anchors are the “subjects” of content design and construction, but in reality, they become the objects to be stared at in the social environment of power discipline and the discipline situation of male audiences in the prison of PANOPTICISM. Men’s interests, aesthetics, appeals and fantasies constitute the “others” of their identity. In particular, the “transaction” attribute of network broadcast content promotes the female anchor’s body to integrate unprecedented “capital value” into the conventional gaze and discipline mechanism of “women’s body and men’s eyes”, and strengthens the female’s dependency, subordination and marginality. In the network broadcast environment, female anchors seem to have obtained the liberation of their thoughts, discourse power and independence consciousness, but in fact, their independent thoughts and spirit are submerged in the male gaze and discipline, and they dress up and perform for men, even at the expense of reforming their own bodies, finally bringing their nascent feminist consciousness into “despair”.
5.3. The Symbolic Orientation of Female Media Images Is Obvious
Women are an important part of the social group. Behind the body appearance and language behavior, there are special connotations, which constitute rich, diverse, individual and special image characteristics. This contributed to people’s understanding of the diversity of women’s social roles and life values and unconsciously formed women’s understanding of ideological emancipation, personality independence, spiritual freedom and life equality. However, in the environment of the male gaze and female landscape formed by the combination of mass communication and commodity society, the female group is gradually reduced to symbolic existence. French scholar Jean Baudrillard mentioned: “People are getting further and further away from the original purpose of consuming goods, and one after another” bubble “attached to goods has become the most important pursuit goal, and this pursuit is endless, once unable to catch up will be dejected, sad (Baudrillard, 2020). This is an intuitive portrayal of consumers’ mentality, and the commodities being consumed also evolve into “bubble” symbols in this consumption situation.
In the network broadcast environment, the body of the female anchor, as well as the language and performance attached to it, have the property of commodity, and the female media image formed in this situation also has the characteristic of symbolization orientation. First of all, superficially, the body of female anchors follows a unified aesthetic standard, such as big eyes, oval face, long hair, white skin, slender figure, and even the same lovely, simple, delicate language behavior. This constitutes a representative symbol of female beauty in the live broadcast environment and has become a solidified standard for people to recognize, stare at and evaluate female beauty. This standard has been transplanted from the virtual situation to real life, forming the power discipline for the majority of women through men’s gaze. This extends and solidifies the female body symbols in the network broadcast platform into a social aesthetic system, resulting in the symbolization of social aesthetics. Secondly, in terms of connotation, network broadcast strengthens the boundary between “reality” and “fiction”. Female anchors hide their real background and create a fictional image of virtual reality in front of the camera and on the platform. As a result, male audiences ignore the meaning of staring itself and regard female anchors as a kind of beautiful, selectable and purchasable image symbol. Although such virtual reality and fictional image symbols are shown as simplified consumption and entertainment, they also cause people’s one-sided and simplified understanding of women. “Female anchor” is regarded as a representative symbol of pornography, which is an important manifestation of it.
5.4. The Vulgarization of Female Media Image Is Prominent
Network broadcast platforms constitute an entertainment and consumption market dominated by the content planned, produced and traded by anchors. “Grassroots” female anchors from all fields of society face the huge male audience, under the huge pressure of competition and strong economic interests, especially in the public opinion context of “getting famous, getting rich quickly and getting something for nothing” constructed by mass media, they attract eyeballs and seek rewards through vulgar means. Ethics and morality are vulnerable when it comes to fame and profit. Some female anchors play a “borderline” role in dress, language and movement, stimulating and catering to male audiences’ sexual fantasies through revealing dress, flirtatious language and attractive movements. Live broadcast content is full of flirtation and charm. These media images of “lusty women” not only cause female anchors to be regarded as representative symbols of pornography and destroy the image of female anchors, but also will be substituted into women groups in real life, and people will form a bad understanding of young women. In order to satisfy people’s psychological demands of curiosity or even perversion, some female anchors present vulgar live broadcast content. It further promotes people’s understanding of the vulgar image of network anchorwoman, and even forms a negative understanding of contemporary women’s utilitarianism, money worship, indulgence and low morality. In addition, some female anchors also make full use of human weaknesses such as laziness, escape, enjoyment, loneliness, gain for nothing and egocentrism in the society of “homebody culture” to create “sugar-coated shells” in language, which seem to bring linguistic pleasure to the audience, but actually induce serious negative thoughts.
6. The Root of Female Media Image Alienation in Network Broadcast Environment
Women in the mass media are objectified and placed in the position of being “watched”. These alienated female images are in the final analysis to cater to the patriarchal culture and meet the psychological needs of men, which will inevitably produce a series of “gender stereotypes”. Therefore, the visual logic of the whole mass media culture is the “male gaze” formed by men looking at women. The viewing mechanism of the male gaze sets men in the position of “viewing subject”, and the position of the audience set by the communicator is male, so men have the dominant power of peeping. On the surface, women in the media have unlimited beauty and occupy a large amount of information space, but in essence, they are still in the situation of being “objectified” and “recreated”.
6.1. The Reality of Feminist Degradation
Simone de Beauvoir, the founder of the French feminist movement, pointed out that “women under patriarchy are the” secondary sex “different from men. The representation of women in the network environment is the media representation of women as the” secondary sex “in a virtual context (de Beauvoir, 2011). China has maintained a stable patriarchal ideology for thousands of years, and the possession, peep and pleasure of women have become the code under the rule of power. With the vigorous development of the women’s rights movement in the world, Chinese women’s consciousness has been awakened, and their spiritual freedom and physical independence have become the mainstream, which has promoted women to obtain unprecedented liberation and suppressed the patriarchy to some extent. Today, the whole society infiltration into the consumption environment, for a long time as a possession, peep and pleasure of the female body also in consumerism situation in the “trade” and “profit” to “goods”, and based on the ethical regulation under traditional patriarchy and rely on violence, bloody women “secondary”, which is formed by the disciplinary measure in the appearance of free expression, freedom of choice, freedom, consumption, Active, cheerful and happy to become the object of patriarchal power discipline. Contemporary women follow men’s aesthetic standards to package themselves, actively cater to men’s gaze to construct their own landscape, seek identity in the male cognitive system, and even take the initiative to transform their bodies into gender metaphorical symbols to create their existence value by seducing men. The potential degradation of women’s rights in consumer society constitutes the real situation of gender relations, and the female media image in network broadcasts is the ultimate expression of such relations.
6.2. Network Broadcast Driven by Profit Motive
In the rapidly developing consumer society, “profit-seeking” has become the core motivation of social group behavior. The “production” and “consumption” of the emale body are also the results of profit-seeking motivation, which are reflected in various production, life, marketing and consumption situations. French scholar Jean Baudrillard pointed out: “Where there is the consumption of objectification and visualization of women, there will be produced to meet such consumption” (Baudrillard, 2014). The appearance of female anchors in the network broadcast environment, thus shaping the image of beauty, talented girl, lady and desired girl, can be regarded as the performance of satisfying consumption. The consumption nature of the network live broadcast environment inevitably leads to the profit-seeking motivation of female anchors, including increasing the number of viewers, expanding the flow of live broadcast, increasing the number of likes and obtaining generous rewards, etc. A large number of female anchor from “grassroots” class, culture is not high, the public moral consciousness and law concept is weak, and in the long-term by the mass media to coin money overnight, something for nothing, money and material comforts, the influence of negative information, and the driven by profit motive give up independent personality, free spirit, value judgment, or even give up the moral bottom line, trample the law regulation, No principle, no bottom line to create “ambiguous” content, cater to male audience peep, fantasy needs. The bottomless live broadcasting behavior brought by the “profit-seeking” motive will inevitably lead to the alienation of the media image of female anchors and give rise to many negative perceptions.
6.3. The Laissez-Faire of Network Broadcast Platform Itself
Network broadcast platforms provide live broadcasting space for the majority of female anchors, and arrange a large number of marketing publicity, service drainage, technology-assisted support, and obtain profits through platform advertising, anchors bring goods, and rewards sharing (Lei, 2017). Live streaming platforms should play the role of “gatekeeper”, strengthen supervision over female anchors and avoid negative behaviors, no matter as platform providers, stakeholders or even ordinary business subjects. However, driven by commercial interests, network broadcast platforms are faced with huge competitive pressure. In the case of vague legal regulations or even the absence of positions, they reduce the monitoring of female anchors and allow female anchors to cater to male audiences without principle or bottom line. The network media platform bears a responsibility that cannot shirk. In recent years, the Chinese government has issued a series of regulations such as Regulations on the Management of Internet Live Broadcasting Services and Code of Conduct for Online Live Broadcasting Marketing, and live streaming platforms have strengthened their management of live streaming personnel. However, it is still quite common for live streaming platforms to “brush the boundary” of laws, challenge the “bottom line” of morality and present vulgar “content”. Exposing the body, flirtatious language, ambiguous actions and indecent behaviors are full of live broadcast platforms, leading to the obvious problem of media image alienation of female anchors.
6.4. The Collective Unconscious Drive of the Masses
With the development of network media and intelligent terminal, the popularization of higher education and the integration of Chinese and Western cultures, postmodernism culture with “anti-centrality, anti-authority, and emphasis on eclecticism and personal experience” as its core value orientation have become popular. People are obsessed with “symbolic reality”, “entertainment reality” and even “dream reality”, blurry the boundaries between elite and grassroots, elegant and vulgar, and real and fictional. They are accustomed to all behaviors and happy to see the results and do not pay attention to the truth behind the fictional reality, let alone the crisis of its existence. “Sensory entertainment” becomes the core basis for people to contact and evaluate things.
American scholar Neil Postman pointed out: “The biggest problem of mass media society is not to provide entertainment content, but all content is presented in the form of entertainment, prompting people to get rid of the pressure and annoyance of life and seek spiritual ballast from entertainment “opium” (Postman, 2015). Live in the era of mass entertainment environment, providing live content, with its unique entertainment features in the face of the public for excessive entertainment, vulgar content, feminist degradation behavior of the collective unconscious, and even intense curiosity, peep, motivation, female anchor network lead to living environment under the profit-driven, supervision vacancy, the audience appeal, They gave up their independent personality, free spirit, value judgment and even presented vulgar content.
7. Benign Construction of Female Media Image in Network Broadcast Environment
7.1. The Education Department Should STRENGTHEN the Education of Women’s Awareness
Female anchors are the media subjects who plan, produce and spread the contents of a network broadcast. The awakening of their personal consciousness and their struggle for the right to speak is the key to solving the problem of female media image alienation under the environment of a network broadcast, as well as the core force to promote the development of feminism and create a social environment of gender equality. According to the characteristics of the anchor younger women, female consciousness awakening and the education departments at various levels shall strengthen the education for voice activity, on the one hand, cultivate the spirit of women thought liberation, personality independence, freedom, equality, life consciousness, the dialectical view of social organizations, business organizations, the family relationship has given gender traits and responsibilities, Try to free themselves from the situation of attachment, obedience and catering to men’s aesthetic and desire demands, complete the supervision and regulation, and shape the image, role and power of positive women. On the other hand, it should cultivate women’s self-consciousness, deeply realize the alienation of “objectification” and “commercialization” of women in consumer society and commodity economy, refuse to seek self-value by catering to and pleasing men, and refuse to realize economic goals by vulgar and negative means. Cultivate women through personality charm, good culture, down-to-earth efforts to gain acceptance and respect of others, to achieve personal economic and social value.
7.2. Mass Media Should Strive to Build a Social Environment of Gender Equality
In the era of mass media, everyone is directly or indirectly influenced by the superficial information content and internal ideas of media, forming solidified thoughts and behaviors imperceptibly (Zhao, 2022). At present, the group of women “secondary” of the media, marketing, entertainment and consumption “materialized” and “commercialization” alienation of communication, addicted to the entertainment of the senses “and” codes “media experience, so that gradually form a famous, rich, something for nothing, money, material consumption, such as ideology, the mass media shall bear the direct responsibility. Female anchors live in such an environment and accept such ideological and spiritual “food” for a long time, which is bound to give rise to bad ideas and eventually bring them into live broadcast activities, which is manifested as the problem of female media image alienation. The mass media to fully realize their own ideological education in social education function, behavior guide, consciously filter, filter, select information content, especially focus on information implied behind the connotation of female characters, such as men and women relation, focus on the performance of a group of women in society actively and correct ideas, the significance and value behind the female body health, Instead of seeing it as an object of peep, a symbol of desire, a tool for profit, or a commodity for trade. The mass media should publicize gender concepts in line with the feminist ideology and the characteristics of The Times, resist and eliminate prejudice and discrimination against women, and create an equal, harmonious and tolerant social environment for both sexes. Provide healthy spiritual “food” for female anchors, cultivate their consciousness of ideological liberation, personality independence, spiritual freedom and life equality, so as to better participate in network broadcast activities and create positive media images.
7.3. The Government Should Construct a Supervision Mechanism Based on Public Morality
Network broadcast platforms are the main body of supervising female anchors and assume the role of “gatekeeper”. However, driven by economic interests and industry competition pressure, it is difficult for platforms to strictly control the pass (Chen, 2022). In recent years, the Chinese government issued a series of regulatory policy, supervise, guide and monitor the live platform control functions, to a certain extent, easing the female anchor vulgar problem; although there were no serious adverse events, but a legal challenge “chip” and “moral” bottom line “phenomenon is still very common. The fundamental reason lies in the fact that the policy regulation in the previous stage mainly focuses on the treatment of serious vulgar events, and lacks detailed explanation and specific treatment of behaviors that violate social morality and destroy social morality.
Government departments should actively build on the basis of the social ethics of live online supervision system, emphasizes the female anchor staff to individuals in the real world of self-esteem, since the love, from the center of gravity and individual to social harmony and social ethos, the responsibility of the social civilization is introduced into the live webcast work, live in social morality standard to request, Avoid the problems of revealing clothes, flirtatious language, ambiguous behavior and attractive actions, and avoid spreading extreme remarks and negative thoughts. All live broadcasting platforms should make efforts to “digest” and “implement” the regulatory system, and formulate more detailed and targeted implementation methods based on the platform content, anchor identity and audience target characteristics, so as to promote female anchors to further improve their personal literacy, form a moral outlook consistent with online and offline, and avoid vulgarities.
To sum up, the benign construction of female media images in the environment of live streaming requires not only a clear understanding of the Internal alienation of female media images in the environment of live streaming but also an in-depth analysis of the root causes of female media alienation in the environment of live streaming. Only by having a deeper understanding of the characteristics and laws of Internal alienation of female media images in the network broadcast environment can we effectively build a benign female media image in the network broadcast environment.
The research shows that the network media has indeed expanded the discourse space of women to a great extent and contributed to the awakening of women’s consciousness. However, female expression in network media is still facing alienation and dilemma. Modern network media undertakes the important mission of constructing female discourse, female culture and defending female discourse right. Through research, the reasons for the alienation of female media images in the network broadcast environment are found. Based on this, this paper puts forward some beneficial suggestions for the construction of benign female media images in the network broadcast environment from the aspects of social environment, regulatory mechanism and education.
8. Conclusion
Mass media is an important field to show female images and construct gender discourse, and reflects the social existence of women through the visual representation of network media. The Internet provides a free space across gender, class and race. In the idealistic female space constructed in the virtual space of the Internet, feminism has a strong tendency toward self-centeredness. Female culture in the mass media field, starting from female psychology, awakens women’s long-suppressed and fettered female desires and stimulates the reconstruction of female gender culture. Network feminism makes its own voice through media communication.
How women can find their own unique way of self-expression in network media is a realistic proposition related to the social balance of both sexes. Network media has indeed expanded the discourse space of women to a great extent and contributed to the awakening of female consciousness. However, female expression in network media is still facing alienation and dilemma. Modern network media undertakes the important mission of constructing female discourse, female culture and defending female discourse right.
Network broadcast provides a popular public performance situation for women. Although it apparently shows the liberation of women’s thoughts, discourse power and independent consciousness, it presents a media image of freedom, openness, independence and self. However, driven by the profit-seeking motive, the traditional unequal gender consciousness promotes the alienation of female media images into “commodities” in the performance context. This not only creates a bad image of women but also creates a negative value orientation and social and cultural atmosphere, which undermines the harmonious development of society.
As a part of the social and cultural system, network media cannot break away from traditional culture and media to establish a new virtual culture, and it is impossible to avoid the dominance of patriarchal consciousness. Real culture is always the “source” of network culture. Although the gender inequality of traditional culture is replicated in network media, advanced network technology also makes us see the dawn of gender equality in the future. Only when real gender equality is realized in the traditional mass media and even in the whole social culture can the network media become a space without gender discrimination.