Exploring the Relationships between Cultural Content and Viewers’

Watching Interest: A Study of Tiktok Videos Produced by Chinese

Ethnic Minority Groups

Lifu Li and Kyeong Kang

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Keyword: Short Video Content, Ethnic Minority Group, Viewers’ Watching Interest, Covariance Analysis, Cultural

Protection.

Abstract： This research aims to create a framework for ethnic minority groups (EMG) in building visual and aural short

video content on social media platforms (SMPs). As the concept of urbanisation prevails in China, both the

younger major group and EMG generations gradually accept the modern culture, which results in some

traditional culture are faced with the danger of disappearance. In order to protect and spread EMG culture,

this paper focuses on the short video created by EMG video producers on the TikTok platform. Through the

classification of EMG videos content on the platform, it analyses what kinds of cultural content are effective

in attracting viewers' watching interest. Using 1007 EMG videos as base data, the paper applies the covariance

analysis method to present the relationships between cultural short video content and viewers’ watching

interest. Based on the comparisons among the results of different EMGs, the findings can guide EMG video

producers to improve their visual content, contributing to EMG cultural protection and cultural diversity.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to the definition from Qalati et al. (2021),

social media is based on Web 2.0 technology, and

users can create and share various information with

others through the digital world. With the

improvement of social networking technology, more

and more online services have been offered to users,

such as group chat, public posts, distance learning and

social games (Chugh & Ruhi, 2019; Qalati, Li,

Ahmed, Mirani, & Khan, 2021). In China, the

messaging app WeChat and the microblogging app

Weibo have become the two most popular social

media platforms (SMPs), and they have 430 million

monthly active users and one billion monthly active

users separately (Ren, 2018). However, the situation

of traditional SMPs has begun to change in China

while the new mode of short video platform

established in 2017. This research focuses on one of

the latest popular short video platforms, TikTok

(Douyin). Unlike traditional SMPs, this video sharing

platform launched by ByteDance has successfully

attracted more than 500 million active users in three

years (Zhou, 2019). As a social networking app, users

can create and upload short videos in less than 15

seconds, and the video content can include daily life,

landscape, and cultural show. Until July 2020, TikTok

has attracted more than 689 million active users

worldwide (Li, Fang, Lou, Li, & Zhang, 2021). The

main reason for the popularity of TikTok is the

diversity of short video creation and the uncertainty

of video content (Bresnick, 2019). This feature makes

TikTok stand out from the SMPs and become the most

popular entertainment platform for users (Bresnick,

2019). The variety of video content and a 15-second

time limit are beneficial to spread information quickly,

as well as the spread of ethnic minority group (EMG)

cultural content in a short period (Li & Kang, 2020).

This is the main reason why this study chooses

TikTok as the platform for research rather than

traditional Chinese SMPs, like WeChat and Weibo.

According to Li and Kang’s research (2020), TikTok

has a close connection with other traditional SMPs,

and the content posted on the TikTok platform can be

shared conveniently with other popular SMPs.

Through the sharing process, more and more users get

Li, L. and Kang, K.

Exploring the Relationships between Cultural Content and Viewers’ Watching Interest: A Study of Tiktok Videos Produced by Chinese Ethnic Minority Groups.

DOI: 10.5220/0010610900370046

In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B 2021), pages 37-46

ISBN: 978-989-758-527-2

 2021 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reser ved

to know TikTok and might become followers of this

platform. Based on its massive user base and

attractive functions, TikTok is named as the most

popular entertainment-oriented platform in China

(Zhou, 2019). Among numerous video content

produced on the TikTok platform, some are related to

EMGs’ culture, such as folk dances from the Uygur

group, folk songs from the Mongol group, and

handworks from the Miao group. To be specific, in

China, in addition to the major group Han, there are

55 EMGs, and most of them have their original

language and writing system, which is more complex

than Western EMGs (Xiong, Jacob, & Ye, 2016).

According to China’s national education policy, all

EMG students have the right to accept bilingual

education at their local schools, which is beneficial

for them to inherit their original language (Xiong et

al., 2016). Meanwhile, because of their particular

living environment and unique cultural background,

EMG residents’ habits and customs are different from

the Han group. This means that compared with Han

group users, EMG users from distinctive cultural

backgrounds could have different content preferences

and produce unique cultural content while using the

short video function. Although the content created by

EMGs contains some tangible and intangible cultural

heritages, most of online users pay more attention to

the mainstream culture instead of the EMG culture.

Moreover, a large number of EMGs such as Yi,

Tibetan, and Uygur live in China’s western areas

where hold about 64% of Chinese territory, and the

level of economic development is relatively low (Li,

2012; Yang, Ding, & D'Alessandro, 2018). Because

of China's first wave of urbanisation developed in

eastern areas, from 1978 to 2010, many residents,

including EMG residents, have moved from western

regions to eastern regions. During this process, more

and more younger EMG generations have decided to

live in urban areas and accept the mainstream culture.

This results that EMG culture would be faced with the

risk of disappearing. In light of this, it is much

meaningful to utilise the influence of TikTok short

video platforms to spread and protect EMG culture.

Nevertheless, playing the particular strengths of each

group and attracting viewers’ attention in a short

period is worthwhile for this paper to research.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 EMG Short Video Producers

First of all, most previous studies focus on ordinary

users in China, and they divide these online users

according to their gender, age, and platforms used

(Han & Kim, 2018; Mao, Stillwell, Kosinski, &

Good, 2017). Although the EMGs population is vast

and increasingly more EMG individuals begin to use

SMPs, few kinds of research distinguish EMGs from

the major Chinese group and focus on their particular

cultural content. Meanwhile, some papers divide the

short video content based on entertainment, politics,

and business these three aspects (Han & Kim, 2018;

Zhang, 2020). Other similar studies utilise the content

analysis method and summarise some specific content

categories, including gaming, sports, and news

(Friedlander, 2017; Zimmer & Scheibe, 2019).

However, there has been no study of the classification

of cultural video content produced by EMG users.

This paper will pay much attention to the cultural

context created and uploaded by EMG short video

producers on the TikTok platform.

Table 1: Seven main EMGs (Li, 2012; Ma, 2008).

Main

group

Language Religion Marriage

Living

area

Characteristics

Group 1

(Tibetan

and other 4

groups)

Independent

Tibetan

Buddhism

Inter-ethnic

marriage

Western

areas

Religion

culture

Group 2

(Hui and

other 3

groups)

Mandarin Islam

Inter-ethnic

marriage

Scattering

throughout

country

Food culture

Group 3

(Man,

Hezhe,

Xibo)

Mandarin

obvious

religion

Marriage

rate with

Han

Scattering

throughout

the

country

Costume

(chi-pao)

Group 4

(Mongolian

and other 3

group)

Mandarin

Multiple

religion

Marriage

with Han

North area

(Inner

Mongolia )

Folk Song,

sports

Group 5

(Chaoxian)

Independent

obvious

religion

Low

marriage

rate with

Han

North-

eastern

areas

Language

Group 6

(Uyghur

and other 6

group)

Independent Islam

Inter-ethnic

marriage

North-

western

areas

Local

landscape

Group 7

(Miao and

other 30

groups)

Mandarin

Multiple

religion

High

marriage

rate with

Han

Southwest

areas

Handmade

goods, folk

dance

ICE-B 2021 - 18th International Conference on e-Business

Moreover, to comprehensively analyse the video

content posted by EMGs, the paper draws on Ma’s

research (2008) and Li’s research (2012) and divides

55 EMGs into seven major groups, improving the

efficiency of data collection. As Table 1 shows, the

division is based on their language, religion,

marriage, living area, and ethnic characteristics (Li,

2012; Ma, 2008). For instance, most Tibetan, Yugu

group, Menba group, Luoba group, and Tu group

have the same religious belief, Tibetan Buddhism,

and most of the residents from group 7 speak

Mandarin and accept the marriage to the residents

from Han group. Therefore, the analysis of cultural

vision content and cultural audition content should be

distinguished based on seven different main groups.

Because of the large population of EMG residents and

the complex classification of EMGs, existing studies

tend to choose one or two EMGs as their research

targets, such as the handwork research from the Dai

group and the language research from the Chaoxian

group (Oranratmanee, 2020; Xiong et al., 2016). Due

to the different cultural environments, the research

results from these particular groups cannot be directly

applied to other EMGs. Thus, considering this

problem, the paper refers to Ma’s research (2008) and

divides 55 EMGs into seven main groups based on

their languages, customs, religions, and residential

environment.

2.2 EMG Cultural Protection

Some studies related to EMG cultural protection

focus on digital technologies, such as 3D model and

VR technology (Wu, Wei, Chunjie, Ping, & Xinye,

2019; Wu, Ying, Chunjie, Lei, & Jin, 2017), which

needs numerous financial and technical supports and

cannot be applied in remote areas. Some researchers

pay attention to the method of designing various

policies to guide young EMG residents to inherit

traditional culture (Li & Zhang, 2017; Long, He, Yu,

& Chen, 2018), but this kind of cultural protection

method needs local governments and residents’ long-

term participation. Compared with previous cultural

protection methods, it is more suitable to utilise the

considerable influence of the TikTok short video

platform and spread EMG culture through various

appealing cultural short videos.

Unlike traditional SMPs, various functions on

TikTok, like gift sending system, group chat and

online store functions, are beneficial for EMG video

producers to present their cultural content and

promote an online business (Zhou, 2019). Meanwhile,

Figure 1: The system map (Li & Kang, 2020).

TikTok has kinds of connection with other traditional

SMPs, which means the content on TikTok can be

forwarded conveniently to other popular SMPs

(Figure 1). As short video clicks increase, the cultural

content of EMG will continue to spread, and the

traffic income of EMG producers will increase

dramatically. Therefore, this cultural protection

method based on the short video platform would not

only gives full play to the advantages of EMG culture,

but also increases EMGs’ income.

3 RESEARCH GOAL

With the development of urbanisation and population

migration, most of the younger EMG generations

have accepted the mainstream culture and neglected

their original language and traditional festivals (Zang,

2015). This phenomenon is not conducive to the

development of cultural diversity in China. To

increase the influence of EMG culture and attract

more users’ attention, this research analyses what

kinds of short video content created by EMG

producers can attract users’ attention on the TikTok

platform. Research results are useful for EMG

producers to create more engaging content and

enhance their influence in a short period, which could

be beneficial to protect EMG culture indirectly.

Specifically, based on the sensory marketing

theory, the sensations affecting consumers’ attitudes

and behaviours include haptics, olfaction, audition,

taste, and vision (Krishna, 2012). Due to the

limitation of short video communication form, video

producers have to pay more attention to the vision part

and audition part rather than other sensations. So,

through analysing existing short video content

uploaded by EMG producers on the TikTok platform,

such as costume, folk songs and EMG language, the

Exploring the Relationships between Cultural Content and Viewers’ Watching Interest: A Study of Tiktok Videos Produced by Chinese

Ethnic Minority Groups

first research aim is as follows: What kinds of EMG

video content are related to cultural vision and

cultural audition separately?

As mentioned in the literature review part,

different EMGs have different characteristics, which

means that a detailed classification of EMGs is

required in this study. These unique cultural symbols

could make a particular group stand out and attract the

attention of online viewers on the TikTok platform.

Meanwhile, referring to the author Ma’s division on

EMGs (2008), the research classifies 55 EMGs as

seven influential groups. Influenced by the living

environment and cultural traditions, these seven

major groups’ specific cultural preferences might be

presented in their short video content. So, the second

aim of this paper is as follows: What kinds of short

video content are conducive to a particular EMG

to attract viewers' watching interest?

4 RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

Figure 2: The relationships between cultural sensations and

users’ watching intention in short video platforms.

As the sensory marketing model created by Krishna

(2012), viewers’ attitudes to video content can be

influenced by haptics, olfaction, audition, taste, and

vision. However, on the short video platform, EMG

video producers cannot communicate with users face

to face, which results in them have to focus on the part

of the cultural audition and cultural vision content

(Figure 2). Meanwhile, according to the users’

continuance intention model based on the uses and

gratification research (Li, Liu, Xu, Heikkilä, & Van

Der Heijden, 2015), users’ enjoyment of watching

videos that can be reflected on the number of likes has

a positive impact on their continuance intention or

watching interest. In light of this, EMG video

producers could provide viewers with hedonic

gratification through the cultural audition and cultural

vision and attract more viewers’ attention in the

process.

Figure 3: The research framework.

4.1 Cultural Vision Content

Based on the sensory marketing model (Krishna,

2012) and the use and gratification research (Li et al.,

2015), the research framework established (Figure 3)

shows the relationship between cultural sensations

created by EMG producers and viewers’ watching

intention on short video platforms based on various

EMGs. Firstly, in addition to the appearance of the

characters on the screen, the character's clothing can

also give a deep impression to the audience.

Specifically, most EMGs have their unique costumes

with various styles and beautiful colour (Li, 2012),

which can be presented in their short videos and

provide viewers with an attractive cultural vision. For

instance, at major festivals, Miao girls wear their

costumes made by Miao silver to reflect their beauty

and show their family status (Liu, 2015). So, for some

EMGs, they can wear their beautiful costumes while

creating short videos, which could make them stand

out and attract viewers’ watching interest. Thus, the

paper proposes that:

Hypothesis 1: Costume in EMG short video has a

positive relationship with users’ watching intention.

Moreover, some EMGs are good at handworks that

belong to the tangible cultural heritage. The EMG

residents living in the Xiangxi area have a rich

heritage of wood carvings, such as woodcarving grid

door and window patterns with a long history

(Baishan, 2012). Given its unique cultural

significance, wood carving has a considerable

influence on the art market. Thus, cultural handworks

from EMGs would also have the advantage to attract

short video viewers’ attention. Thus, the paper

proposes that:

Hypothesis 2: Handwork in EMG short video has a

positive relationship with users’ watching intention.

ICE-B 2021 - 18th International Conference on e-Business

Unlike costume and handwork, folk dance belongs

to an intangible cultural heritage that is popular in

China. For example, influenced by the cultural

atmosphere, some Uighur residents have a cheerful

personality and are naturally skilful at dancing,

although most of them have not accepted professional

dance training (Wong, 2018). In recent years, a large

number of dances with ethnic characteristics have

been recorded in short videos and uploaded to the

short video platform. Thus, the paper proposes that:

Hypothesis 3: Folk dance in EMG short video has a

positive relationship with users’ watching intention.

Most EMG residents' living environment is far

from urban pollution, which could provide tourists

with some picturesque landscapes and places of

interest, such as beautiful autumnal colours in the

Kanas area and highland scape in the Jiuzhaigou area

(Yang, Ryan, & Zhang, 2014). All of these attractive

landscapes have been applied by some EMG video

producers on the short video platform, which could

alleviate the visual fatigue of the city dwellers and

have a positive impact on viewers’ watching interest.

So, the landscape visual content produced by EMGs

could have a positive relationship with users’

watching intention. Thus, the paper proposes that:

Hypothesis 4: Landscape in EMG short video has a

positive relationship with users’ watching intention.

4.2 Cultural Audition Content

Most EMGs have their original language and writing

systems. For example, influenced by Korean waves,

including Korean TV programs and idol groups, more

and more younger Chinese generations are curious

about Korean culture and prefer to choose the Korean

language as their second language (Ahn, 2014; Jang

& Paik, 2012). Within this environment, many

Korean (Chaoxian) group users in China utilise this

opportunity and design many language course videos

to enhance their influence. So, the paper hypothesises:

Hypothesis 5: EMG language in EMG short video

has a positive relationship with users’ watching

intention.

Most EMGs have their original religion, such as

Tibetan Buddhism. In Tibetan culture, OM MANI

PADME HUM is usually carved in some stones,

placed in prayer wheels, and recited every day by

all Tibetans (Campbell, 2018), which provides

outsiders with a sharp mental shock. So, these

customs like religions, festivals, and etiquettes can be

introduced and explained by EMG video producers.

Thus, the paper hypothesises:

Hypothesis 6: Custom explanation in EMG short

video has a positive relationship with users’ watching

intention.

In addition to language, some EMGs show the

talent for music, such as the famous grassland songs

created by Mongolians (Henochowicz, 2008). Unlike

popular songs, these folk songs could have unique

regional characteristics and reflect their EMGs'

history and religious beliefs, which has a unique

appeal to the audience (Henochowicz, 2008).

Therefore, folk songs produced by EMGs could have

a positive relationship with viewers’ watching

intention. Thus, the paper hypothesises:

Hypothesis 7: Folk song in EMG short video has a

positive relationship with users’ watching intention.

5 METHODOLOGY

5.1 Research Setting and Measurement

In this research, we organise nine students and

teachers from China as a research team, and they can

be not only able to distinguish the EMG language

from the Chinese language but also have extensive

academic experience in the use of short video

platforms, especially TikTok. Table 2 shows the basic

information of research team members, and most of

them have used TikTok for more than one year.

Meanwhile, we require the research team members to

read the related literature about EMGs, which is

beneficial for them to learn the basic knowledge of

EMGs and understand various ethnic characteristics.

Due to the situation of COVID-19, the study decides

to promote a distance-training for this team through

the Zoom platform. After this, the research team

promotes online observation based on the content

analysis method (Neuendorf & Kumar, 2015), and

categorises the various EMG video content from July

2020 to August 2020 based on the research model.

Moreover, to ensure objectivity in content

collection and scoring, the research members are not

fixed and focus on one specific EMG, but rotates

every three days (Krippendorff, 2018). We also

provide the research team with a particular content

categorisation and scoring criteria table based on the

research model. As Table 3 shows, the research team

Exploring the Relationships between Cultural Content and Viewers’ Watching Interest: A Study of Tiktok Videos Produced by Chinese

Ethnic Minority Groups

Table 2: The basic information of research team members.

ID Gender Age Years of using TikTok

1 Male 20 2

2 Female 20 1

3 Female 49 1

4 Female 19 1

5 Female 20 1.5

6 Male 26 2

7 Male 27 2

8 Female 26 1

9 Male 27 2

can refer to the scoring criteria table, which is based

on specific examples of EMG short videos on the

TikTok platform. Considering the number of

questions and the amount of research team members,

the paper refers to the Likert 7 point scale (Dawes,

2008) to increase the accuracy of the score. The range

is from the lowest score=2 to the highest score =7, and

1 point means there is no related content in this EMG

short video. Before team members scoring, we use

some EMG short video examples to help them

understand the scoring criteria. Due to the paper

format's limitation, the paper only provides the

screenshot of an example in Table 3, which could

assist readers in understanding.

Table 3: The scoring criteria of EMG short video content.

Types The example of the

lowest score

The example of the

highest score

Costume

(Simply dressed from

the Miao)

(Luxurious dressed

from the Miao)

Furthermore, except for the necessary information

of the EMG video producers, including producers’

gender and group, we ask the research team to record

the number of like that is utilised to evaluate short

video viewers’ watching interest of these EMG short

video content. In order to reflect the relevance

between cultural content and viewers’ watching

interest, we divide these different number of likes into

seven dimensions, from the lowest 1 to the highest 7.

Meanwhile, because of the length of time having a

direct impact on the number of “likes”, team members

should set the video release time within 24 hours

during the statistical process. According to the score

uploaded by the research team, the paper utilises the

covariance analysis method through the SPSS to

analyse the relationship between various EMG short

video content and viewers’ watching interest.

5.2 Data Collection

After defining the content categories of EMG short

videos and creating essential scoring criteria, from

July 2020 to August 2020, the research group has

recorded and scored 1007 EMG short videos from the

TikTok platform. Among the content recorded (Table

4), more than 43% of video data is from group 7, and

only 5.96% of the data record is from group 3.

Meanwhile, according to the

gender distribution,

except for both female and male or no one shown in

the short video, more than 54% of the characters in

short videos are females, and only 25% of characters

are males. Through comparison on gender

distribution, the

statistical results are similar among

these seven groups. This claims that, for all EMGs,

females in short videos are more popular than males

on the short video platform.

Table 4: EMG short videos distribution (n=1007).

Group ID Number Relative frequency

Group 1 136 13.51%

Group 2 74 7.35%

Group 3 60 5.96%

Group 4 87 8.64%

Group 5 84 8.34%

Group 6 131 13.01%

Group 7 435 43.20%

Moreover, according to the data collection, most

EMG producers prefer to show their local landscape

because they live in remote areas where the

environment is different from urban areas.

Meanwhile, group 3 and group 4 rarely use their

original languages because they have a very high

marriage rate with the Han group and gradually accept

Han culture (Ma, 2008). EMGs widely adopt both

customs and folk songs, but few video producers

show the content related to handworks and folk

ICE-B 2021 - 18th International Conference on e-Business

dances. This might because they have a marked

difference in the skilful difficulty.

5.3 Data Analysis

To research the relationship between EMG cultural

video content and viewers’ watching interest, the

study requires team members to score the

attractiveness of the video content based on the

number of likes in each video. To be specific, we sort

1007 EMG short videos by the number of likes and

evenly divide all like numbers into seven levels in

order of less to more. The number of recorded videos

in each level is the same. As the table of rating shows

(Table 5), the amount of 0 to 29 likes is equal to the

lowest score 1 point, and the amount of 1476 to

121000 likes is equal to the highest score 7 points.

Based on the comparison of the number of likes,

group 7 is the most popular among short video

viewers, but the videos created by group 2 are not

attractive to viewers. This might be because most of

the inhabitants of group 7 live with the Han group,

and have more similar living habits and cultural

background with the Han than other groups.

Table 5: The rating of the number of likes.

Score Number of “likes”

1 point 0-29

2 points 30-74

3 points 75-142

4 points 143-257

5 points 258-504

6 points 506-1462

7 points 1476-121000

This research utilises the covariance analysis

method (Figure 4) to analyse the relationships

between various EMG content and viewers’ watching

interest based on these seven groups’ cultural content.

Following the formula of covariance, the EMG

cultural content score is set to X, and the score of the

likes is set to Y. After the calculation, the covariance

of the relationships has been present in Table 6. For

all EMGs, in addition to the EMG language content,

others have a positive relationship with viewers’

watching interest, from 0.581 to 0.822. Specifically,

as Table 6 shows, the calculation results will change

significantly while comparing different groups

specifically. For instance, all kinds of content created

by group 1 short video producers are beneficial to

attract viewers’ watching interest, between 0.122 and

1.924. Still, most of the video content uploaded by

group 5 negatively correlates with viewers’ watching

attention, between -2.06 and -0.847.

Figure 4: The covariance analysis formula.

Table 6: The covariance analysis.

ID Custome Handwork

Folk

dance

Landscape Language Custom

Folk

song

1 0.439 1.386 1.924 0.395 0.122 0.402 0.584

2 -0.65 0.545 0.1 0.317 -3.321 2.273 -0.3

3 0.867 1.136 -0.412 0.237 0.667 2.188 0.079

4 0.96 1.214 1.432 0.754 -0.237 0.965 0.995

5 -0.919 1.016 -2.06 0.409 -0.847 0.234 -1.456

6 0.882 2.437 1.012 0.784 -1.33 1.905 0.321

7 0.43 0.54 0.572 0.556 -0.065 0.365 0.602

All 0.687 0.822 0.666 0.625 -0.281 0.679 0.581

5.4 Research Results

Through the comparison among the covariance

analysis of all EMGs and every major group, the chart

(Table 7) shows the strengths and weaknesses of each

group clearly. Firstly, in the custome part, group 3,

group 4, and group 6 have more advantages than other

groups. This means online viewers on the short video

platform tend to follow the video producers from

these three groups who wear and present their unique

EMG costumes. Secondly, handwork requires EMG

video-makers to acquire specific skills, such as

silverware manufacturing from the Miao group, food-

making from the Korean group, and exceptional

hunting skills from the Dulong group. No matter

which group it is, skilful handwork has a significant

appeal to online viewers. Thirdly, the audience on the

TikTok platform has strict requirements for folk

dance. In China, most folk dances are combined with

the culture of villages. In order to cater to people's

new aesthetic, in recent years, many dancers from the

Han group continue to innovate and improve folk

dance performance (Chou, 2016). This may explain

why online viewers are not particularly interested in

ordinary folk dances. Nevertheless, group 4 and group

6 still show a significant advantage in dance

performance, and their covariances scored are 1.432

and 1.012, respectively. Fourthly, there is a positive

relationship between the landscape display and the

Exploring the Relationships between Cultural Content and Viewers’ Watching Interest: A Study of Tiktok Videos Produced by Chinese

Ethnic Minority Groups

viewers’ watching intention in every EMG. This is

because most EMG video producers from China’s

western areas, and the natural scenery in western

regions, such as Xinjiang province and Xizang

province, is much more beautiful than eastern areas

where most Chinese residents live (Wang & Chen,

2016).

In addition to cultural vision, cultural audition

content designed by EMGs also has a strong

relationship with short video viewers’ watching

interest. Firstly, in China, 91.51% of residents are

from the Han group (The sixth nationwide population

census, 2010), which means most online users are

familiar with Mandarin and might not be interested in

the EMG language. Although the data result of EMG

language content could recommend EMG video

producers not to display EMG language in their short

video content, this recommendation is unbeneficial

for EMG language heritage. Secondly, online viewers

have an intense curiosity about EMG customs related

to group 2, group 3, and group 6, and the covariances

scored are 2.273, 2.188, and 1.905 separately, which

are much higher than the covariance of whole EMGs

that is 0.679. However, in consideration of the

analysis result of EMG language, the video producers

who promote custom explanations are best to use

Mandarin rather than their original language. Thirdly,

compared with the outcome of folk dance, online

viewers on the TikTok platform have a higher

acceptance of folk songs, especially the folk songs

shared by group 4. This might be based on the efforts

of many Mongolian singers, such as Tenger, whose

song named ‘Mongolian’ earned him numerous

honours and fame across the country (Henochowicz,

2008). Therefore, celebrities of each EMG have a

potential relationship with the cultural prevalence of

that group.

Table 7: The comparison of all EMGs.

6 DISCUSSION

6.1 Theoretical and Practical

Implications

This study makes several significant theoretical and

practical contributions. Firstly, this research

establishes the research framework based on the

sensory marketing model created by Krishna (2012)

and divides EMG cultural content based on cultural

vision content and cultural audition content. Although

existing studies have proved that viewers’ attitudes to

regular short video content can be influenced by

audition and vision, but it has not analysed whether

EMG vision and audition content would affect

viewers’ watching interest. In order to spread EMG

culture on SMPs, this paper promotes the

classification of EMG short video content on the

TikTok platform. Meanwhile, based on different

EMGs' cultural background, it also explores which

kind of content effectively attracts viewers' watching

interest on short video platforms. Therefore, this

study focuses not only on the relationship between

specific EMG cultural content and viewers’ watching

interest, but also on promoting comparisons among

seven main EMG cultural content. The research

results could be beneficial to provide EMG video

producers with some valuable suggestions and guide

them to improve their video content. In this process,

the EMG culture in China will be spread and

inherited.

Moreover, TikTok is an essential platform for

EMGs to spread a unique group culture. In recent

years, as the concept of urbanisation prevails in

China, many younger EMG generations gradually

accept the modern culture, which results in some

traditional culture facing the danger of disappearance

(Xu et al., 2019). Faced with issues, prior studies

focus on technical, financial and policy support,

which needs numerous financial and human

resources. Based on the short video platform's

advantages, EMG video producers can improve their

cultural video content and attract online viewers’

watching interest. With the increase of viewers’

watching interest, they are willing to build trust with

these EMG video producers and purchase cultural

products from them, which helps EMGs spread their

unique culture and enhance their income.

-4

-2

All EMGs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

ICE-B 2021 - 18th International Conference on e-Business

6.2 Limitations and Future Study

There are also some drawbacks to this research.

Firstly, although the research team members take

responsibility for data collection and scoring for each

EMG video content, the data results will be

subjectively influenced by the research members in

the grading process. Secondly, in terms of content

classification, the paper divides it into seven

categories according to the cultural vision and the

cultural audition based on the sensory marketing

theory. However, with the deepening of research, the

classification of content can be more specific. Finally,

the relationships between users and EMG video

producers are not limited to the research framework,

and there could be other significant relationships that

should be focused on, such as the relationship

between the number of comments and viewers’

watching interest. This kind of research will be

promoted on SmartPLS in our future work, and the

importance and performance analysis map will be

utilised to compare these relationships.

7 CONCLUSION

As urbanisation develops in China, many younger

EMGs tend to accept the modern culture, which

results some traditional EMG culture is faced with the

danger of disappearance. In order to protect EMG

culture and enhance its influence, this paper focuses

on the short video created by EMG users on short

video platforms. Based on the research framework

and data analysis, this paper discovers what kinds of

cultural content are more attractive to online viewers.

According to the comparison among the covariance

analysis of all major EMGs, the paper provides

specific recommendations for each group. For

instance, group 4 and group 6 show a significant

advantage in dance performance, which means they

should display more folk dances in their short videos.

With the increase of viewers’ watching interest, more

and more EMG culture would be protected and

accepted.

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