A Study On The Influence Of Television On The Change Of Rural Life Style

Since the reforming and opening up, the Chinese rural society has changed comprehensively and profoundly. First of all, the change of rural life style can reflect such changes. There is a complex dynamic mechanism behind the changes of rural life style, and television, as a modern media, plays an great important role. As the "characterization" of modern life, television entered the village since the late 80's of 20th century, and began to be popularized gradually since the late 90's of the 20th century. The popularization of television has brought a wide-ranging and profound impact on changes of rural life style.The researcher, based on the specific situation of the rural living world, intend to outline a detailed picture of the television's impact and function on the rural residents'life style from four levels that are leisure, household life, communication and consumption. Taking the study strategy into consideration, in this paper, the researcher divide the changes of rural residents'life style into two periods, that are Previous TV Era and TV Era, and describe the life style in two periods respectively. After analyzing the life styles of two "Eras", two results are found. First, as a pure existence, television reorganize the daily life style of the rural residents from two dimensions that are time and space. It not only occupies the major part of people's leisure time, but also, in some extent, collapses the traditional way of collective culture and entertainment in rural society so that it speeds up the trend of "privatization of public space"; Second, through transmitting all kinds of modern information, television has been reducing or even melting the time and space isolation between urban and rural areas gradually. At the same time, in the process of transferring a large number of modern knowledge, living information and values to the rural residents, television has also broadened the vision of rural residents. Besides, it helps to construct a modern value or a modern spirit in rural areas. For instance, those changes, in Chinese rural areas, such as the equality of gender, the democratization of the family, the rationalization of communication, and the opening up of consumption, etc. embody a trend of construction of the modern spirit. All in all, it is a role of "catalyst" that television has played in the prosess of change of Chinese rural life style.