A critical genre analysis of covert advertising through short-videos in Douyin: The Chinese version of Tik-Tok
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2022
Abstract
Short-video social media is becoming a major advertising tool in the digital age. Covert advertising is increasingly used as a major strategy to effectively promote a product. This study aims to explore the genre of covert short-video advertisements launched in Douyin-the Chinese version of TikTok. It integrates Bhatia's critical genre analysis approach with Kress and van Leeuwen's Multimodal Discourse Analysis approach as the conceptual framework. The researchers selected 100 covert short-video advertisements in Douyin for analysis. The findings demonstrate how this genre is manipulated to exploit consumerism, to shape consumer culture and to drive business growth through rhetorical moves, interdiscursivity and exploitation of multimodal resources. This study not only gives insight into the less explored deceptive new media genre but also contributes to recognition of covert short-video advertising and methods in analyzing genres in the age of ``new media.''
Keywords
Critical genre analysis, Short-video advertisements, Douyin, Covert advertising, New media genres
Divisions
FLL
Funders
None
Publication Title
Sage Open
Volume
12
Issue
4
Publisher
SAGE Publications Inc
Publisher Location
2455 TELLER RD, THOUSAND OAKS, CA 91320 USA