Impact of International News Narrative Approaches on the Attitude Discrepancy among TikTok Users --A Case Study of TikTok Comments on the Assassination of Shinzo Abe

Abstract

Under the background of globalization, diversified narrative approaches have been increasingly adopted in international news reports in the context of new media, leading to varying degrees of influence on the audiences opinion. In virtue of their fast-paced, penetrative and fragmented contents, short video communication platforms, represented by TikTok, cater to peoples reading needs in the rush of modern life. They are also found to differ from traditional media in the reporting and dissemination of major news events. On July 8, 2022, Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan and a current member of the House of Representatives, was shot and killed during his street speech in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. After the incident, many relevant news reports and short videos emerged on the platform of TikTok, with different emotional attitudes highly perceivable from users comments. Based on the Theory of News Narratology, this article collects and encodes first-hand data from 100 short videos with the largest number of likes after July 8 and 9 on the short video platform of TikTok, such as video length, release time, video presentation mode, narrative approach and music style, and explores the impact of different narrative approaches and elements in international news reports on the attitude and behavioral orientation of Internet users using the method of content analysis. The results of comparative analysis show that the audiences comment tone is relatively flat under the sad style of music and the short news videos with low timeliness; the narrative approach of incorporating subjective comments and human participation into short videos is conducive to the rational return of public opinion.