Analysis of Online Social and Educational Language Programs – TED as an Example

The Overall Framework and Process of TED Talks

TED is a social and educational language program, with lectures as the main content, and regularly updated and broadcast on the YouTube and the official TED website. It covers a wide range of topics, from topics close to life to profound science, the wonderful and vivid language interpretation of speakers on screen allows the audience to see a larger and broader world. Tea breaks during the show allow the audience to communicate with each other in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, exchanging views and unique opinions about the content of the speakers on stage.

Since 2005, the program has also added an innovative “TED Prize” session, the previous winners are excellent scholars in various fields, including Bill Clinton. In addition to the $100,000 prize, the winner of the “TED Prize” will be able to express his or her “Wish to change the world” on the TED stage. The organizers will do their best to help them turn their wishes into reality.

The Selection of Speakers by TED and the Value of the Selection

The selection of speakers is the core of a lecture program, different styles and positioning of the program is the main basis for the planners to choose different speakers. TED always adheres to the main theme of the program “Ideas Worth Spreading” and the program concept of “Technology, Entertainment, Design”, so that planners have chosen a lot of distinguished speakers with unique influence in their fields to serve as opinion leaders, thus increasing the authority and professionalism of the content presented in the program. For example, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, British zoologist Jane Goodall, architect Frank Gehry, and many corporate CEOs, scientists, inventors, philanthropists, etc. have all appeared on the TED stage.

To a certain extent, TED’s speakers can be commonly referred to as the “stars”. But unlike this era of pan-entertainment, TED’s speakers remind public that the role of “star” is not only a singer or actor engaged in entertainment, he or she may be a musician or a performing artist. The role of “star” is never just to provide people with gossip and the definition of “star” is not necessarily linked to entertainment. People of excellence in science, technology, design and many other fields are also worthy of the word “icon”. Therefore, as Boyu (2018) mentioned, TED always favors people who can bring inspiration in the selection of speakers. The speaker who has “Ideas Worth Spreading” is really the one who is invited by TED to spread ideas and impart knowledge.

The Language Form and Content of the TED Talks

North American television programs have a major characteristic, that is not constrained to the rigid form, instead of a lighter and more pleasant atmosphere. For instance, the Oscars ceremony, the host used the self-deprecating way to open the show, with humorous language to win the audience's laughter and harmonize the atmosphere of the scene. In TED, one of the distinguishing features is the relaxed narrative sense of the speakers. As the study of Luyao (2016) found, TED speakers pay much attention to tone, mood, and persona in order to bring them closer to the audience and to facilitate the realization of interpersonal meaning. The language of TED’s speakers contains the explanation of the truth and the dissemination of knowledge, and often interact with the audience in the form of “light humour”. It not only plays a role in stimulating the audio-visual senses and attracting the attention of audience in just 20 minutes, but also enlivens the audience with the sound of applause and laughter at the scene.

For example, the lecture “” spoken by the writer and education scholar Sir (2006), one of the top-rated TED Talks, uses funny language to talk about the disadvantages of the school system and the stifling of children's natural abilities and creativity. And “” presented by writer Malcolm (2004), uses vivid language with examples, as the official description says: “‘Tipping Point’ author Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry’s pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce, and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.” (TED, n.d.) The speaker uses spaghetti sauce as a small entry point, which eventually rises to a philosophy of life about choice and happiness. Additionally, there are many similar examples that people of different races and perspectives use their own unique language to explain views that seem radical. Such as the talk of Asian political scientist Eric (2013) – “”, which expresses sharp views and assumptions about Chinese politics. It is the different styles, different ideologies, and diverse modes that create the rich art form of TED talks and the diverse perspectives on the dissemination of ideas.

It is these different styles, different ideologies and diverse models that have created a wealth of art forms and diverse perspectives on the dissemination of thought in TED Talks.

The Stage layout and Broadcast Mode of TED

In the TED stage, there is no magnificent lighting, no surround sound and huge studio equipment, when the speaker is delivering a speech, no background music, no dance, only a ray of warm light thrown on the speaker. There is only a light and other simple multimedia projection equipment on the stage, but it creates quiet, minimalist conditions for reflection, bursting with the depth of thought in a slightly dark environment.

The mainstream media of TED is YouTube and the official website of TED as well as the official APP, and the videos are updated regularly. Since most of the speakers speak English, there are subtitles in different languages on the YouTube website, and volunteers from different countries translate the videos into their own languages and redistribute them on their local platforms, which broadens the distribution channels of the program and makes it widely distributed around the world.

The Advantages and Characteristics of TED

As an online program and a social educational program, in the selection of speakers, TED has achieved a combination of celebrity or “star” and content, to guide the audience in the era of pan-entertainment, retain a habit of thinking and acquire knowledge through the program. Its invited speakers have overturned the values of “stars” perception in today’s society.

From the content of the program, TED has the advantages of “5 multiple”, that is, “multiple views, multiple perspectives, multiple positions, multiple fields, multiple diversity”. “Multiple views” is reflected in the producers do not pursue the absolute unity of views and authoritative theory guidance. A lot of thinking that challenge the tradition, the debate between truth and fallacy, and new and innovative ideas are fully presented on the stage of TED. The “multiple perspectives” and “multiple positions” of TED talks lead audiences to think that there is not only one answer to a question, and there is more than “right or wrong” criteria to judge a matter. The “multiple fields” and “multiple diversity” refers to the fact that TED presents a rich and broad diversity in the perspective of each viewers through all kinds of lectures, including education, biology, physics, philosophy, psychology, design and invention, and many other fields. In the study by Verjovsky and Jurberg (2019), the public had a more positive response and support for scientific TED lectures. To a certain extent, it has facilitated the sharing and exchange of global knowledge, making it possible for knowledge without borders to become a reality.

In terms of the audience of TED, it has the characteristics of “4 multiple”, that is, “multiple audiences, multiple ages, multiple levels, multiple professions”. On the online broadcast platforms of TED, there is a large group of subscribers of TED, and the hundreds of thousands of plays each year and the increasing number of subscribers reflect the audience recognition of the social and educational language program. In daily life, audiences can use the 20 minutes that might be wasted or filled with meaningless things through the App of TED, to briefly learn the tip of an iceberg of the latest developments in society or other fields. The short time and the condensed knowledge without any complexity allow people to listen with more concentration. However, as a program that can be commonly accepted and recognized by the audience, it is not enough just to attract the audience to listen, the program must have high-quality content as their fundamental element, but also to make the audience can understand the content and think about the meaning. TED speakers use an easy-to-understand format to explain and express those originally profound professional knowledge or principles, overcoming communication barriers and gaps, so that the audience of the program is not just those specific groups, but the general public, which accounts for an indeterminate number of people in society. Down to common students, TED talks can act the role of simple popularization and enlightenment of science, to cultivate their interests and shape their values of the world. Up to middle-aged people, in the simplest way to enrich themselves in their stressful work, to get a touch of relaxation and gain knowledge at the same time. And even for the ordinary researchers, in a speech of less than 20 minutes in the frontier field, they may be able to sprout new “orientation” and “point of view”, broaden their minds and increase their imagination and creative ability.

The Shortcomings and Improvements of TED

Nothing can be characterized as perfect, because the characterization of perfection makes it lose the space and possibility of progress, and the two sides of the coin also suggest the transition between strengths and weaknesses. For TED, there are also some shortcomings.

First, the invited speakers generally have high academic and social status, which ensures the professionalism and authority of information transmission and knowledge education, but deprives the common people of the space and opportunity to present themselves. This high threshold of elitist access model, making the vast majority of people can only act as the audience of the network program. As Honglian (2015) pointed out, TED cannot have any contingencies in the presentation, everything must be designed in advance. Therefore, the interactivity with the audience in the era of full media is slightly absent here. But in the subsequent development of TED, the number of new organized activities, the TEDx, and other changes to a certain extent made up for the previous deficiencies, so that the common people can get the possibility to present themselves.

Secondly, although the short video is brief and concise, but the length is shorter than a daily documentary lecture, so that speakers who have a very full desire to talk and discuss cannot fully express their views and spread their knowledge, and have to choose to curtail the content due to time constraints. This reduction will make the audience prone to one-sided, incomplete acceptance of information, and then generate a biased understanding of a certain field and a subjective and arbitrary self-supplementation.

Thirdly, the information received by the TED audience is generally fragmented information, which meets the needs of fragmented learning today, but TED does not change the acceptance pattern of people in the era of information fragmentation. TED does not systematically analyse and summarize the content of the speakers at the end of the program, so that the information tends to be scattered and cluttered.