Media Culture And Leisure Alienation

Leisure is a combination of leisure individual's all wholesome inner experience and behavior which seek for physical and spiritual pleasure, happiness, satisfaction and self-development under a free state, that is, getting away from shackles of the outside world. Therefore, leisure is a way of human existence or a way of life, which represents human's value of existence in a large degree. It is closely linked to the ontological significance of human being. Needless to say, since China's reform and opening up to the world, we Chinese people have had a great improvement in leisure field. However, in a dialectical view, in the era which epicureanism and consumerism prevail, there really exist many problems for modern leisure. The leisure alienation phenomenon is one of them. Leisure alienation refers to the externalization and materialization of the essence of leisure, that is, the leisure disobeys its essence and laws and achieves an opposite goal of leisure. Leisure alienation means modern people's leisure mode is more and more getting away from spirit level, and increasingly slides to the common entertainment or consumption activities, which are complete departure from the initial meaning of leisure. It can not only make people fail to be self-developed or self-realized, but also become a huge obstacle for people's self-development and self-realization. Alienation of contemporary leisure focus mainly in three aspects:first, the entertainmentalization of leisure; second, the consumptionization of leisure; third, the standardization of leisure. Meanwhile, these three types of alienation phenomena have a close relationship with the contemporary mass media culture. One is severely affected by another. In modern society, media culture has become the center of social culture and the culture soil we live in. Whether as the leisure activity itself, or the communicator and strengthener of leisure idea and leisure mode, media culture has a great impact on modern people's leisure attitudes and choices. Influenced by media culture, modern leisure is increasingly in the same direction with media culture. And all problems which exist in media culture will show up on modern leisure. Some typical representatives of mass media culture, such as advertising, fashion magazines, youth drama, star reports, lifestyle reports, television variety shows, music, MTV, etc. are continuously instilling and demonstrating for the public the standard leisure models with the emphasis on entertainment and consumption. And people are willing to accept and imitate the leisure models provided by media because they cater to the public taste of easy happiness. Although, the media culture, with features of entertainmentalization, consumptionization and standardization, is not the only factor to lead to or enhance leisure alienation, it has an impact of decisive significance on modern leisure in the era of mass communication. In short, the media culture has been promoting and enhancing the alienation of modern leisure. In fact, it is the entertaining media culture itself that influences and determines leisure's entertainmentalization. It is the consumptionization of media culture that guides and promotes the consumptionization of leisure. And it is the standardization of media culture that deepens and leads to the standardization of leisure. Therefore, to build an ideal leisure life, if only from the angle of the audience themselves and their attitudes of how to deal with the media culture, there are two aspects needed at least:first, to develop the audience's critical media literacy; the second is to actively use the excellent leisure ideas and models both in Chinese traditional culture and western cultures for reference, finding out what are available and improving the modern leisure.