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

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 neurocultural theory of emotion, 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 The Voice of China (adapted from The Voice of Holland), 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.


Introduction
Transnational TV formats are crucial phenomena in global media communication and have received much attention in global media communication research, where many studies have explored how a TV format could be localized in different cultures and countries (e.g., Mikos, 2015;Moran, 2009;Waisbord & Jalfin, 2009).The focus lies on how topics and people could be replaced through local elements in the cultural adaptation of a TV format in order to create relevance for and cultural proximity to the local audience.However, few studies have focused on emotion display during the localization of TV formats.
At the center of this study is the question of how culture influences emotion display in transnational TV formats.Cultural anthropologists were first interested in the relations between culture and emotion.Methods such as direct observation and interviews with members of different cultures were used to explore the cultural origin and specificity of emotion (Mesquita, Frijda, & Scherer, 1997).The anthropological approach stands in contrast with the psychological approach of the 1960s.Departing from Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1974), the American psychologist Silvan S. Tomkins (1962Tomkins ( , 1963) ) demonstrated that emotions are biologically based and thus universal.
Following on from Tomkins' thought, Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen (1969Friesen ( , 1975;;Ekman, 1972) conducted a number of studies investigating human facial expression of emotion.Ekman andFriesen (1969, 1975) agreed with Tomkins' idea of universal emotions and proposed a list of basic emotions that minimally include happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, disgust, and interest.The concept of universal emotions demonstrated that each basic emotion links to a number of distinctive movements of the facial muscles-the affect programs-and that these movements are universal to mankind (Ekman & Friesen, 1969).In order to respond to criticism of their findings, Ekman and Friesen (1969;Ekman, 1972) developed the concept of "display rules"-norms and values that modify the movements of the facial muscles in different social contexts.According to Ekman and Friesen (1969), display rules are socially learned and therefore culturally varied, and they define which emotions are shown in a given situation and how they are expressed.Combining both the cultural universality and the cultural specificity of emotional expression, Ekman (1972) named his synthesis the neurocultural theory of emotion, which includes not only "the affect programs" and "display rules" but also the emotion elicitors and the consequences of emotional arousal as displayed through the face, the body, the voice, etc.
The concept of display rules prompted plenty of studies that emphasized the cultural development of display rules that regulate emotional expression-for instance, the studies of Matsumoto and his colleagues (Matsumoto, 1990(Matsumoto, , 1991;;Matsumoto, Takeuchi, Andayani, Kouznetsova, & Krupp, 1998;Matsumoto, Yoo, & Fontaine, 2008).Following Hofstede's classification of cultural differences in several important dimensions, such as Individualism-Collectivism and Power Distance (Hofstede, 1980(Hofstede, , 1983(Hofstede, , 2001), Matsumoto's crosscultural research focused on finding out if, how, and why those dimensions of cultural variability influence display rules.Besides these cultural dimensions, social distinctions of ingroup-outgroup, status, gender, and type of interaction partner were also taken into account in his investigation.
The concepts mentioned above aimed at the investigation of emotion expression in actual social situations.Based on Ekman's neurocultural theory of emotion and follow-up studies, this article will attempt to integrate the understanding of emotion described above into the model of media communication.Accepting the hypothesis that emotions circulate globally through the spread of TV formats, this article will focus its examination on the cultural localization of emotion display and will answer the question of where and how cultural influences occur in this process.
The analytical framework created by theoretical concepts taken from both emotion and media communication studies is supported by the case of the Chinese version of The Voice, which was originally created in Holland and has been adapted in 56 countries and regions.With more than 500 million viewers around the world, this singing competition show is one of the most successful formats in recent years.It was first adapted for China in 2012.For my analysis, I chose the first season of the Chinese version of the show because the first season was one of the biggest hits in the history of the Chinese entertainment industry and because the emotionality of the show aroused fierce debate.

Creating an Analytical Framework for Cultural Influences in Emotion Display in Media Communication
Ekman's neurocultural theory of emotion combines both universal and cultural-specific aspects of human emotional expression.Neuro, on the one hand, refers to the facial affect program, which describes the universal relationship between basic emotions-happiness, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, sadness, interest-and the distinctive movements of facial muscles in association with these emotions (Ekman, 1972).On the other hand, cultural influences may occur, according to Ekman (1972), in the following categories: a) elicitors of emotion-events, expectations, memories, etc., which may vary across cultures, b) display rules-culturally varied norms and values to control (intensify, de-intensify, neutralize, or mask) the facial appearance according to a given social situation, and c) consequences of emotional arousal, such as facial behavior, action patterns of face and/or body, verbal behavior, physiological change, etc. Ekman (1972) centered his neurocultural theory on human facial expressions of emotion in live social situations.The term display refers only to appearance, and display rules are rules about the appearance of the face (Ekman, 1972).Inspired by Ekman's theory, I will discuss in this section how to apply Ekman's theory to emotion display in media communication.In this context, emotion display refers to the presentation of emotion on TV or film.In media communication, the TV or film screen stands in for the human face or body and makes the emotion visible to the audience.In order to make this idea more clear, I will follow the German media theorist, Hans J. Wulff's (1994) sociological view on media communication.Extrapolating from Goffman's (1986) frame analysis and from interaction theory, Wulff (1994) indicated the double "situatedness" ("situationalität") of television communication.First, the television text is embedded in a communication situation, with the "speaker"-producers, directors, scriptwriters, editors, etc-on the one side, and the "recipient"-the audience-on the other side.Second, in the television text itself, different social situations, involving different people and relationships, are represented (Wulff, 1994).Taking The Voice format as an example, these situations may occur among contestants, or between contestants and coaches, contestants and the audience, contestants and the host, and contestants and their family members, etc.More importantly, these people do not only have functional roles on the show but also social roles determined by age, profession, gender, status, etc.
We can understand the first situation in Wulff's theory as the macro situation and the second as the micro situation.The macro situation is determined by the relationship, the intention, and the interest of the speaker and the recipient.In the most cases, especially in TV shows, the main intention of the speaker is to engage and involve the recipients emotionally.Compared to live social situations, the speaker in the macro situation has much more power to elicit, control, and present emotions.First, the speaker can arrange social situations or micro-interactions involving different social roles within the macro situation.Through casting the speaker can decide which performers present emotions on screen and what kind of relationships they are involved in.Further-more, unlike in live social situations, the speaker in a macro situation of media communication has powerful aesthetic and dramatic tools, such as narratives, zooming, cuts, visual effects, sound, music, graphics, set design, etc.The speaker can use various tools to filter what kind of emotions will be shown and how they will be presented to the recipient.For example, regarding narrative, the speaker can involve people through their relations, expectations, memories, etc. from a dramaturgical view to elicit different emotions.Regarding aesthetic tools (for example, zooming) the speaker can decide if the camera will zoom in on a crying face to intensify an emotion such as sadness.In media communication, with the help of these aesthetic and dramatic tools, the speaker has more possibilities for emotion display, whereas the human body is limited to facial, body, or verbal behavior to express emotions.In media communication, the face, body, and voice of the performers are only some of the emotive tools available.The power of the speaker to shape emotional performance through their routine production practices has been also described by Wei (2014), who also describes the speakers as "display producers" of emotion.
After clarifying the interpretation of media communication as a macro social situation with regard to emotion display, I return to the three categories in Ekman's theory-emotion elicitors, display rules, and consequences of emotion arousal-where cultural influences may occur.Before proceeding, I want to clarify my understanding of culture.Although in cultural studies a new conceptualization of culture has emerged where culture is a "whole way of life" (Williams, 1971) and is not only operationalized by country and nation, I still stand by the classical concept of culture as defining the main characteristics of a society as being mostly shared "behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and values communicated from gener-ation to generation" in each society (Matsumoto, 1991, p. 130).My approach departs from this understanding of culture and transfers Ekman's three categories to the situation of media communication.An analytical framework for evaluating cultural influences in emotion display in media communication is illustrated in Figure 1.
In this framework we can see that display producers of emotion, television text, and audience are embedded in the same cultural context.This article focuses on the cultural influences on emotion display in television texts.We can predict that culture may influence the use of aesthetic and dramatic elicitors and the arrangement of microinteractions or situations by display producers to stimulate emotions.Culture may also define display rules that lead display producers or emotion performers to downplay or overplay certain emotions in micro-situations, and, finally, culture may influence emotion elicitors and display rules in ways that impact emotion arousal.

The Case of The Voice of China
The analytical framework for cultural influences in emotion display in media communication, which was demonstrated in the previous section, will be applied to the case of The Voice of China.As mentioned in the introduction, I chose the first season of the show for a textual analysis and reviewed all episodes of the first season.During the review process, I selected the most emotional scenes from the first season and focused on those scenes in the analysis.The scenes are complex excerpts consisting of emotion performers, micro-interactions between emotion performers, narratives running through the scenes, as well as aesthetic tools such as zooming, cuts, and sounds.The scenes feature localized emotion displays which are particular to The Voice format in China.Nevertheless, these scenes are embedded into the global formal structure of The Voice format and don't destroy the integrity of the format.Now that the methodological approach has been clarified, the first section below will present the general findings corresponding to the analytical framework.In the ensuing sections, this article will illustrate the findings concretely via selected scenes.If the coaches like the song, they push a button to turn their chairs towards the stage signifying their interest in working with that contestant.If more than one coach pushes their button, the contestants choose the coach they want to work with.After every coach has built his or her team in this so-called "blind audition", the members of each team have to compete in the "battle" and "sing-off" rounds to gain a place in the final show.

Applying the
The core concept of The Voice format is the success formula.In the blind audition, the iconic feature of the show, the success of a contestant is visually symbolized by the turning of chairs.The coach pushing the button is one of the most affective moments of every episode, accompanied by screaming and applause from the studio audience.The camera zooms in on the animated faces of the coaches or cuts to the contestants' family members, showing how they laugh or cry, and how they jump up and down in excitement.The happiness of success is the globally relevant emotion behind the spread of The Voice format, including The Voice of China.
Despite these commonalities across different national formats, the emotion display in The Voice of China has its own cultural specificity.Using the analytical framework shown in Figure 1, and with the support of general findings from the textual analysis, I will draw attention to the following points:

Cultural Dimensions
As mentioned in the introduction, culture could be defined through dimensions such as individualismcollectivism, power distance, gender and so on.In the analysis of The Voice of China, "collectivism" emerges as the cultural factor with the most influence on emotion display in the show's Chinese version.
The cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism (I-C) has mainly been discussed in the field of anthropology and cross-cultural psychology (Hofstede, 1980(Hofstede, , 1983;;Matsumoto, 1991;Triandis, 1972).In those studies, researchers attempted to define individualism and collectivism through the relationship of an individual to collectives (family, co-workers, tribe, and nation), and through the position of individual needs, goals, wishes, desires, and values in relation to those of groups and collectives.In collective cultures, the relationship of an individual to other members and to the collective tends to be tight and interdependent, whereas the members of an individualistic culture are more loosely linked and independent from the collective.Members of an individualistic culture place their own goals over the collective's goals, whereas in collective cultures individual goals are subordinated to group goals, even when they come into conflict.
In plenty of studies focusing on the contrast between individualism and collectivism, China was often taken as a prototype for collectivist cultures with regard to values such as group harmony and solidarity (Ho & Chiu, 1994;Hsu, 1983), filial piety in the Confucian tradition (Hofstede, 1991), and social commitment (Wang, 1994).How the collectivist nature of the Chinese culture influences the emotion display, will be shown later with the support of selected scenes.

"Dream-Fulfillment Concept" as a Major Narrative
In The Voice of China, a dream-fulfillment concept has been used as the major narrative tool to elicit emotion from performers and even to bring them to tears.The dream-fulfillment narrative has mostly been used in blind auditions.After their performance, the contestants have the chance to speak to their coaches.In their conversations, the coaches always raise a standard question, "What's your dream?" and thereby prompt the contestants' storytelling.
According to Yang (2014), the Chinese TV industry's convention of a dream-fulfillment narrative has been promoted since 2004 in the Chinese version of the Pop Idol format, with the slogan "Sing as you want, let dreams blossom".Also, China's Got Talent of 2010 emphasized the word "dream", represented in its slogan "Believe in dreams, believe in miracles".Both programs became the most popular entertainment shows in the country.As a consequence, the central state broadcaster CCTV also named its own reality talent show Dream China.

Arrangement of Micro-Interactions and Emotion Performers
In The Voice of China, display producers selected ordinary people as emotion performers.Most of the contestants in the show come either from rural areas or from small provincial towns having moved to a big city to work for a better life.They are students, or the owner of a small nail salon, or the daughter of a small restaurant owner or of a truck driver.In accordance with these identities, the contestants in The Voice of China mostly appear as the representatives of ordinary people.In blind auditions, they are dressed in casual clothes, most of them without any make-up and hairstyling.
It seems that it is not important if the contestants are truly ordinary people.After the show, some of the contestants were revealed to be professional musicians or singers who had already recorded their own music album.However, the main point is that the producers of the show portrayed them as ordinary.The power of the dream is stronger when even ordinary people can make their dreams come true.
In the show, the emotion performers were embedded in different micro-interactions that could be easily shaped by the collective nature of Chinese culture.Through the textual analysis, three main types of microsituations can be identified regarding the relationship of an individual to the collectives of family, group, and country.

Fulfilling the Dreams of Family
Family plays a crucial role in many societies, including western societies, but in Chinese culture, the Chinese family reflects the collectivistic nature of the Chinese.According to the ideas of anthropologists and cross-cultural psychologists discussed in the previous section, the relation of individuals to their families is tighter in collective cultures than in individualistic ones, and individuals should place the goal of families over their own goals.
In The Voice of China, family members have often accompanied contestants.In the program, the close relationship between emotion performers and their families was often used to elicit emotion.The contestants come on the show to fulfill the dreams of certain family members: fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and family members who passed away.Some sing to give their own children a better life.A single mother came onto the show because she thought that her little daughter was too fearful and too dependent on her.With a public performance, she wanted to show her daughter how to be confident and courageous.Another contestant took her mom onto the show.After her successful performance, she expressed her gratefulness to her mother, as her mother had raised her alone and had to give up her own dream of making music to find a secure job and support the dreams of her daughter.
Let us examine a typical example for fulfilling the dreams of family (from the first episode of the first season): The father of Jin Haixing was a professor of music.After her performance, one coach asks her: "Is your dad here?"She replies: "No, but I think he is here".Her dad has passed away several months ago.She is here to fulfill the dream of her father and sing for her father.She cries, and the coach cries too.In the conversation be-low, we can see how emotions of the contestants and the coaches are produced through narrative: Jin: I am standing here on the stage because I want to sing for Liu Huan because my dad likes you very much.[The camera cuts to her mom and friend who are watching her in the waiting room and going to cry.]So I am here.Liu: Thank you.Thank your dad.Na: So you were also singing for your dad in your performance.Jin: Yes, that's why I am standing on this stage.Na: Very powerful voice.Yang: Isn't your dad here today?Jin: My mom is here.I think my dad is here too.Na: "You think?"Jin: [Silence for 2 seconds.]My dad died of illness three months ago.All: Oh. [The camera focuses on Liu Huan and then zooms to the crying face of Jin's mother.]Jin: I said to myself I can't cry, but I can't mention this issue, because it happened like yesterday.I am still not in a good mood; I am sorry.[Crying.][Cut to Liu Huan who is about to cry and then to one woman in the audience who is also going to cry.] Yu: So this issue still influences you.Jin: Three months ago I thought I would never sing again.My world was destroyed.Then I wanted to make sure my mom wouldn't worry about me.I didn't want them to see me in a bad mood.So I decided to come to a big stage and fulfill the dream of my dad.He wanted me to sing.Na: Well done.[Applause, followed by applause from all.]Yu: I think you have not only fulfilled the dream of your dad [Liu begins to wipe his tears], but also let us admire you a lot.You are a young and small girl.What would you like to say to your dad? Jin: Yes, I have.I talk to him every day.I said to him, please don't worry about mom and me, because I will take care of mom and me very well.[Cut to her mom crying.]Na: You know, you fulfill the dream of your dad.You sang a song in front of his favorite singer.Liu Huan is so touched.[Cut to Liu Huan who is crying, taking off his glasses, and wiping his tears.] In this example, the contestant and the coaches were heavily involved as emotion performers in microinteractions, shaped by the family values of collective Chinese culture and organized by the dream-fulfillment narrative.Family values-in this case, the loss of a family member and the fulfillment of his wishes-also influence the display rules, which intensifies the emotion of sadness.Aesthetic tools support the display of intensified emotion-for example, as the camera zooms in on crying faces and a montage of different crying faces appears on the screen.

Group Harmony
The Voice is a singing competition show, and competition and winning the final should be the main and individual goal of the contestants.In cross-cultural research, competition has been mostly linked to individualism (Hsu, 1983;Trandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988).How could competition be shaped by collective culture?Competition is downplayed in The Voice of China.Instead, the importance of maintaining group harmony influences not only emotion stimulation but also the display rules and thus emotion display.
Competition between the contestants takes place especially in the "battle" round and the "sing-off" in The Voice format.In the "battle" round, two contestants from the same team present a song together.Afterwards, the coach of the team decides who has to leave the show.In the "sing-off" session, from the last four contestants on each team, only one person will be chosen to represent the team in the final show.Both sessions are premised on the appeal of direct competition between contestants, but the disharmony that could be caused by such competition conflicts with the value of the group harmony in Chinese culture.Therefore, the show downplays competition and instead highlights emotions aroused from group harmony.
In order to emphasize collectivism, all members in Yang Kun's team wear the same team uniform in the "battle" round.And Na Ying's team is organized like a school class and even elects a class speaker.Some of the team members call each other brother and sister and give gifts on the stage when one person has to leave the show.Sadness is aroused from the farewell.The coach Liu Huan has cried several times when he had to choose one person to stay and to say goodbye to the other person in the "battle" round.In Yang Kun's team, as the contestant Zhang Weiqi was leaving, both the coach and the contestant were crying.Yang said to Zhang: "You are my buddy; you are my brother.I will do my best to give you a good platform to sing".In the "sing-off", when the first contestant in Na Ying's team was leaving, Na Ying could not stop crying.She stepped onto the stage, and all four contestants and Na Ying embraced in a circle for a while.The camera showed the sad face of each person-also one of the contestants who won the session two minutes ago.Group harmony requires the same emotional expression from all team members.
It is impossible to judge the true feeling of the contestants at the moment when they are crying.Perhaps the contestants cry from the sadness of losing the competition and having no chance anymore.But in a public context, crying because of failure is not acceptable.Some of the contestants explain that they are sad because they have to leave the team, not because of their failure in the competition.Some of the contestants try to control their sadness and to neutralize their facial expression.They say to the coach that it does not matter who leaves because all of them belong to the group.Other contestants cry while leaving, but then they try to smile and explain that they are not crying because they have to leave but because they feel lucky or are excited.

The Chinese Dream
Collective culture emphasizes social commitment (Wang, 1994).An individual in a collective culture would not only ask "What am I expected to do for my family?" but also "What am I expected to do for my country?" (Triandis, 2018, p. 12) In The Voice of China, a typical answer to the "What's your dream?" question centers on bringing Chinese music into the world.Some contestants want to prove that as Chinese people they can also make jazz music or sing hip-hop very well."I want to sing Chinese jazz songs to the world", said jazz singer Wang Yunyi on the show.
When another contestant, Tia, left the show during the eleventh episode of the first season, her coach, Liu Huan, stood up and asked the audience to applaud for her.He said Tia's main direction was soul music and R & B and that he hoped that more Chinese people could get to know this kind of music through Tia's performance."Chinese music has its own genres-rock, soul, and R & B. We have our own music for those genres.The audience should have the chance to listen to a variety of music genres (huge applause and Tia cries).That is our goal together; it is also the goal of Tia (bowing to the audience and crying)".
Validating moments like this are especially moving for the audience and are normally welcomed with huge applause and the enthusiasm of the studio audience.Interestingly, the Chinese government has explicitly promoted the meaningful relationship of the individuals to the country."The Chinese Dream" is the official motto of the Communist Party since China's president Xi Jinping took office in November 2012.Xi has elaborated on this concept, saying he believes that "to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the greatest dream for the Chinese nation in modern history" (Wang, 2013, p. 1).Wang (2013) has discussed the importance of the "rejuvenation concept" in Chinese history and nation-building.Programs of rejuvenation have described China as weak and humiliated by western powers in its recent history.Rejuvenation represents the collective desire of Chinese citizens who want their country to be strong, prosperous, and internationally influential.
The rejuvenation concept turned into a "Chinese Dream" narrative in The Voice of China.The collective nature of Chinese culture required individuals to display social commitment and to fulfill the expectations of family and country alike.In this regard, the emotion performers were not simply contestants who wanted to win the show but were members of the group and were responsible for accomplishing great feats.Taking the rejuvenation concept into consideration, we can better understand why so many Chinese contestants want to bring Chinese music to the world or why they want to represent China on the world stage and why such claims are especially appealing for the studio audience.

Conclusion
In this article, I have applied Ekman's concept of a neurocultural theory of emotion to media communication.I have understood media communication as a macro social situation in which the speaker or display producers-namely, producers, directors, scriptwriters, editors, etc.-communicate via television text to the recipients.Compared to a live social situation, in media communication display producers can use the power of aesthetic and dramatic tools to elicit emotion and control emotion display on the television screen.The display producers can also arrange specific micro-interactions with specific emotion performers to present emotions onscreen.
Transferring Ekman's work into the context of global television formats, I have discussed the influence of culture on the three categories: 1) the emotion elicitors, 2) the display rules, and 3) the consequences of emotional arousal.I have illustrated the theoretical considerations through the example of The Voice of China, the Chinese version of The Voice format.Borrowing the anthropological concept of culture, which conceives of culture as an entity of shared beliefs, attitudes, and values communicated from generation to generation in a society, I have found that the norms and values of collectivism in Chinese culture influence emotion elicitors, display rules, and, in the end, emotion display on a large scale.Against the background of a dream-fulfillment concept as the major narrative during the show, emotion performers have been brought into three main relationships in micro-interactions.These relationships are informed 1) by family values, 2) by dynamics promoting group harmony, and 3) by the social commitment required by collective culture.In these relationships the contestants are shown valuing the needs and wishes of other family members and sacrificing self for family; this is used to elicit emotion and to provoke crying during the emotion display.In other relationships, group harmony has been emphasized, whereas competition has been downplayed.Close relations between contestants and coaches have been used as emotion elicitors.Furthermore, when confronting failure contestants have either neutralized their sadness or masked it, articulating the feeling of being lucky.And, finally, in some cases, the social commitment of individuals has been expected to correspond to "The Chinese Dream", promoted by the government.
In contrast to other studies which examine the localization of TV formats in national contexts, this article focused its attention on emotion display through localization.Instead of indicating which concrete local elements have been integrated into the local version of a transnational format, I have tried to uncover the general influence of cultural values and norms in emotion stimulation, control, and presentation.The results of this study could help to understand the localization of a transna-tional television format in a collectivist culture.For further studies, it would be interesting to carry out crosscultural comparisons-for instance, taking the contrast of individualism and collectivism and examining their influence on two national versions of the same format.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.An analytical framework for cultural influences in emotion display in media communication.
Analytical Framework to The Voice of ChinaFormats like The Voice are global commercial products in the worldwide television program trade.Rather than trading a finished program, format sellers export a package of ideas, concepts, technical and financial guidelines, production advice, and personnel placement.Due to strict regulation in the television format trade, different adaptations of the same format are obliged to maintain almost the same production rules and aesthetic appearances.For this reason, the Chinese version of The Voice follows the same format that is used in other countries, such as Germany or the United States: A contestant presents a song while four coaches listen from chairs facing away from the stage without seeing the performance.