How Culture Influences Emotion Display in Transnational Television Formats: The Case of The Voice of China

Abstract

Both television production practice and academic writings indicate the necessity of the localization of TV formats to fit sociocultural circumstances in different countries. This article narrows its focus to the issue of emotion display during localization. Inspired by Paul Ekman’s <em>neurocultural theory of emotion</em>, which describes human emotion expression in actual social situations, this article attempts to apply Ekman’s ideas about relations between culture and emotion to the field of media communication and to build a theoretical framework for the analysis of cultural influence in emotion display during the adaptation of a TV format. Applying the theoretical findings to the case of the singing competition show <em>The Voice of China </em>(adapted from <em>The Voice of Holland</em>), this article shows how the collectivist nature of Chinese culture influences the aesthetic and dramatic tools used to elicit emotion and to control emotion display in the Chinese version of the show.

Integrating Cultural Expression with Universal Emotions: How Cultural Differences in Expression Do Not Refute the Universal Hypothesis

“…However, when a researcher was present in the same room, the American participants continued to display an emotional expression while the Japanese participants masked their emotional expressions and maintained a neutral face. This is consistent with Japanese cultural norms which state that negative emotions must be masked, especially around a superior 11 . The results of this experiment demonstrated that when social and cultural norms are not a factor, cross-cultural differences in emotional expression are insignificant.…”

“…Emotion theories suggest that basic emotions include happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. These are emotions that have been shown to have similar expression and physiological patterns universally and are likely to have an evolutionary basis 11 . They found that while facial muscles that were not essential for the expression of basic emotions varied in shape, size, and symmetry from person-to-person, muscles that were essential for these expressions showed greater consistency and less variation among people.…”

“…In addition, research examining emotional expression across cultures found that emotional expressions are very similar, although the context in which they are elicited may vary. Zhang 11 examined emotional display on the American and Chinese versions of the reality competition television program The Voice, where singers compete for the chance at working with famous singers and obtaining a record deal. The show emphasizes the life stories of the contestants resulting in many emotional moments, which were analyzed by Zhang through the coding of emotional expressions using an analytical guide inspired by Ekman.…”

“…It is important to control for what the cultures may consider emotion-provoking to better compare intended emotional expressions, which is something that has not been reflected in the literature. However, based on the evidence from Zhang 11 , the emotional expressions themselves do not show much variation across cultures.…”

The Cultural Politics of Affect and Emotion

“…Zhang Yuanchen (2018) and Sheng Qu (2018) both analyzed the singing competition show The Voice of China (Zhongguo haoshengyin 中国好声音), and discussed how the attempt to achieve socialist inclusion is reflected in "dreamfulfillment" discourses. Zhang (2018) applied Paul Ekman's (1972) neurocultural theory of emotion to reveal the impacts of Chinese collectivist culture on both elicitors of emotion, display rules of emotion and the consequences of emotion arousal in the show. As she pointed out, this is primarily realized by bringing the protagonists into relationships of family, group, and country (p. 44); and regulating them through family values, group harmony, and social commitment (p. 46).…”