How “Blockchain+” Can Reconstruct The Content Industry Ecology

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How “Blockchain+” can reconstruct the content industry ecology

[Abstract] Blockchain, as another important innovative technology after electricity and the Internet, is accelerating its implementation in application scenarios. This article believes that blockchain technology will reconstruct the content industry ecology and have a disruptive impact on content production, content dissemination, content trading, user data rights, and reconstruction of social trust in the news industry. The content industry will move out of the era where traffic is king, and the value of high-quality content will return.

【Key words】blockchain; content industry; content value; news ecology

[Chinese Library Classification Number] G21 [Document Identification Code] A

Blockchain technology is essentially a distributed accounting data storage and exchange technology with the characteristics of high transparency, non-tamperability, and decentralization. The controversial blockchain technology has gone through two exploration stages, the Bitcoin era and the smart contract era, and its decentralized system is becoming the underlying architecture of the future Internet. In October 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized at the 18th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee that “blockchain should be used as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies①”. Blockchain is accelerating its innovative integration with various industries, injecting new momentum into a new round of development in various industries. New industrial ecology such as distributed commerce and distributed financial services will gradually unfold.

In the content industry, current projects using blockchain technology are mainly focused on source certification and content review, copyright protection and asset management, content production and news crowdfunding, original works and copyright revenue, intelligent transactions and advertising effects, etc. Judging from the characteristics of blockchain technology itself, blockchain+ has brought disruptive imagination to the future content industry. On the one hand, the industry and academia hope that blockchain technology can solve the super technology in the platform economic model. On the other hand, blockchain technology is expected to promote new business models and industrial chains based on content value. Blockchain technology will reconstruct the entire ecosystem of the content industry.

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Blockchain + content production: the rise of high-quality content

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"Under the profound influence of blockchain, the Internet is moving from the era of information Internet to the era of value Internet. Blockchain allows people to transfer value on the Internet as conveniently, quickly and low-cost as information. Cloud computing and artificial intelligence intelligence are the New productivity, big data is the means of production, and blockchain is the production relationship that runs through the entire technical system②.” This explanation directly clarifies the essential motivation for blockchain to reconstruct the content industry ecology. The three core issues in the content industry are production, dissemination and monetization. The impact of technology on industrial development is also these three main lines. Blockchain + content production reconstructs the production relationship between content producers, content distributors, and users. The further improvement of user rights will lead the content industry out of the production method of the traffic Internet era, and high-quality content will rise.

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In the pre-blockchain era, Internet+ restructured journalism. The most disruptive changes can be attributed to two points: First, the news industry has evolved into a content industry. As content producers become increasingly diversified, UGC (user-generated content), PGC (professionally produced content), OGC (professionally produced content) and MGC (machine-generated content) are becoming massively quantified. News is only part of the product produced by professional content producers. Journalism expands into the content industry. Secondly, the platform content industry was born. Driven by technology, the industrial chain is lengthened and content production and content distribution are separated. Short video platforms, news information platforms, mobile live broadcast platforms, audio platforms, etc. have become the main channels for users to obtain content, and the platform content industry was born. After experiencing a brief fan boom, the content distribution platform caused anxiety and in turn attracted criticism from all walks of life. Criticism from the public perspective mainly targets the entertainment and vulgarity of platform media.

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With blockchain as the underlying architecture of the future Internet, content production will likely enter a virtuous cycle, and the value of high-quality content will return. The decentralization of blockchain technology has changed the distribution logic of super content distribution platforms. Users have greater power and have more say in content production, and high-quality content will receive higher valuations.

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At present, super content distribution platforms accurately profile users and use algorithm recommendation technology to match content with users. The fundamental problem caused by algorithmic recommendation technology is that it cannot suppress the proliferation and distribution of low-quality content. A 2019 Penguin Think Tank research report shows that more than 97% of users have encountered low-quality content over a long period of time in the past. Information and content are growing exponentially, but low-quality content is rampant at the same time. Users worry about low-quality content. Decreased tolerance. “The entire industry, including the distribution of recommendation algorithms, is not optimal③” The immaturity of algorithm recommendation technology makes it difficult to solve the problem of low-quality content in the mobile content market. On a super content distribution platform, users are content acquirers with attitudes, but they can only express their attitudes through interactive means and do not really have the right to guide content production. Content on super content distribution platforms is algorithm-driven. The pursuit of traffic has become a game that content producers cannot give up and escape. Media must consider traffic. Some content ranches engage in account creation, producing low-quality, high-click-through content based on algorithms. “The interest-driven social behaviors of ordinary users are usually limited to small-scale communications, and only a small amount of content that adapts to the attention economy can be truly included in the distribution of platform algorithms. One of the basic motivations for the platform’s intelligent practice is to use big data and artificial intelligence to Screen content producers with more traffic effect, and train and differentiate them according to the needs of the platform, so that they can serve the goals of the platform. Maximize content monetization ④.

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On the blockchain content distribution platform, users are active content evaluators. The platform uses blockchain technology to track, confirm and review the data of jointly created works, effectively reducing the problem of information asymmetry between sharing entities and forming a content incentive mechanism that is more conducive to the growth of high-quality content. For example, the media public chain YOYOW uses a decentralized content evaluation system to price the content production field. The quality of content is entirely based on the natural evaluation behavior of users. Users' likes, comments, sharing and other behaviors can be quantified as evaluations of content, and content producers, content supporters, content screeners, and ecosystem builders can all receive reasonable returns. Content with high user ratings will earn authors more money. This consensus approach to content evaluation can effectively manage content quality on content distribution platforms.

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Blockchain + content dissemination: platform reshuffle

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The decentralized nature of blockchain technology will change the distorted production relations of the original super platform. Platform media will be reshuffled, super APPs will be weakened, and weak value communication channels will be added.

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“The content industry has entered the 2.0 era. The production link embodies the characteristics of intelligence, customization, and human-machine collaboration. The distribution link is developing towards multi-platform, scenario-based, and precise trends. The consumption link shows ubiquitous characteristics. "Characteristics of consumption and multi-platform parallel consumption and cross-platform linked consumption ⑤". The content industry in the 2.0 era has obvious platform characteristics. Short video distribution platform, information distribution platform, live broadcast platform, content payment platform, etc. have become users to obtain content. main channels.

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However, the technological monopoly of super platforms is quite controversial. Both industry and academia believe that super platforms have brought about many deep-seated problems: The first is the phenomenon of digital labor. Internet content distribution intermediary platforms rely on network scale effects to control large amounts of user traffic and dominate the recommendation and distribution of content. This has caused distortions in production relations on the platform. “Netizens have to succumb to the communication structure dominated and designed by digital capital and be dominated by it, becoming the digital labor force operated by digital capital⑥”. The income distribution ratio on the content distribution platform is unfair, and the income of content creators. Secondly, the content distribution platform has created new information poor. “The deviation of audience preferences, the dependence of information relations on social capital, and the capitalization of the industrial structure jointly determine The distribution of 'information exchange rights.'" The result of this distribution is: at the meso level, corporate capital tends to close the platform; at the micro level, the lack of personal choice and value data push creates a personal "information cocoon." Even if the information 'new poor' have access devices and basic media literacy, they are still restricted by the accumulation of capital, algorithms and social relationships, resulting in a situation of rich data but poor information. ⑦” Scholars further believe that the concentration of communication power will bring public concerns.

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The decentralized nature of blockchain technology will solve or partially solve the risks and problems caused by the monopoly of super platform technology. Through the decentralized nature of blockchain technology, content produced by content producers can achieve precise point-to-point contact with users, reducing the involvement of third-party platforms. Content producers dominate their own content distribution, weakening the power of centralized content platforms. In the blockchain+ era, platform media will undergo a major reshuffle, super channel APPs will be weakened, and weak value channels will increase in value. This means that under the new distribution mechanism, content producers do not need a large number of fans to make profits, and content distribution becomes more fragmented and diversified. This will also promote high-reading readers of short video influencers and platform media. It can solve problems such as homogeneity of quantitative content.

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Blockchain + content trading: the imagination of the content circulation market

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The core of the blockchain is a multi-party trust mechanism. In a sense, blockchain is a trust machine, a technology that establishes a trust mechanism between different nodes. Solving trust and security issues also brings a lot of imagination to the future of the content industry: the establishment of a content circulation market is worth looking forward to.

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In the field of Internet content production, content producers have become very diversified. Diversified content producers have produced massive amounts of content, which makes it necessary for content to circulate. On the one hand, content circulation can regulate the production of content categories through the balance of market supply and demand. Currently, there is a trend of content homogeneity on content distribution platforms. When content cannot be moved, supply and demand adjustments are difficult to achieve. On the other hand, content circulation can fundamentally solve the profit problem of content producers. Some high-quality content producers rely on platform media to produce content and hope to monetize their content. However, due to the current narrow profit channels, most content producers can only rely on platform traffic sharing and advertising sharing. For example, in content circulation, content producers whose main business model is content sales can not only monetize through the platform, but also earn income through content transfer between different content producers.

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The reason why content circulation transactions are difficult to achieve is due to the inertia of the industrial order caused by the failure to separate content production and content dissemination in the past. Another important factor is the immature trading environment. The copyright content market has always had problems such as low credibility of rights protection evidence and difficulty in tracing the source of rights protection evidence.

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Using blockchain technology, it will be possible to achieve large-scale content circulation. Across publishers and distributors, creators can publish, promote or trade their works directly on the blockchain platform and get paid directly. Among the blockchain projects that have been implemented, copyright trading is a hot area. Blockchain technology not only solves the problem of copyright confirmation, but also makes copyright protection easier. “Blockchain technology can provide the possibility of diversified authorization at low cost. Its decentralized characteristics are not only reflected in the rights confirmation model, but will be better reflected in the transaction links in the field of intellectual property in the future⑧.” In order to prevent piracy and laundering, Xinhua Zhiyun launched a blockchain + AI media integration solution. A major feature of Xinhua Zhiyun’s “Media Brain 3.0” solution is the copyright blockchain. As the underlying technology, blockchain can better protect original content producers. Content creators can easily use electronic forensic tools to secure evidence and effectively connect the copyright chain and the judicial chain. When a dispute occurs, with authorization, the court can directly obtain relevant evidence and conduct a quick trial⑨. In addition, many blockchain companies are testing IP incubation. Companies such as Zhigui and Lianyu Technology are committed to intellectual property rights confirmation, intellectual property transactions and rights protection based on blockchain technology to achieve intellectual property protection and value-added. Blockchain technology makes IP a cross-era, replicable asset, recording and evaluating value along the timeline, becoming a new way of IP incubation. Zhigui has successfully hatched the online drama "Three Guidelines of China" and the first 3D VR suspense short drama "Uncovered" from its huge registered resource library. With the widespread application of blockchain technology, the establishment of a content circulation market has become possible.

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Blockchain + Users: Protecting the Rights and Interests of Personal Data Assets

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Data protection and safe utilization based on personal information is one of the biggest hot and difficult issues in the Internet field in 2019. In the scenario where blockchain technology intervenes and builds a new "data ledger", the ownership of personal data assets will return to the user.

twenty two.

In the field of Internet content production, users are a vulnerable group. They like, read, participate in discussions and create content on the internet. These user behaviors directly generate data, but the ownership of these data does not belong to the user who generated the data. Users' location data, interest data, communication and social data, identity information data and financial data belong to telecom operators, social media, search engines, etc. These Internet companies use these data to form user portraits for marketing, e-commerce, etc. profit. User data assets that cannot be transferred, transferred, or sold by users themselves are traded and shared by Internet companies, even causing the privacy of many users to be leaked. In a sense, in the field of online content production, although users have gained certain participation rights and gradually transformed from the disconnected and silent masses in the era of mass communication into active users, they have lost control of user data assets. right. sovereignty.

twenty three.

The decentralized nature of blockchain technology will protect users’ personal data rights. Although the data is still stored in the servers of major operators, operators need to obtain authorization from each node when using and controlling user data, that is, obtaining user consent and sharing data revenue with users in a certain proportion. Since users' likes, comments, production and other behaviors on the blockchain platform directly affect the valuation of content, the circulation of personal data information through the transaction mechanism of the blockchain is extremely valuable. In the blockchain+ era, attention will be paid to the protection of user data asset rights, personal privacy protection, and user information benefit sharing.

twenty four.

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Blockchain + News: News with high social trust

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As the most important part of the content industry, news production has its importance and uniqueness. With the deepening of media integration, blockchain + news has become the most anticipated change. Judging from the projects that have been implemented, blockchain technology is laying out the entire production chain of news production. News in the blockchain+ era will be transparent and more socially responsible news.

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First, identify the media source. Since blockchain can store data securely and has the advantages of being difficult to tamper with and traceable, the data stored in news blocks is not limited to the content itself, but can also be extended to specific details such as publication time and author signature. Therefore, this field uses blockchain technology as a technical support method for news gathering and editing to record source and copyright information so that every piece of news can be traced and accountable.

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The second is fake news verification. In the "post-truth era", fake news is rampant, the journalism industry is in a crisis of trust, and professional capabilities are constantly being questioned. Blockchain technology is being used to test the waters of fake news verification. World project, the largest decentralized news aggregator, provides free access to the world's most objective information. All collected content will be stored in a distributed non-associative database, and then the content in the database will be analyzed through a self-learning neural network and automatically identified and deleted. or modified, and assigned appropriate ratings in conjunction with media sources: reliable, questionable, and unreliable.

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Third, paid content subscription. For example, Project Civil leverages blockchain technology to build a decentralized platform that allows users and journalists to jointly raise funds for news coverage on topics of interest to them or for public interest. In fact, the project’s operating model is based on virtual currency. Token paid subscription. After blockchain technology is fully popularized, the news industry is expected to form a larger paid content market, and user subscriptions will undergo fundamental changes.

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Fourth, precise advertising. A long-standing problem with online advertising is the difficulty of collecting real data, and bots and software can increase the volume. Blockchain technology is transparent and immutable. Users can easily tell if the person viewing the ad is their target audience. Advertisers can directly collect information that users are willing to share.

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Since blockchain technology can achieve trusted data storage and circulation and avoid data islands and traffic fraud, many start-up companies have tried blockchain marketing to achieve accurate acquisition of user portraits after the information data is uploaded to the chain, allowing the digital marketing ecosystem to All parties involved fully understand the entire process of consumer behavior. Some startups are trying to combine blockchain advertising with communities. The original one-way communication model of the advertising scene has become a multi-directional cycle model of "publish-receive-feedback-update-re-disseminate", which is regarded as an attempt to blockchainize the "fan economy".

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In addition, blockchain technology is also accelerating the layout of communication effect statistics and copyright transactions. As media integration deepens and traditional media embraces technology, the application scenarios of blockchain technology will become more widespread. Transparency will increase across the news industry. The problems caused by the previous generation of Internet technology will gradually be solved. Journalism will restore trust and move towards transparency. Responsible journalism.

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Currently, more and more companies are trying to move journalism to blockchain platforms. For example, "Po.et", founded in the United States in 2018, serves individual users and uses blockchain technology and IPFS systems to build new media infrastructure in the digital economy era. Its ultimate goal is to transfer the content industry from the current platform to the blockchain platform, achieve true authentication and copyright protection of content, and help content producers streamline, track and recreate the value chain. ” ⑩ Of course, this will be a long process and there are many problems that need to be solved.

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Risks and issues of blockchain + content industry

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What cannot be absolutely optimistic is that there are still some problems and risks in the large-scale application of blockchain technology:

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First, the cost is high. Blockchain is currently still a slow and expensive database, and there are many technical issues that need to be further solved. Every transaction in the blockchain occurs on a node and is then propagated to the network. After the node confirms and verifies it, it submits the block to the main chain. Once the usage is heavy, it will cause network congestion. In addition, the construction of blockchain as infrastructure also requires a long construction period. Many blockchain companies are working on building scalable infrastructure. Blockchain technology is also regarded as an important technology to solve data silos, data verification and data privacy. However, blockchain is still in the early stages of development. The blockchain projects that have been developed are closed systems and so far are still a data island.

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Secondly, the consensus mechanism has many limitations. In decentralized blockchain, the consensus mechanism is its core technology. The so-called "consensus mechanism" is to complete the verification and confirmation of transactions in a very short time through the voting of special nodes; when opinions differ, multiple nodes participate in decision-making to reach a consensus, without central control. The consensus mechanism of blockchain technology is to establish a "trust" network between machines and create credit through technical endorsement. However, consensus formation in consensus protocols remains to be solved. The cost of reaching consensus agreements for some blockchain projects is very high. Community members must express interest and undergo some kind of test (called proof of stake or proof of authority) to reach consensus. The degree of consensus reached is not only limited by technology, but also by node lines. Under the constraints of trust. In addition, the consensus mechanism is also constrained by the common level of users. "The minority obeys the majority" is a method of reaching consensus. Technology has made this ancient law more convenient, but "the truth is sometimes in the hands of a few people," and an overly simple form of democracy will also bring new problems. In the process of realizing various application scenarios, the blockchain technology itself also needs to be further improved.

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There is a privacy crisis again. The advancement of blockchain technology applications is still accompanied by issues of data security and privacy protection. Identity privacy and transaction privacy are parts that users particularly need to protect when using blockchain technology. Since the blockchain is a distributed ledger, all data will be stored on the chain, and the data stored in the global ledger of the blockchain cannot be deleted or tampered with. Blockchain technology is relatively transparent. Once user data is compromised, it cannot be recovered or remedied. The blockchain+ era is coming. Before blockchain technology can be applied on a large scale, technology companies must improve user privacy protection capabilities and speed up relevant legal follow-up.

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[Fund support: This article is funded by the National Fund Planning Project "Research on Online Media Ethical Standards" (Project No.), and the Beijing Social Science Fund Project "Research on the Quality Optimization of Capital Mobile Public News Information Supply" in the context of algorithm distribution" (Project No. )]

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(The author is an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, China University of Political Science and Law)

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notes:

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① "Xi Jinping: Use blockchain as an important breakthrough for independent innovation of core technologies", People's Daily Overseas Edition, October 26, 2019.

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②Chen Jing: "Blockchain: Opening a new door to the world of trust", "Economic Daily", November 4, 2019. This is the view of Xiao Xue, senior vice president of Inspur Group Co., Ltd.

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③ "Behind Tencent's news release: Fighting for new dividends in content transformation period", published on the WeChat official account 36 Krypton official account, December 7, 2019, website

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&wfr=&for=Computer.

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④Zhai Xiufeng: "Creative labor or algorithmic discipline?" - Analysis of the impact of intelligent communication on online content producers", "News Report" Issue 10, 2019.

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⑤ Han Xiaoning and Zou Yunjie: "Intelligent, scenario-based, and cross-platform: industrial characteristics and business model innovation in the content industry 2.0 era", "Publishing Wide Angle" Issue 7, 2019.

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⑥Wu Dingming: "Research on "Digital Labor" in the Internet Era", 2015 doctoral thesis of Wuhan University.

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⑦Qu Hui, Yu Guoming: "Information "New Poverty" and the Public Crisis of the Media Industry Structure—Analysis based on the perspective of Amartya Sen's "Rights Theory"", "Dongyue Forum" Issue 8, 2019.

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⑧Li Wanxiang: "Blockchain: Breaking the Dilemma of Traditional Copyright Protection", Economic Daily, December 11, 2019.

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⑨For details, see "Anti-piracy and anti-money laundering Xinhua Zhiyun launches blockchain + AI media integrated solution", November 28, 2019, Sina Finance Comprehensive.

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⑩Deng Jianguo: "News = Truth?" Blockchain Technology and the Future of Journalism", "News Reporter", Issue 5, 2018.

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Editor in charge: Wang Xiaoyu

标签： #Blockchain #Decentralization #Reconstruction #Internet Industry #Content Distribution