China's livestreaming platforms are contributing to the nation's fight against the novel coronavirus. 

Amid the outbreak of COVID-19, Chinese epidemiologists, rural officials and official media have shared videos on epidemic prevention and control through streaming platforms like Kuaishou and Douyin, spreading news of updates and knowledge for keeping healthy during the epidemic.

People can easily learn about the number of infections in their communities and other provinces, developments of the epidemic and the life of patients in Fang Cang hospitals in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province on streaming platforms, during their quarantine at home.

Streaming platforms record how many Chinese are preventing the virus in their own ways and inspire everyone to defeat the epidemic, Hu Lina, a 52-year-old woman from Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province who follows the outbreak on Kuaishou every day, told the Global Times.

For anthropologists, the platforms are not only a tool for research, but also a subject to study about. They are contemplating how such platforms influence culture and they are making use of new media for their research.

"Anthropology is a subject which researches everything about human beings. When Kuaishou and Douyin are seeping into people's daily life, it's impossible for us to ignore it," Zhao Xudong, the director of the Institute of Anthropology in Renmin University of China, told the Global Times. 

China had 647.64 million short video users as of June 2019, according to the 44th China Statistical Report on Internet Development released by China Internet Network Information Center in August 2019.

Moreover, streaming platforms also provide many resources for research, making them play an important role for many academic subjects. 

A citizen poses for a picture on a rooftop in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province in November 2018. The place was famous due to recommendations on short video platforms. Photo: IC

Defeating the epidemic 

"I watched the frontline medical staff only have a nap sitting on a chair on Kuaishou, understanding how hard they work," Hu Lina said, adding that "the large number of medical staff all over the country aiding Wuhan is no longer a cold figure on TV news to me. I realize how brave and devoted they are, and care about them very much."

As the Xinhua News Agency reported, more than 30 percent of registered media on Kuaishou sent in total more than 100 journalists to Wuhan, producing more than 30,000 pieces of original short videos on the platform as of February 15.

With rampant rumors and panic, the mainstream media have taken to streaming platforms to help play a good role in guiding public opinion, according to Xinhua.

Rural officials also share videos on epidemic prevention and control through streaming platforms. These videos have proven popular with streaming platforms' users with easy-to-understand, humorous and accurate content.

Many netizens who live in rural areas give feedback in the comments section that they obtained first-hand information about the epidemic on Kuaishou.

"Compared with traditional media, streaming platforms also record the daily life of normal Chinese like me who feels bored staying at home," Hu said.

She is encouraged and inspired to make delicious food and keep fit by watching people on streaming platforms during her quarantine time.

A useful tool

Zhao said that not many people are aware that the short video platforms can be used as tools for anthropological research, but more people are gradually using them.

Wang Fan, 24, who is doing her master's degree on cultural anthropology and economic anthropology in Renmin University of China with Zhao, told the Global Times that the platforms helped her quickly get closer to villagers. She finds that when villagers get together to chat, they enjoying talking about Kuaishou.

Wang is doing her anthropological fieldwork in a village administered under Zhaoxian county, Shijiazhuang, North China's Hebei Province. Most people there make a living by planting pears which are well-known throughout China. 

Wang records a lot of data such as the harvesting amount, storage conditions and daily sale conditions. Such observations are standard requirements of economic anthropology research. 

"Some villagers share their daily farming life on Kuaishou, including how many pears they put into the cold storage and what the wholesale price for the dealers today is," she said. "Those details are what I need to know and record for my fieldwork, which were difficult to know before as it requires a deep sense of trust."

However, more rural people are keen on sharing their life on such platforms, which Wang said is convenient for her academic information collection and record-keeping.

Zhu Jingjiang, director of visual anthropology research center under Minzu University of China, told the Global Times that the massive rise of videos in streaming media can be used as an important resource for visual anthropological research. The videos are fresh and come from different places and various cultures, so the representation is very broad, he said.

Zhu and his team is studying how local cultures can be represented by short videos on streaming platforms, or how uploaded content can help a community express its culture to the external world.

"The anthropological research involved streaming platforms just started and it attracts many young scholars. It is probably going to be a hot topic in the next couple of years," Zhu said.

It is a common default among nonfiction writers and documentary filmmakers to regard Kuaishou as working material for their careers. One writer planned to spend half a year in Northwest China to visit Muslim martial arts inheritors scattered around the area, but finished collecting material within three days on the video platforms, according to a WeChat public account named "On the road store."

Many scientists also popularize science on streaming media with short, lively and interesting videos.

Chen Zheng, a physics teacher at Beijing Jiaotong University, has attracted 434,000 followers by carrying out interesting scientific physics experiments with everyday items.

When scientific experiments are disseminated through short videos, engaging content can both reach a larger audience and lower the threshold of knowledge reception, helping promote scientific literacy among the public, according to the Economic Daily.

According to a research report on short video and knowledge dissemination released in January 2019, nearly 18,000 knowledge-based content creators each have more than 10,000 fans on Douyin, and more than 3 million knowledge short videos have been posted with a total of more than 338.8 billion views as of the end of 2018.

A group of senior citizens in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province, dance to popular music on the Douyin platform. Photo: IC

Cultural carrier 

Wang Fan thinks that streaming platforms should not only be considered as a simple tool which helps anthropologist improve the efficiency of research, but also a new research object that is changing people's culture.  

Zhao told the Global Times that anthropology research requires year-long fieldwork, and anthropologists must directly study people's everyday lives.

"We visit families of the Miao and Dai ethnic groups to observe their daily life and study their groups. However, when the local family members are already using Kuaishou every day, we must go study Kuaishou," Zhao said. 

Anthropologists want to study how streaming platforms affect people's lifestyles, values and overall cultural expression. However, anthropological research does not merely focus on such cold data about how many people are using streaming platforms. Zhao said research is conducted on a case-by-case basis to understand who is sending short videos, why and when they are sending them, and what stories they are telling.

Streaming platforms are a new cultural carrier. Zhao does not regard streaming platforms as a replacement for traditional fieldwork as their presentation is incomplete.

Zhao said that when anthropologists speak to people, they also observe their instant reaction and the expression in their eyes. That inner touch improves our understanding of them which we cannot get from streaming platform, Zhao explained.

We can watch a tradition like Temple Fair through a streaming platform, but it is better for us to taste the delicious local food and join the experience of people's happiness, which streaming platforms cannot provide, he said.

As an anthropologist who respects Chinese rural culture, Zhao appreciates that streaming media technology seems to fill the gap between urban and rural areas. 

Bias toward rural culture makes some people think that short videos on Kuaishou are more vulgar than those on Douyin. Rural people use Kuaishou more than other platforms.

"Culture is always a step behind technology. People could not imagine and accept farmers living fashionably and making short videos before. We are interested to study how streaming platform help rural people to break the stereotype," Zhao said.