From Utopia To Daily Life

This dissertation presents a probe into the represenation of gender-related repertoire in the mass media of Chineses mainland during 1995-2005. To be specific, against the background of mass media's market-orientedness and popular culture's secularization both of which are brought about by the social transformation, from the perspective of the gender theory, it reveals an investigation of the representation of the gender-related repertoires in present China's mass media, retracing the contesting and compromising between diverse social powers, such as country-related discourse, commercialism, feminism/gender-related discourse and traditional gender-related ideology.The first chapter is about the backgroud, giving a panarama of the historical and contemporay backgrouds for the representation of gender-related repertoire in China's mass media. The second chapter is the investigation of newspapers and in this chapter, among the party newspapers, mass newspapers and evenings, each of the three is selected as the stereotype and analysis is made about their narrativenss of genders and the representation of gender-related discourse. In the third chapter, each of the women's magazines of political publicity purpose, women's magazines about marital affairs and women' magazines about fashion and vogue is selected as the stereotype and repeat the above-mentioned analysis. In the fourth chapter, with a combination of gender, country and nationality, civilian caste and commercialized entertainment, an analysis is made about the representation and characteristics of gender-related discourse in four different kinds of Chinese realism films. In the fifth chapter, with a combination of gender, privileges, the transformation of economic structure and imagination of modernism, an analysis is made about representation and characteristics of the gender in three different types of Chinese realism TV serials during this decade. The sixth chapter is based on the description of the gender-related discourse in the internet as a whole and from the two different aspects of conscious representation of gender-related discourse in academic research and spontaneous representation of gender-related discourse with no special purpose, a probe is made into the possible room for the originating and spreading of gender-related discourse and the impending predicament.Through the research of the presentation of gender-related discourse in diverse media, a conclusion is arrived at in this dissertation that the representation ofgender-related repertoire in Chinese mass media in this decade can by no means be summed up as "progression" or "deterioration" presumptuously. Virtually, in this period, the representation of gender-related discourse is miscellaneous and manifold, which involves pessimism and optimism as well as hope and disappointment, and which interacts with the collision, substitution and interlapping between the neo and paleo conception of gender. It's in a status of progressing though alongside with of turns and twists.Two extrinsic reasons hold responsibility for this phenomenon: first, the multi-level mass media.Second, the representation of gender-related discourse is combined with that of other subjects characteristic of the social transformation (such as the vicissitude of economic structure and the communication between oriental and occidental cultures). The intrinsic reason is the underlying powers contest, combine and compromise of each media texts.And in this dissertation, the characteristics of the representation of gender-related repertoire in this decade are generalized as follows: the country-related discourse still remains dominant in some media with special purpose; the negative impact triggered by the overwhelming commercialization can by no means be ignored; the feminism/gender potential is expressed to some extent along with the process of female privileges' awareness awakening, the stimuli from the academic realm and the progression of feminist movement. All in all, this trend is relatively weak in the printings, TV and films, and is bogged in the internet, far from taking the dominance.Finally, in this dissertation, it can also be concluded that: From the heavenly paradise down to the earth, the future of the gender-related repertoire in the mass media lies in the result of contesting and compromising between the powers underlying the media products.