1 Introduction

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has attached great importance to building its capacity for international communication and has made a series of important expositions. The goal of this work is to form an international discourse power equivalent to the country’s comprehensive national strength and status so that the external public opinion environment can help domestic reform and contribute to a stable development; in turn, this will make positive contributions to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Chinese stories, which embody the experiences and emotions of the Chinese people, are the carriers of traditional Chinese culture. Telling Chinese stories well and spreading Chinese voices is not only a necessary measure to continue the lifeblood of traditional Chinese culture but is also a fundamental choice to show the world the business card of a country with Chinese characteristics. Furthermore, the popularisation of information technology has ushered people into the era of media for everything and the dissemination of Chinese stories is facing unprecedented opportunities and severe challenges.

2 The Significance of Chinese Story Writing and Dissemination

2.1 Expanding the Field of Chinese Story Writing and Comprehensively Displaying China’s Image

Chinese stories are the carriers of Chinese culture and the wider the writing field of Chinese stories, the greater the scope of its culture. Looking at the current international situation, we are in the midst of great changes that haven’t been seen in a century and the diplomatic games between various countries are becoming increasingly intense. It is the basic principle and position of China to contribute its experience and wisdom to the world and adhere to the idea of ‘community with a shared future for mankind’.

This global context prompts multiple questions: how can we explain to the international community China’s proposition of peaceful development and cooperation? How can China’s progress as a developing country be shown? How can the people’s livelihoods and well-being created by China’s open development be explained? And, how can the world gain a more comprehensive understanding of the living conditions and spiritual outlook of the Chinese people? Answering these questions cannot rely on simple theoretical output but must also be explored through the writing of Chinese stories as this strategy ensures that the world is willing to read and understand. Only through real stories can we bring together ideas, record changes, convey spirits and achieve our goals more effectively [1]. Therefore, the writing and dissemination of Chinese stories is the fundamental method for expanding the field of writing and showing the image of China.

2.2 Deepening Exchanges and Mutual Learning Between Chinese and Foreign Civilisations to Enhance Cultural Self-Confidence

The spirit of the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation for 5,000 years carries the essence of the spirit of Chinese civilisation, its moral norms, values and folk customs and provides a driving force for the construction of national cohesion and creativity. Nowadays, the competition between countries is no longer limited to the hard power at the material level but is increasingly premised on a country’s soft power in the field of cultural values. Telling China’s story well and disseminating it effectively will not only enable the people in China to deepen their understanding and knowledge of their own country’s history, culture and development but will also enable people in other countries to have a deeper understanding of China.

Therefore, the culture contained in Chinese stories is the capital for exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilisations. Moreover, these exchanges and mutual learning help to deepen mutual understanding, tolerance and respect between countries. This situation enables Chinese people to continue enhancing their cultural self-confidence, laying the foundation for telling Chinese stories and constantly enriching the materials for exchange and mutual learning between China and foreign civilisations.

2.3 Accelerating the Construction of China’s International Discourse

For a long time, Western countries have occupied a leading position in the international dissemination and interpretation of culture and many developing countries, including China, have been deliberately vilified and distorted by Western countries. For example, in the discourse system of the United States, hegemonism is rooted in traditional ideology and its thinking mode has always adhered to the binary opposition of black and white [2]. Affected by this, China was once in a weak position in the field of international public opinion. Now it has been nearly 50 years since China’s reform and opening up, and its economic level since the 21st century has advanced considerably and the long-term stability of China’s society has also made other countries take note.

Accordingly, the issues of how to summarise China’s development path and how to portray China’s image to the world in a true and comprehensive way have become important. If the Chinese story cannot be written and disseminated well, it will be difficult to reverse the hegemony of Western discourse. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of China’s international discourse power through the writing and dissemination of Chinese stories.

3 Opportunities and Challenges for Chinese Story Dissemination in the Context of New Media

The importance of Chinese story dissemination is becoming increasingly obvious, and the traditional channels that can be relied on are mainly mainstream media platforms. Nowadays, the popularisation of information technology has introduced society to the new media era, and China’s story dissemination has good opportunities thanks to new media technology. However, at the same time, it faces severe challenges that cannot be ignored. Clarifying the opportunities and challenges brought about by the new media context is conducive to pointing out a clearer direction for the dissemination of Chinese stories.

3.1 Opportunities

3.1.1 Enriching the Main Body of Communication

In the era of new media, all media application terminals have been popularised and everyone can become the receiver, producer and disseminator of information content. Compared with the single communication mode of traditional mainstream media, the multi-subject communication model based on the self-media platform can undoubtedly produce a fission effect on the dissemination of Chinese stories and the dissemination scope of Chinese stories can be greatly broadened under the role of multiple subjects [3]. Every ordinary person can use their own experience to tell Chinese stories, or relay and disseminate Chinese stories according to their own preferences, which is conducive to spreading Chinese stories to more regions and corners. This process allows more people to deepen their understanding of Chinese history, culture and images by reading or listening to Chinese stories. Such a situation can bring opportunities for the dissemination of Chinese stories.

3.1.2 Broadening the Channels of Communication

Traditionally, Chinese people and people from other countries could only rely on the mainstream media window to understand China. In the era of new media, the channels for disseminating Chinese stories are no longer limited to mainstream media. According to the results from the ‘Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development (2023)’, there were 1.067 billion Chinese Internet users as of the end of 2022 and the growth trend has kept pace with the world year after year. The rapid increase in the number of netizens has not only enriched the main body of Chinese stories but also broadened the communication channels of Chinese stories based on the characteristics of multi-subject communication. It is mainly manifested in the current era, as long as there is a terminal device and a network, which can send and receive information anytime and anywhere, all communication subjects can build a channel for information dissemination by creating or forwarding. This enables people to make full use of the network media space to create more public opinion fields and present Chinese images and Chinese culture through Chinese stories from a more comprehensive direction and more perspectives [4].

3.2 Challenges

3.2.1 Generalisation of Bad Thoughts

In the online environment, everyone can participate and push undesirable trends of thought, such as ‘universal values’, historical nihilism, materialism and money worship, that run counter to mainstream values, resulting in a strong impact on China’s traditional culture and which frequently discredit China’s image. In addition, the value concept and cultural level of online new media users are uneven, and it is objectively difficult to use dialectical thinking to make correct and scientific judgments due to the massive amount of information [5]. Moreover, the information of self-media is seriously fragmented and many historical or factual truths are easily misunderstood or even distorted. In this way, there is a practical problem at hand of how to tell and spread Chinese stories well.

3.2.2 Intensification of the International Game

Today’s China has entered the ranks of the world’s great powers without any suspense and its comprehensive strength should not be underestimated. However, the reality is that China’s position in the world discourse system is still relatively weak and the view of the ‘China threat theory’ is still embraced by many countries [6]. As a result, it is all the more necessary to transform the challenges of China’s story dissemination into a motivation.

4 The Content of Chinese Story Communication in the Context of New Media

In the era of new media, the application of information technology has been popularised, creating good conditions for the dissemination of Chinese stories, but the premise is to ensure that the content of Chinese story communication can present Chinese style, emotions and feelings. From the perspective of communication studies, combined with Chinese history and culture, national emotions and feelings, and with the blessing of new media technology, only by ensuring the quality of communication content can we tell Chinese stories well and realise the value of Chinese story communication.

4.1 Learning from the Past and Showing the Current Style

Today’s Chinese nation can look back on 5,000 years of civilisation and history while also witnessing China’s ongoing development as the nation becomes the spiritual carrier of China’s indomitable struggle. With this in mind, to tell China’s story well, the media needs to make full use of historical resources, show the spirit of the Chinese nation through an objective description of history, stimulate the people’s patriotic enthusiasm, establish emotional resonance, learn from the past, show the current style of the country and build a smooth hub for connecting domestic and foreign countries.

For example, the official media platform of the People’s Daily has released many micro-videos on historical themes, through the retrospection of historical fragments, the history of the struggle of the Chinese people in different historical periods is reproduced, such as President Zhang Guimei’s expression of life ideals, and the belief of Huang Xuhua, winner of the ‘Order of the Republic’, that ‘this life belongs to the motherland and there is no regret in a lifetime’. These stories provide historical background, with the original voice of the parties interspersed into the micro-videos, showing perseverance and confidence. Showing the common characteristics of these figures for the progress and development of the motherland can increase patriotic enthusiasm and instil cultural self-confidence in the people [7]. Every time one of these videos is released, it is instantly forwarded by public accounts and netizens around the world. Furthermore, the spirit of these characters is derived from historical experiences and experiences - which radiate the most simple and strong emotions - foreign countries will gain a more in-depth and objective understanding of contemporary China, realise the natural cognitive transition and obtain a more impactful spiritual outlook of contemporary China through the comparison between ancient and modern.

4.2 Shaping the Image and Accommodating the Emotions of the World

To tell Chinese stories well, we need to focus on typical characters and only by showing the real Chinese in ordinary life in the new era can characters be convincing and empathetic, arousing the emotional resonance of people in more countries; this formulation will then deepen the reader’s understanding of China. In the traditional period, due to the limitations of information dissemination, other countries could only understand China through literary works, film and television dramas and mainstream media platforms. However, China’s creative background and time were limited and the mainstream media platforms mostly reported good news and not bad news, making it difficult to fully present a true image of China.

Presently, the rapid popularisation of new media technology provides a convenient channel for information dissemination, through the shaping of character images to show China from a narrow point of view. This approach accommodates the emotions of the world, so that people from across the globe can see the fresh, intelligent and simple character traits of the Chinese, as well as their vivid and modern way of life [8].

In the stories of countless ordinary people, there are common human qualities and emotions, which have become important material for telling Chinese stories well. There are countless stories about ordinary people expressing real emotions, such as ‘The One-Armed Girl Returns to Her Hometown to Sell Flowers’ and ‘Hometown Love in the Backyard’ published by the subscription account of ‘Yangcheng Evening News’, all of which profoundly show the optimism and tenacity of ordinary people in the face of life and the love for life and the longing for the outside world in different life circumstances. Similarly, the image of typical characters is disseminated in the form of micro-videos, which show the real and ordinary lives of Chinese people, break through the cultural barriers between countries and form common emotional bonds.

4.3 The Use of Symbols to Highlight National Feelings

Chinese culture has a long history and contains broad feelings. Spreading national feelings through telling Chinese stories is also part of the proper meaning of the inheritance and development of Chinese culture. In the era of new media, the carriers and media of information dissemination are constantly innovating and if the production of Chinese story content is limited to the planning of the content itself and the use of lens language and post-production, the communication effect will inevitably be rigid [9]. Accordingly, in order to further improve the quality and effect of Chinese story communication, this paper argues that it is necessary to embed technical symbolic language in the content, so as to lead Chinese stories to reach the audience’s senses and people’s hearts, highlight national feelings and improve the effect and value of Chinese story communication.

For example, ‘Beautiful China’, co-produced by CCTV and the BBC in the United Kingdom, is a large-scale Chinese documentary, showing the theme of China’s wildlife and natural cultural landscapes, covering China’s rice country, Xishuangbanna rainforest, the Great Wall, Mount Everest and the coastline of the Yellow River Basin, etc. Based on these classic cultural landscapes, the show brought to life stories of China’s more than 50 national protected areas, 86 rare wild animals and plants in China and more than 30 ethnic groups. The documentary won numerous awards, showing the vitality of the feelings of the Chinese nation through the use of various symbols. For example, the large red background at the beginning of the first episode cuts in, highlighting the rich colours of the oriental world, such as the red oil umbrellas of the Forbidden City’s red towns and alleys and the red sedan chair with foreigners. Colours and symbols such as this help improve the acceptance of foreign audiences and the clear theme of the show uses bright colours to evoke the common cognition of mankind, which not only effectively ensures the external communication effect of Chinese stories but also exhibits broad national feelings full of poetry and tension.

5 Chinese Story Communication Strategies in the Context of New Media

The dissemination of Chinese stories is the only way to realise the value of Chinese stories. Based on the context of new media, combined with the characteristics of new media and the opportunities and challenges of Chinese story communication, there is still huge room for innovation in the new media communication strategy of Chinese stories in the future and it is worth launching new attempts.

5.1 Accelerating Media Integration and Expanding Communication Channels

To accelerate the application of new media technology, the integration of traditional media and new media has become the general trend, which is conducive to giving full play to the respective advantages of different media and greatly improving the efficiency of information dissemination. Therefore, the dissemination of Chinese stories should accelerate the integration of media and effectively expand communication channels. For example, the People’s Daily took the lead in the practice of media integration, successively opening accounts on Weibo, WeChat and Douyin; this work enables them to widely disseminate Chinese stories through multiple channels, so that more people can hear and see China’s development.

In addition, social media has become popular and the mainstream media should join forces with social platforms to encourage the general public to actively participate in telling and disseminating Chinese stories, especially international students and overseas Chinese, who have the advantage of living and studying abroad and therefore have an understanding of Chinese history and its modernisation, as well as foreign culture and values. Consequently, they can act as non-governmental ambassadors for friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries. Mainstream media should also deepen cooperation with foreign media and set up accounts on YouTube, Facebook and other platforms to help further expand the channels for disseminating Chinese stories.

5.2 Making Good Use of Network Hotspots to Increase the Power of Communication

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s international communication capacity has been significantly improved. Many flagship mainstream new media platforms have been established, which have led the process of disseminating Chinese stories. Therefore, this paper argues that it is necessary to take advantage of new media in the future dissemination of Chinese stories, actively using network hotspots and striving to create a phenomenon-level communication effect [10]. On the one hand, we should deliver Chinese stories to more countries and regions, combine the characteristics of different countries and regions and promote the localisation of Chinese stories, so that people from all countries can understand and understand Chinese stories. For example, in recent years, People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily Online and CCTV news have begun to disseminate on various media platforms, which have played an active role in resisting bad trends of thought and deepening exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and foreign civilisations.

On the other hand, in order to gather online hotspots and improve the momentum of Chinese story dissemination, new media platforms need to be disseminated according to the audience’s cultural concepts and psychological acceptance. For example, the People’s Daily released the theme of ‘China is not missing at all’ online in the face of a luxury brand’s inaccurate political speech, which drove hundreds of millions of traffic hotspots in a very short period of time, allowing the world to see China’s determination to safeguard territorial sovereignty.

5.3 Coordination of Multiple Subjects to Reshape the Communication Pattern

Chinese stories carry the profound history and culture of the Chinese nation, therefore if only the dissemination of this culture relies on a single media, it is impossible to tell Chinese stories well and the limitations of dissemination are obvious. Therefore, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of multi-subject coordination, mobilise more platforms and disseminate China’s story from more fields and from a more comprehensive perspective. Mainstream media has advantages that other media cannot match in terms of its own positioning, access to information and authority; thus, it is necessary to give full play to the power of the mainstream media to enrich the content of Chinese stories, tell Chinese stories well, build a sense of democratic identity internally and show the posture of a great power externally. Mainstream media also needs to get as close to people as possible, reporting on their daily lives, objectively commenting on the international situation and making more high-quality documentaries.

It is also necessary to guide the return of mainstream values, occupy a positive public opinion position, deal with the impact of bad ideological trends and take a firm stand in the international game. We should also provide more support for individuals to tell Chinese stories, encourage people to tell the stories of their own lives and build a platform for the dissemination of individual Chinese stories. For example, Li Ziqi’s pastoral life and Grandpa Amu’s traditional wood art and other Chinese stories have become popular abroad and it is necessary to promote the overall improvement of the quality of Chinese stories through the reshaping of the communication pattern.

5.4 Digging Deep into Excellent Culture and Innovating Content Production

The creation and production of Chinese story content should not be limited to local thinking but should integrate the concept of international thinking into it, building a discourse system with Chinese characteristics based on China’s outstanding culture and guiding people from other countries to understand the core of Chinese spirit and culture by watching Chinese stories. First of all, China has a vast territory and extremely rich cultural resources, which is worthy of in-depth development of more excellent national cultural resources. This work will improve the people-friendliness of traditional culture through creative transformation and modern development. This is necessary to ensure that Chinese stories are authentic and acceptable, so that the audience can understand and accept them.

Furthermore, the effectiveness of the dissemination of Chinese stories is extremely important to ensure the vividness and image of the stories, avoiding simple and boring theoretical preaching. Instead, the dissemination of Chinese stories should adeptly use intangible elements of cultural heritage such as Chinese folk myths, historical legends, national art and literature. These elements are all conducive to attracting the interest and attention of more audiences, shortening the distance between the media and the audience and improving the communication effect.

5.5 Integrating Media Technology and Enriching the Forms of Communication

In the era of new media, the dissemination of Chinese stories has developed in the direction of diversification. This paper argues that with the continuous upgrading of media technology, the future of Chinese story dissemination can also boldly try some more novel media forms, in addition to conventional text, audio-visual and other things, we can also create comics and video games replete with Chinese cultural content. For example, ‘Uhe Kirin’ produced a digital comic ‘Peace Division’, the theme of which is the abduction of children by Australian soldiers with the connotation of the exposure of the crimes of Australian soldiers. Once this work was released, it quickly attracted wide attention at home and abroad and the likes and forwards of users can be understood as a transmission of emotional resonance and spiritual cognition, which can directly express the common ideas of people in different countries and regions.

Another example is that China has independently developed the game ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ based on ‘Journey to the West’. The game has only released a promotional video but it has received wide attention from netizens at home and abroad. The video game harkens to traditional stories of Sun Wukong slaying demons and the elements that appear in the promotional film include the Chinese dragon, the Buddha statue based on the 28 stars, Chongqing Dazu stone carvings and the Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Temple in Jixian County, Tianjin. In this way, obscure traditional Chinese culture can be simplified, and gamified, which will attract more young people at home and abroad to gain a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and will also provide a wider social circle for the dissemination of Chinese stories.

5.6 Strengthening Media Literacy and Strengthening Talent Building

In the era of new media, there are many levels and channels for the dissemination of Chinese stories and it is difficult to ensure the quality of many high-quality Chinese stories after they are disseminated at multiple levels. From this point of view, a good Chinese story needs to be told by a good creator. However, the reality is that the competition between contemporary media is becoming more and more intense and many news stations choose to sacrifice the specialisation of information content in order to pursue the timeliness of news information, which homogenises Chinese stories. This is contrary to the principle and original intention of writing and disseminating Chinese stories and may even have the opposite effect.

Therefore, to ensure that the dissemination of Chinese stories can achieve its desired impact, it is necessary to strengthen media literacy and strive to create more high-quality media talents. On the one hand, journalists should learn about new media platforms, follow the future trend of industry development, continuously improve their news planning, writing and reporting capabilities and continuously improve the quality of content produced. On the other hand, media units should also appropriately improve the standards for talent, optimise the personnel recruitment and training mechanism and specialise in cultivating a group of high-quality talents with the ability to write and disseminate Chinese stories; ultimately, they should strive to export China’s excellent traditional culture and its mainstream values.

6 Summary

In the era of globalisation, China’s comprehensive national strength continues to improve and its position on the world stage is becoming increasingly important. With the advent of the new media era, the conditions for China’s external communication have also undergone earth-shaking changes, from the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ to the ‘Community of Shared Future for Mankind’. The new media context has enriched the main body of Chinese story communication and broadened its communication channels. It is believed that with the continuous development of new media communication channels, the image of China on the international stage will become clearer and more three-dimensional and external communication systems full of Chinese characteristics will be gradually constructed, sending Chinese stories to every corner of the world; moreover, China will continue to deliver answers to the world in the field of common human values.