Old News Comments | Inner Mongolia Farmland Disturbance: Bully Narrative is Challenging the Villain Narrative

The controversy over the increase in farmland fees in Kailu County, Inner Mongolia, has gained considerable momentum and is a rare case of intense public opinion on agriculture. But because the process came and went quickly, before certain key facts had time to be revealed, and before it reached the point where the media tried every means to verify it, it cooled down, leaving behind street talk that lacked information to support it.

This incident was first announced by @中国三nong on its official WeChat account. Looking at the title picture of its official WeChat account, it seems to be a publicity agency within the Ministry of Agriculture, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. It exposed conflicts, including those at the farm site, and also released videos of undercover visits. These methods are very similar to the standard operating procedures of CCTV’s public opinion supervision in the 1990s.

In terms of the speed of response to public opinion, Kailu County responded very quickly. Basically, it followed the focus and pain points of public opinion. If it questioned the deputy secretary of the town for his abuse of power, he immediately announced his dismissal. If he criticized the obstruction of spring plowing, he immediately explained the causes and consequences, and used rhetorical restraint in the notice. He didn’t say everything, and he didn’t seem to leave any evidence for lies. It can be said that he was quite clever.

From the back and forth, it seems that Kailu County was well prepared to deal with this matter. It did not get carried away by the rhythm of public opinion. Instead, it gave an explanation without making any mistakes. There is no harm without comparison. For the same handling of sudden public opinions, please think about those reports from a county in northern Jiangsu. There may be experts in Kailu County.

But this article is not to praise Kailu County’s performance in responding to public opinion. In fact, it is to express some emotion from the perspective of the news media rather than the propaganda media. The sad thing is that in addition to forming the villain narrative, the storm also left a source of growth for the bully narrative. It is not ruled out that some people use the smoke of public opinion to become invisible, but the bully narrative will weaken the meaning of invisibility.

The video made it clear that the villain’s narrative was confirmed. Ji Yunhao, a former policeman and former member of the town’s Discipline Inspection Commission, became the target of media fire. His career was questioned, and the fire of verification spread to whether he had a powerful father. Red Star News sought confirmation and denied the rumor that his father was the director of the Tongliao Municipal People’s Congress, and the evil official’s narrative is eager to try.

Just when the villain’s narrative was trying to expand the results, the side branches of secondary public opinion also extended to another narrative mode, that is, the bully narrative surrounding the contractor Zhang Wenzhu brothers. At present, the bully narrative is still in its infancy and is not supported by conclusive facts. Its main arguments come from the analysis of existing materials. For example, someone provided the suspected identity of a county CPPCC member.

In other words, based on the existing information and the reversal of public opinion, some people painted another portrait of the original contractor Zhang Wenzhu: using a disproportionate amount of money to acquire 5,000 to 6,000 acres of land for a 30-year contract period, with unjustifiable reasons. Shun “landlords” (whose household registration is not in the village where the land is located); “nouveau riche” who subcontract land at high prices and use the price difference of nearly 700 yuan per mu to make ill-gotten gains.

When the evil official narrative dominated public opinion, there were two main arguments to defend Zhang Wenzhu’s profits: First, he would have paid a lot of money to improve the land for so many years, and it was normal for high input and high output; second, he had contracted According to the contract, temporary fee increases for him must be done in accordance with the law. Even if “the situation changes” and he is jealous of his huge profits, it cannot violate legal principles.

These defenses that implement the principles of the rule of law sound good, and the spirit of the contract should be respected. The problem is that once you set up a defense position that refutes the bully narrative, you find that the facts are so thin that the logical leap to defend the position is honestly impossible to make. Therefore, when the bully narrative emerges after the villain narrative, it is difficult to contain it.

For example, the core point of the evil official’s narrative is that Ji Yunhao “does not understand the law.” However, if we want to overturn the direct evidence of the supplementary request, wouldn’t it be to throw out the contract and make Ji Yunhao suffer? However, in the original report released by China Agriculture, Agriculture and Rural Affairs, although there was a glimpse of the contract, there was no focus on citing the contract content, which seems unusual.

Similarly, Kailu County’s notification did not cite the Zhang brothers’ contract. This contract mysteriously and openly did not serve as a shield for the Zhang brothers to defend their rights, nor did it serve as a weapon for the government to veto the former. When the content of the contract is unknown and both parties keep it secret, how can we honorably protect the law in this matter?

The bully narrative has found cracks in which to take root. One is the invisibility of the contract. It has not become a talisman for the Zhang brothers, the original contractors, but has only become a vague basis for the rights defenders to come forward. The other is that even the Zhang brothers themselves have become invisible. , did not appear in the video released by China Agriculture, Rural Affairs and Rural Affairs. The person in the front of the video was the spokesperson speaking for the Zhang brothers.

So far, the Zhang brothers have not spoken out in the news media and are strangely absent from the public opinion battle that has arisen due to them. It is also possible that the public opinion cycle of evil officials’ narratives is short, and before the media has time to follow up, official notifications block the news. Propaganda precedes the news, or puts undue pressure on the latter. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

This seems to be a lose-lose situation: the reporter used unprofessional techniques in the initial news, allowing professionalism to give way to the urgent impulse to expose, and subsequent reports failed to escape the path of biased public opinion. In addition, the official public opinion response seems to provide information, but it has the initiative to speak but loses the narrative dominance. ‍‍‍‍‍‍

This lose-lose situation is not the first to appear in Kailu County, but has been seen frequently in various public opinion incidents. In a lose-lose situation between news reporting and official notification mechanisms, there is increasingly no adequate communication between the two parties. The latter relies on controlling the flow of information, while the former operates outside of the depleted official information or uses professionalism. Continue to explore, or be biased towards cheap narratives that attract traffic. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

From this pair of competing product narratives, we can see that during the Kailu County farmland crisis, because news reports failed to fulfill professional balancing obligations, public opinion continued to ferment and used bully narratives to create a spontaneous balance. From a social effect point of view, it is eroding the evil The audience range occupied by official narratives. This is not good progress for anyone, but what else can it be?