I.

ESSAY
1. Introduction

In recent days, “fake news” has sparked considerable controversies among

people using social networking sites where there is a variety of news updated on
daily basis. This raised users’ concerns regarding the integrity of information
and the consequences on the targeted character when fake news gained
popularity and beliefs from the audiences, which may potentially relate to an
emerging phenomenon termed “cyberbullying”. This essay will examine a
recent trending phenomenon called “Trấn Thành bao rạp chiếu phim” and
analyze it based on the textbook “Language, Society, and Power An
Introduction” (Annabelle and Besty, 2019) on the topic of “Language and the
media” (p.70) and additional research related to “Fake news” and
“Cyberbullying”.

2. Data collection

When surfing social platforms recently, Vietnamese Facebook users may easily
encounter the phrase “Trấn Thành bao rạp” repeated on different web pages
such as “Bí mật showbiz”, and “Xem Báo Online”. I then tried to figure out
what was going on and why the phrase appeared many times by googling the
relevant keywords. Incidentally, I found numerous results pertaining to this
“drama” depicted in photos, 1 and 2 below. In order to observe how people
responded to this situation, I searched for the original post of the man who had
complained about Tran Thanh's behavior “chen ngang” in the cinema,
referenced comments from his Facebook post and other Facebook sites like “Bí
mật showbiz”. With a view to having a thorough understanding of this drama, I
also found out other involved characters’ viewpoints such as the woman going
with her handicapped mother, Tran Thanh, CGV’s managers, and Box Office
Vietnam.
 3. News summary

The phenomenon occurred when one man named Nguyễn Vinh posted on
Facebook the status on March 2nd, 2023 at 12:34 p.m. shown in the photo
above. To grab the audience’s attention, he first proclaimed the title “Người hay
nói đạo lý thì thường sống như…”; from the audience’s viewpoint, we
completely understood who would be mentioned below. The man in question is
Tran Thanh, a well-known actor, director, comedian, and master of ceremonies
in Vietnam, who is also famous for also well-known for his morality-related
remarks and advice-giving on TV programs. The post's main focus was on Tran
Thanh disturbing the line to take tickets for himself and his friends. When the
writer tried to ask him for two other tickets, Tran Thanh refused because he had
paid for a private theater. Thus, the writer was frustrated at not being able to
watch the film at 11:20 p.m. since there were no seats available.

4. Analysis and discussion

4.1. Nguyen Vinh’s post and comments.

To express his intense dissatisfaction at being interrupted by Tran Thanh while

waiting in line to buy movie tickets, the writer utilized phrases like “lủi thủi dẫn
bạn gái ra về”, or “cuộc sống mà”, “thôi không sao, may mắn khác sẽ đến”.
He added “mình có nhường gia đình 3 ng mua trước vì có cô đi xe lăn” as a
way to emphasize his generous gesture and further underline the long time he
had waited for his turn to get the tickets. Consequently, this led to a surge of
outrage from the public on Tran Thanh's awful behaviors. To be specific, there
were thousands of aggressive comments (Photo 4) under “Bí mật showbiz” page
which quoted Vinh’s post or “Xem báo online” (Photo 5) which supported
Nguyen Vinh and disparaged Tran Thanh.
Originating from the assumption that audiences are customers and people
working in entertainment fields are service providers, it follows that they have
the right to complain when having problems since they are paying for the
service. Hence, audiences grant them the freedom to judge, comment, and react
notably on social platforms where individual opinions are freely expressed. This
led to thousands of users cursing Tran Thanh and his films; for instance, “tởm
lợm dell bao giờ bỏ tiền đi xem phim má này đóng” (Louis Pham), “phốt cho là
đúng rồi, muốn riêng tư thì đặt từ đầu nguyên rạp…” (Hà Minh Thúy) or “bởi
dị đâu ta đi coi phim nhà bà nữ, làm giàu cho 1 lũ nghệ sĩ, cái đứa mà hở tí là
nói chuyện đạo lý, hở tí là khóc, đúng là diễn xuất đỉnh” (Hoàng Thúy Vy),
“Ghét cả mồ hôi” (Nguyen Lam Thang). They emphasized their abrasiveness
by frequently using many verbs “ghét”, “phốt”, emotive adjectives “tởm lợm”
and pronouns “ má này”, “cái đứa mà”. Many derogatory terms were applied to
describe their hostile attitudes toward Tran Thanh in particular, and artists “lũ
nghệ sĩ”, “bọn ca sĩ bọn diễn viên” in general. The pronouns "bọn" and "lũ"
which were previously used to refer to animals are now used to generalize about
artists with awful characteristics. This assertion undervalues and denigrates
those who work in the entertainment industry.

Moreover, the post’s title and content from “Xem báo online” clearly
demonstrated Branum and Charteris-Black’s finding (2015) that “The reporting
strategies that the newspapers use are connected to their ideological views and
those of the audience they are targeting” when presenting the writer's combative
stance on Tran Thanh's behavior by mentioning “vạch mặt” or “thay đen đổi
trắng”, “phải đi học một khóa tư tưởng”, and “tội nghiệp những khán giả”
instead of reclaiming the original text. The writer aimed to target Tran Thanh’s
haters and provoke them to condemn and boycott his work. In addition, not only
Tran Thanh and his work but CGV Dong Khoi’s customer service where the
drama started lost its reputation when constantly being rated 1 star on its google
page (Photo 6). As opposed to it, there are still some encouraging comments for
Tran Thanh, and waiting for his response to comprehend the situation and his
attitude such as “mọi chuyện còn chưa rõ ràng. Không nên nghe từ một phía,
càng không nên chuyện nọ xọ chuyện kia. Phim hay thì coi, không kể là phim
của ai.”

4.2. Comments after the story was revealed

The truth of the incident began to reveal when I saw the post (Photo 7) from
Kim Nhung, the woman with her handicapped mother referenced in Nguyen
Vinh's article. From an experiencer’s viewpoint, she explained that there were
still seats in the showtime - 11:20 p.m, that they even did not need to make a
line since there was a small number of customers in the cinema, and that they
went to the cinema before Vinh and his girlfriend so they did not receive the
priority from Vinh. This was different from what Vinh expressed in his post and
drastically altered the course of the narrative. Furthermore, CGV’s manager
(Photo 13) and Box Office Vietnam gave vindication for Tran’s Thanh payment
for a private cinema theatre (Photos 8&9). Later Tran Thanh finally presented
his own justifications for his behavior (Photos 10,11&12).

To summarize the participants' explanations, Tran Thanh followed the

regulations to reserve a private theater and was invited to another line at the box
office to get the tickets from the cashier. He did not hustle to take the tickets as
Vinh claimed and the film he watched was at 11:10 p.m. As statistics from Box
Office Vietnam, the showtime was also a demonstration for his booking when
“Siêu lầy gặp siêu lừa”, the film Vinh wanted to watch, was not released at
11:10 p.m but 11:20 p.m for public theatre. Therefore, we can extrapolate the
idea that Nguyen Vinh who initiated this drama, somehow wanted to promote
his image to the public by fabricating the narrative and ruining Tran Thanh's
reputation. Specifically, after his post was shared by famous Facebook pages,
and other involved characters’ justifications in the story were posted, he
attempted to share inflammatory posts claiming he had told the truth (Photos
14&15) but did not show any evidence for his statement. Additionally, he used
equivocal languages: “Vipp không cần hướng dẫn đổi suất, đừng xin lỗi mình
làm gì”, “Vinh không nói hai lời” and the contradictory statement “nếu đặt app
đã không thấy ghế trống, nếu còn chỗ mình đã không phải về”, which again
questions his sharing’s trustworthiness. His purpose might be watching in the
same theater as Tran Thanh and being given two free tickets from CGV.

4.3. The relationship between “Fake news” and “Cyberbullying”

This situation is indicative of the expansion of “Fake news” on social media.

Allcott& Gentzkow (2016) defined “Fake news” which was purposely and
verifiably false to induce readers to believe misleading information (p.213).
From the same original story, it was retold and presented in a different way;
thus, news consumers with no prior knowledge of the events were misled. As in
the story above, this led to thousands of offensive comments about Tran Thanh
and his work. Noticeably, right after the truth of the story was revealed, to show
their dissatisfaction with his misleading sharing, people attacked Nguyen Vinh's
Facebook page and insulted him like “thằng đàn bà lấy cái váy mà mặc”, “ngu
thật”, “bố mẹ cho ăn học chắc quên dạy đạo làm người” (Photos 14, 15&16).
These comments strongly represented “cyberbullying” defined as “the act of
deliberately and repetitively harming or hurting someone through digital devices
such as mobile phones and online platforms, including text messages, emails,
blogs, social media, listservs, and others” (Rezayi et al., 2018, p.7). Audiences
abused the right to freedom of speech to offend others without being aware of
the origin of the situation. Furthermore, a notable aspect of how people
consume news on social media platforms is that they do not verify the
information’s reliability before forming an opinion; instead, they follow the
majority of users.
 5. Conclusion

In conclusion, cyberbullying tightly connects to fabricated news, particularly in

the era of technology, which was demonstrated in the drama above. This
requires cybersecurity regulations to prevent defamatory remarks that harm
other people's reputations as well as people’s awareness to verify the
information when consuming news.
II. DATA COLLECTION

Photos 1&2: Results from searching keywords” Trấn Thành bao rạp”

Photo 3: Status of Nguyễn Vinh complaining about Trấn Thành paying for a
private theater without leaving two seats for the writer and his girlfriend
Photo 4: Comments under Bí mật showbiz’s post about Nguyễn Vinh’s status

Photo 5: Xem báo online’s post and its comments

 Photo 6: CGV’S Vincom Center Đồng Khởi being rated 1 star

Photo 7: Facebook post of the woman with her mothers using the wheelchair
(Photo 8&9: Box Office Vietnam’s post about private theatre Tran Thanh paid)
Photo 10,11 &12: Tran Thanh’s explanation post
 Photo 13: CGV manager's explanations for the situation

Photos 14& 15: Vinh’s posts after other involved characters’ justifications
Photos 16, 17, 18, 19&20: Some typical comments out of 11,000 comments on
Nguyễn Vinh’s Facebook after the truth of the drama revealed
III. REFERENCE LIST

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016
Election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211 - 236.
https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Bí mật showbiz (2023, March 2). Facebook. Retrieved from:

https://www.facebook.com/bmsb.vnn/photos/a.1136179069848621/290301955
3164555/

Box office Vietnam (2023, March 4). LÀM SAO ĐỂ ĐẠP ĐỔ LÝ LẼ CỦA ANH

TRẤN THÀNH? Facebook. Retrieved from:

https://www.facebook.com/boxofficevietnam/posts/pfbid02HhvCRewF2cCR1
mqBXwSB3uXJdxnEzFc4oM2KdqJraMYLk24Z5SoAz5WAM2toWerrl

Branum, J. and Charteris-Black, J. (2015). The Edward Snowden affair: A

corpus study of the British press, Discourse & Communication, 9(2), 199–220.
Mooney, A., & Evans, B. (2019). Language, Society&Power An Introduction.
(5th ed.). Routledge. https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019738

Nguyễn Vinh (2023, March 2). Facebook. Retrieved from:

https://www.facebook.com/moazh.ump/posts/pfbid07zHXEueZ9MvY7TXkcW
itFNn9kgRQqsYchgztxAw1G31UUoV6aKm25cfwazHxb33Hl

Nhung, K. (2023, March 3). Facebook. Retrieved from:

https://www.facebook.com/kimnhung910/posts/pfbid02ookVwW8RwhABr3F
dBFtPRf7qv6aqmtPK4w9VAgPDG934YsYYxgxwn4f7AVeciqz5l
Phương H. T. (2023, March 3). Nhà rạp nói về việc Trấn Thành bao nguyên rạp có
đúng quy trình? danviet.vn. Retrieved from:
https://danviet.vn/nha-rap-noi-ve-viec-tran-thanh-bao-nguyen-rap-co-dung-quy
-trinh-2023030311212399.htm
Rezayi, S. et al., "Fake News and Cyberbullying in the Modern Era," 2018
International Conference on Computational Science and Computational
Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2018, 7-12.
https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCI46756.2018.00010
Thành, T. (2023, March 3). Facebook. Retrieved from:
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sy8aVWRYNGDMwQ6qcurKeRaAxFbHdS7VZ7GG4frZ5YQeUBnl