CULTURE SELLS: ANALYZING NEW ORIENTAL'S LIVE-STREAMING COMMUNICATION STRATEGY FROM A FRAMING PERSPECTIVE

: The entire online retail ecosystem is changing as a result of China's live-streaming e-commerce. Among the new stars, Dong Yuhui, 29, an educated former off-campus English language tutor at New Oriental Education & Technology Group, rose to fame thanks to the Group’s live-streaming program “Dong Fang Zhen Xuan”. Unlike those live-streamers that specifically sell products at the best price, this presenter used a distinctive verbal communication method that once contributed to a 21-million-yuan GMV on a single day, making it the 6th most cash-earning broadcast room on Douyin. The author chose the cognitive linguistic method to evaluate one of Dong Yuhui's most popular YouTube video clips to understand how he achieved success, paying particular attention to media priming, Hart's discursive strategy, and George P. Lakoff's framing and metaphor theories. By decoding his priming strategy when introducing the subject and a later metaphorical structure, the results suggest that this live streamer's success may largely be due to his careful choice of stimuli for an ideal integration of the explicit frames, as well as the perfect blending and coherence between explicit and implicit frames. Despite a slight disconnection in the middle of his discourse, the findings of this study encourage communication experts and professionals to take into account incorporating linguistic practices and tactics based on a positive, resonant, and coherent frame with their plans to shift consumers' perceptions and decisions.