Cultural Study Of Chinese Media Consumerism Since 1990

We are facing an era of mass consumption as the post war prosperity and technological revolution going into depth with U.S. as the leading power. As a cultural value and a lifestyle prevalent in western countries, consumerism takes consumption as the source of life significance through which people identify themselves and express themselves. Consumption becomes the priority of life. The symbolic value of consumption is given prominence in that the goal of people's consumption is no longer for actual need, but for satisfying the constantly created desires.In a specific sense, globalization is the globalization of consumerism as consumerism paved the way for the globalization of capitals. Consumerism serves as the cultural dynamics of globalization and the core of cultural globalization with advertising and such media as television running as the locomotive and promoter for the ideology of consumerism to spread throughout the world.The culture of consumerism becomes an inevitable social reality in China since 1990s with the ongoing process of cultural globalization and the social, economic and cultural transformation in China brought force by media market reformation. Here, the culture of consumption is restricted to the commercialized media and excludes the party newspapers in a traditional sense.Consumerism of media refers to the spreading of consumerism values and lifestyles, which exert direct effects on social life and daily consumption, and the alternative form of consumerism in which the media under the drive of economic profits organize themselves around the consumability of the product (media content) and for the goal of consumption. The consumerism of media of their own is interrelated with the media transmission of the ideology of consumerism which becomes a conspiracy between media and social consumption. The cultural manifestation of consumerism in China since 1990: the staple content of media content has shifted from social production to social consumption; the primary image of media has changed from the pre-reform"heroes in production"to the"idols of consumption"in the circle of entertainment and physical sports. The function of media becomes providing entertainment, no longer propaganda. The symbols of media have transformed from written words to images. The spreading of consumerism by media is primarily realized by such typical media and media content as fashion magazines with characteristics of consumerism. These magazines provide guidance for peoples'lives by cultivating such values as tastes, standards, fashion and individuality. Advertising advocates a cult for commodity by creating a miracle of consumption. Various TV dramas offer audience illusionary life experiences through those magnificent and splendid characters. News coverage on Pop stars fashions the way of consumption. TV entertainment programs are committed to the production for sensory pleasure. The emotion column of newspapers gives an outlet for feelings which aims at satisfying people's need to peep at other's privacy.Consumerism has penetrated into media when they commit themselves to the spreading of consumerism. On this process, media themselves have undergone certain changes: news providers are the information transmitters and monitors of the environment in the original sense as well as the promoter of media product and marketable commodities. The public are viewed as the consumer of media content and marketable products who enjoy the media public services. The commercial logic of media production and consumption enters into media and functions in the context of consumerism. Thus, the former notion of production guiding consumption becomes consumption guiding production. The process of media content creation centers around consumability, which gives priority to cost-profit consideration. It invariably leads to the changes in media mechanism in terms of operating ideology, institutional arrangement, production process and narrating modality. The operating ideology has changed from a planned economy to a market economy, in which the news production is organized by abiding the market laws. Institutional arrangement aims to realize the goal of market management: the emphasis on the importance of sales department, the setup of evaluation system based on news consumability, the cost-profit consideration has a decisive say on such matters as for whom media work, what media produce, and not produce and how they produce. The pursuit for consumablility highlights media's preference for a narrating modality on conflicts. A series of operating mechanism changes has brought new looks for media culture.A cautious attitude is taken in evaluation of consumerism. The mushrooming of Chinese popular culture is a byproduct of China's opening-up and modernization process. At the beginning, consumerism disintegrated the pan-political ideology and justified the secular life, which is of great significance. However, consumerism demonstrates its weakness: the lifestyle of consumerism is not sustainable in terms of resources and ecological environment. Consumerism exerts manipulative control over people's mindset, exacerbating the position competition and the unconstrained lust for commodities incurred. Consequentially, consumerism by no means improves people's live in a fundamental sense. Moreover, it deconstructs the traditional virtues and values to such a degree that the Chinese culture orientation becomes a great concern. Consumerism is ruining the original cultural traits of media, diminishing the nobility and profoundness of media and eliminating cultural diversity while releasing people's hidden desires and increasing media attractiveness. Media consumerism has a direct bearing on media marketization. Media marketization liberates media productivity long hampered, while leads to market failure and market dis-functioning due to the negative external factors and imperfect internal media market.Media consumerism is to be perceived against the background of globalization and societal transition in China. It helps explore the complexity of culture in a dialectical sense and probe into the possibility of healthy and sustainability of media.