Discourse Construction And Communication Practice Of "Alternative Development"

Led by the western developed world, the modern development paradigm which focused onmodernity and aimed at economic growth in terms of social development was widely doubtedsince1970s. Many government departments, non-profit organizations and non-governmentalorganizations began to reexamine social and cultural factors of development and launched orsupported alternative development projects which stressed on social justice, environmentalprotection, fair trade and sustainable development, e.g. community supported agriculture (CSA).This paper selected Little Donkey Farm--one of the earliest established and the most matureCSA farm in China--as the case, to discuss the method, process and effect of informationtransmission in alternative development in terms of discourse practices and social actions. Toavoid the view of “communication Essentialism”, this research didn’t take the communicationactions as object of study and give some general descriptions on CSA communication practice.Instead, it interpreted CSA practice as a whole development discourse case and tried to discusshow new development discourse or development logic was discussed and practiced under the localcontext. Based on critical discourse analysis on field data, this research found out that:(1) at thetext dimension, Little Donkey Farm clearly expressed its “institution discourses” such as“agricultural production which respects the nature”,“sustainable consumption method”,“urban-rural mutual help”,“reconstruct the connection between nature and human beings”, etc.(2)at the discourse practice dimension, information communication involved in the whole process oftext production, transmission and reception; communication and interaction among differentparticipants formed a discourse space full of tensions.(3) at the social practice dimension,discourse practice and collective actions of the farm were constructed and restricted by socialreality. Meanwhile, it might challenge the existing ideology and power relation and influence onparticipants’ identity and subjective construction. It then further pointed out that discourse was adynamic constructive process;“alternative” and “mainstream” of development discourse were notconstant. Communication was a basic process of discourse practice as well as basic organized rulein collective action. Under special historical and social context, different media forms andcommunication forms were helpful for social organizations to resist, redefine or re-negotiate withdevelopment discourse.From the perspective of Polanyi’s Double Movements, CSA was a “protective countermovement” which resisted the disembedding of market economy. Its local practice showcasedconstructive reforming power in transformed China. This paper focused on CSA’s informationcommunication in local practice of its method, process and effect. It produced experience and knowledge on communication activities and significances of development practice and enrichedand extended research subjects of development communications in China, especially incommunication and rural development issues. Furthermore, it increased visibility of alternativedevelopment discourse and its practice as well as expanded CSA’s cultural implications and actionspace. Additionally, it introduced discourse analysis theory and put it at the intersection point ofcultural study, social study and communication study and explored the entire communicationnetwork’s role in daily social cultural practice, which opened up a new relation field in media andsocial culture study to some degree.