Grassroots Media: Resisted The Construction Of Identity In Social Transformation

Marginal groups are seldom considered or regarded as the subject of media productionrather than as the object in the mass media representation and being moulded by the dominantculture and professionalism. However during the process of social transformation andtechnology innovation, migrant workers of ethnic groups autonomously produce their ownvideos, such as Hmong videos produced by people from Hmong region in Western Guizhouusing their own dialect, and circulated and consumed inside Hmong community. Theseautonomous video production activities indicate that marginal groups change the roledefinition in the media production and utilization with their subjectivity, initiative andcreativity. The key issue this paper is trying to explore is: during the social transformation,how marginal groups break the structural constraints to develop their own media productionand renew and reconstruct their collective identity?This paper describes and interprets the Hmong video communication practice conductedby Hmong migrant workers from western Guizhou, to probe into the relationships between theautonomous media production and collective identity construction of this marginal group andsocial transformation. Based on the multi-site ethnography of Hmong video communicationprocess in Guizhou and Fujian, this study firstly describes the production and circulationprocess of Hmong video; secondly illustrates the cross-space group network created byHmong migrant workers via Hmong video; thirdly specifies the process that Hmong migrantworkers use Hmong video to renew and reconstruct their ethnic identity and tradition andfinally through exploring the forms, production conditions and functions of Hmong videos,presents that Hmong video is a grassroots media beyond mass cultural industry andprofessionalism. The author argues that there exists an autonomous collective mediaproduction—grassroots media besides mass media and alternative media. Grassroots mediareveals itself as a media produced by marginal groups themselves in the process of socialtransformation and it shapes their resistance identities with local culture as its core.This study for the first time takes migrant workers of ethnic groups as the subject of mediaproduction, leading to the expansion of development communication theory and practice inChina. It recognizes the production, utilization, circulation and development of videos madeby migrant workers of ethnic groups and presents a possibility to act and alternative space tooperate beyond mass media. The paper interprets that as the subject of media production, howthe migrant workers of ethnic groups self-construct their ethnic identities, their resistanceidentities in particular, using video production and consumption. This study tries to explore the issues using multi-site ethnography based on the full discussion of relevant research ethicsand grassroots media theory is further addressed and developed. It also provides importantcases for the empirical study of Chinese communications.