Insist on ＂Three Possessments＂： Give Full Play to the Special Functions of Newspaper Layout —— An Analysis of the Innovation of Military Newspaper Layout from the Winning and Selected Works of China N

Absrtact: Layout is the "face" of a newspaper, which plays an irreplaceable role in content dissemination. Focusing on giving full play to the special functions of military newspaper layout in the all-media era, this paper, based on the practice of news arrangement and the dissemination of selected works of China News Prize in recent years, explores the methods and paths of military newspaper layout innovation from three aspects: creating "visual storm", expanding multi-form information and highlighting media personality characteristics.

Keywords: China Prize for Journalism; News arrangement; Layout innovation; Military newspaper

The layout is the "face" of the newspaper, the visual presentation of the content, with special functions such as reading guidance, guidance, signs, etc. It is the exhibition place of newspaper ideas and plays an irreplaceable role in content dissemination. For military newspapers, it is their duty and mission to innovate the way of expression and communication based on content construction, carefully prepare the layout and hold the position of public opinion. Innovation is the first driving force to lead development, and innovation is the spiritual characteristic of the supreme leader’s cultural thought. When inspecting the People’s Liberation Army newspaper, President Xi clearly pointed out that content innovation, form innovation and means innovation are all important for news media, but content innovation is fundamental.

In the all-media era, content innovation needs the service guarantee of formal innovation. Focusing on giving full play to the special functions of military newspaper layout in the all-media era, this paper, based on the practice of news arrangement and the dissemination of selected works of China News Prize in recent years, explores the methods and paths of military newspaper layout innovation from three aspects: creating "visual storm", expanding multi-form information and highlighting media personality characteristics.

First, powerful: create a "visual storm" to attract more attention.

A good news layout is the unity of politics, news, ideology and artistry.

(A) highlight the weight, highlighting the political nature

?Turn it into a sharp ideological weapon and exert great power.

(B) outstanding attitude, reflecting the orientation

On February 2, 2016, the first edition of the People’s Liberation Army Daily won the second prize of the 27th China News Award. This edition focuses on the establishment of a war zone, an important event of national defense and military reform, and records this important historical moment with strong layout language and pictures. The layout highlights the key points, strengthens the transmission of important information and the visual impact of the layout, and highlights the style of big newspapers. Coincidentally, the August 5, 2022 edition of the People’s Liberation Army Daily, because of its clear stand, highlighted the weight and strength of the news and caused strong repercussions inside and outside the military. At that time, Pelosi, then Speaker of the United States Congress, insisted on visiting Taiwan, China despite China’s obstruction, and our army successfully held a joint combat training in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island. The People’s Liberation Army Daily reported on the training in a run-through layout. The layout of the layout is concise, and the core facts are highlighted, which fully shows that our army is fully determined and capable of maintaining the motherland’s reunification and defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Practice shows that layout language is the natural expression of media’s position, viewpoint, emotion and aesthetic vision. As the mouthpiece of the Party, in the face of hot topics and sensitive issues, the mainstream media of the army should focus on making the layout an effective increment of content combat effectiveness, dare to speak out, speak out in time and be good at speaking out; It is necessary to make the news that should be done bigger and bigger, promote the supply of high-quality content, and ensure that the layout is coordinated in one go; Let the layout language have enough impact, clarify the facts and guide public opinion.

(3) Highlight emotions and increase appeal.

On July 31st, 2017, Edition A6 of Jinan Daily won the third prize of the 28th China News Award for newspaper layout. It stands out from its unique perspective in the competition of the same topic layout reflecting the 90th anniversary military parade. This page makes a fuss about the change of the detail that "the angle of military parade salute is raised from the original 15 degrees to 30 degrees", and the headline "It’s not just pride to hold your head up 30 degrees" has a strong emotional color; Carefully selected banner photos showing the heroic spirit of the two soldiers make the finishing point, which echoes and sets off the title. This layout not only brings visual shock to the audience, but also fully shows the heroic feelings of the Chinese nation standing tall among the nations of the world, which arouses empathy among the audience. It can be seen that the layout has language, attitude and emotion. Newspaper layout is a highly political business and political work. On the one hand, the mainstream media of the army should keep up with the changes of the world, the times and the history, establish a global vision, lead public opinion and guide the work; On the other hand, it is necessary to adapt to the new aesthetic changes of the audience in the all-media era, and make good use of layout language such as words, lines and colors to convey layout information and emotions more accurately and effectively, so as to enhance the reading experience of the audience.

Second, useful: multi-form information expansion, so that content presentation rushed out of the "first scene."

In the era of all-media, for newspapers, we should not only insist on the content as king, but also expand the form and service to make the layout "informative", "useful" and "powerful".

(A diagram, visual expression to achieve easy-to-read and interesting reading.

In the era of all-media, readers’ reading methods tend to be fast, fragmented and visual. Pictures and illustrations have become the most important and dynamic elements in newspaper layout because they are more intuitive and impactful than words in information transmission. In recent years, many of the winning pages of the China Prize for Journalism have enhanced their expressive power by adding data, charts and other elements. For example, the award-winning page of the 33rd China Prize for Journalism and the 5-8 edition of Jiangxi Daily on October 27th, 2022 are special commemorative pages to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the founding of Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base. With the help of the large-scale sculpture of "Jinggang Red Flag", the layout highlights the visual effect, and skillfully strings together important nodes such as "Wenjia City’s decision-making", "Sanwan adaptation" and "getting rid of poverty" in the form of a timeline, so that readers can visually feel the past struggle, current self-confidence and future expectations. Practice has proved that in the all-media era, a picture is worth a thousand words, and the mainstream media of the military should be good at using pictures to speak on the layout, so as to meet the aesthetic requirements of the audience in the era of reading pictures and make the news more readable and enjoyable; We should be good at arranging the relevant data in the news visually by means of charts, so that the boring and difficult data can be seen at a glance and arouse readers’ interest in reading; It is necessary to make it clear that the chart not only has the function of beautifying and activating the layout, but also is an independent and effective form of news reporting, strengthen the awareness of secondary processing, and help the transmission of its deep value through integrated refining and innovative presentation.

(2) Continuous version, carrying more content to create more space.

Of the six pages won in the 33rd China Prize for Journalism, five are consecutive pages. According to the data, in the past five years, 32 pages of the China Prize for Journalism have won awards, of which the single edition accounts for less than 25%. Continuous edition (all-page edition and cross-page edition) has become an important choice for newspapers to improve their communication power and influence. Take the award-winning page of the 32nd China Prize for Journalism and the 10-11 edition of the People’s Liberation Army Daily on July 1, 2021 as an example. This edition presents several classic moments of the People’s Army in the century since the founding of the Party in hand-painted form, with a clear theme and lofty ideas, which extends the sense of historical depth and makes readers feel refreshed. It can be seen that compared with ordinary single edition, continuous edition breaks the convention, makes the vision more impactful, can carry more content, and can better reflect the editing concept, thus producing a strong effect, so it has become the best choice for many newspapers. Some experts believe that this is also a useful exploration for newspapers to take the high-quality route and improve the quality and efficiency of communication in the all-media era. This enlightens us that in the all-media era, military newspapers should not only face the "fast" challenge brought by new media, but also give full play to their own strengths and work hard on the word "deep". We should focus on major themes, in-depth reports, elaborate designs around grand narratives; Change from "information paper" to "attitude paper"; Change from "design paper" to "collection paper".

In the all-media era, the layout language is more diverse. It is also an effective way to attract and retain the audience’s attention by making the layout "move" and "live" through the linkage of newspapers and networks. For example, in the winning pages of the 30th China Prize for Journalism and the 6-7 edition of Science and Technology Daily on October 1, 2019, when reporting the scientific and technological achievements made in the 70 years since the founding of New China, a QR code was added to the pages, and after scanning, the video of "70 years condensed into 24 hours" distributed synchronously by the newspaper can be watched. This innovation enriches the connotation of the layout and embodies the idea of media integration. For another example, the Liberation Army Daily, published on August 5, 2022, embeds the two-dimensional code of the video of the training site in the layout, which makes the news information richer and more comprehensive and meets the needs of the audience. It can be seen that in the all-media era, it is far from enough for newspapers to hold their ground in the flood of information. It is also necessary to expand information through media integration, broaden their horizons to below the appearance of news facts and outside the scene, and explore and explore more vital and inspiring three-dimensional pages.

Third, interesting: highlight the characteristics of media personality and enhance user stickiness.

Layout is an important part of the newspaper’s personality and style, which always plays the role of influencing readers and guiding public opinion.

(A) minor issues, tell a living story with details.

The second prize of the news layout of the 31st China News Award and the T7 edition of Xinhua Daily on April 14th, 2020, Thanks to You, the mountains and rivers are safe-paying tribute to the "epidemic" hero of Jiangsu’s aid to Hubei War, still seem to be a layout with special communication value. At that time, in order to welcome the triumph of the last batch of medical workers from Jiangsu who assisted Hubei, Xinhua Daily specially planned to launch a special tribute issue. As the cover of the special issue, this edition is carefully designed to outline the image of a well-armed medical worker with the names of 2,813 medical workers from Jiangsu who aid Hubei. Each name is regarded as a "point" in the picture, and they are connected in series by a "curve", and finally they converge into a meaningful "face" image. This treatment is meaningful: the success of the "epidemic" depends on specific people, and each person has a different story, thus achieving good communication results. Storytelling is the most effective communication. On the one hand, the mainstream media of the military should insist that content is king and continuously enhance their ability to provide content; On the other hand, we should pursue the harmony between content and form, strive to achieve the unity of form and spirit, and tell vivid stories with details; In particular, we should pay attention to digging points, cutting hot spots, falling points skillfully and tearing points, so that positive energy can generate large flow and good sound can become the strongest sound.

(2) Make the past serve the present, and the national wind ignites the new wind.

The prize-winning page of the 31st China Prize for Journalism and the 6-7 edition of Zhejiang Daily on November 23rd, 2020 were published at the opening of the "Light of the Internet" Expo in 2020. This edition takes the traditional "window" in China as the theme, and combines the unique "window lattice" element of Wuzhen water town with the new mission and new requirements of "important window" in Zhejiang. Through the image of "window" on the page, we can see the street view of Wuzhen and the Light Expo of the Internet, which makes the page have a sense of historical depth of blending ancient and modern, attracting people’s attention. After two years, on November 1st, 2022, the 6-7 edition of the newspaper won the 33rd China Prize for Journalism again with its strong national style and ingenious ideas. On this page, which shows the arduous course and great pioneering work of China’s space dream, the editor skillfully connects Su Shi’s words and images of "Palace Que in the Sky" with China Space Station across time and space, combining ancient and modern, and combining dreams with reality. Especially in the lower left corner of the layout, Su Shi is wearing VR glasses, looking up at the starry sky and singing "When did the bright moon ask the sky about the wine? I wonder what year it is in the palace palace tonight". The unique layout narrative method has injected poetic romance with Chinese style into serious scientific and technological topics, which is unique in many layouts with the same theme and has gained excellent communication effect. This enlightens us that in the all-media era, news content transmission is no longer the only pursuit of newspapers. It is necessary to comprehensively use richer editing methods in reporting, integrating national culture, aesthetic concepts and the value of the times, so that the audience’s reading can be changed from simple information acceptance to reading enjoyment based on understanding.

In the all-media era, information is overloaded and attention becomes a scarce resource. Faced with a large amount of information, people will subconsciously pay attention to what is related to them, which is more familiar or interesting. Newspaper layout not only needs to carry forward the main theme and spread positive energy in a way that the audience likes and hears, but also faces the problem of connecting the content and expression form with the antenna and connecting them with the audience’s interests. The exploration of the winning pages of the 32nd China Prize for Journalism and the 2nd edition of People’s Daily on July 19th, 2021 is quite instructive. This edition focuses on the major theme of "achieving the goal of the first century-building a well-off society in an all-round way in China". In the way of presentation, it vividly shows the changes with 16 groups of data that best reflect the people’s sense of gain, happiness and security, and has both visual impact and ideological persuasion, making the boring and difficult data clear at a glance, narrowing the distance with the audience and achieving good communication effects. It can be seen that in the all-media era, the mainstream media of the military should work hard to show their own characteristics and improve the recognition and dissemination of newspaper pages. It is necessary to bring about a new release of narrative energy through the new development of layout means; It is necessary to enrich the new expressive force of two-dimensional space style and enhance the user’s stickiness; It is necessary to build news pages into witnesses of history and make newspapers readable, hidden and enjoyable.

(Author: People’s Liberation Army Newspaper)

Editor in charge: Zhang Heyun