Production Of "Consumption Elite" Space: Construction Of Media Pseudo Consumption Environment In The Field Of Power

Semiotic environment constructed by media consumption information, together with natural and social environment, constitutes the space where we live in. However, current researches on one single media cannot reflect the survival condition of human being’s media-controlled existence completely. The existing studies on the types and communication approaches of media consumption information in Chinese context are not specific enough, while severe criticism over consumerism in western theories hinders researchers’ systematic thinking of the relationship among the communication of media consumption information, economy, politics, technology and society. This thesis intends to analyze the communication of media consumption information in China since the 1990s from the perspective of pseudo-environment, which will provide a new path and an integral thinking space for the reseaches in this field.This thesis proposes the new concept "pseudo consumption environment" which is regarded as a sub-environment of pseudo environment, focusing itself on the production of consumption elite space in the field of media power in the perspective of social space. According to the analysis of the main componential factors of the media pseudo consumption environment, such as advertisement, film, teleplay and media of life and fashion,the author investigates the following issues:the basic types and mechanism of media pseudo consumption environment, production of consumption elite space in the mixed condition of mirror-image and reality, constructive motivation of media pseudo consumption environment and its influence on news and audience fields. What’s more,the approach of text analysis is adopted in this thesis to explore the construction, operation and production of media consumption information on the basis of cultural study and media political economics, as well as a sociological approach to find its political and economic choroids after the formation of media texts, in order to analyze the texts, organizations, audience and other elements of the media more comprehensively. Based on the reflections over the link between media form and content in the mutual structural relationships, this thesis tries to provide a relative reseach path of society-media-individuals’daily life practice and analyze the pattern of complex types and dynamic links in the field of media consumption information communication between the state and the market, the state and various social groups, and the market and different social classes.The author argues that media pseudo consumption environment is the combination of both media content and form. And the transformation of communication mode from communicator-oriented to audience-oriented, along with the rise of popular culture, is the important occurrence mechanism during the formation stage of the media pseudo consumption environment. Media pseudo consumption environment adopts a series of meaning construction devices with the purpose of constructing a mirror of happy life and producing a certain social knowledge system which is in accordance with its capital logic. The production of "consumption elite" space is dependent on social stratification. It appeals to the cultural taste and beauty appreciation of China’s new social classes and puts the communication of consumption information into a certain context so as to seek a more global and modern way of life by different media instruments, which owns an obvious tendency of consumerism. Consumption elite space is the result of action subjects’ continued competition and negotiation in terms of their economic and cultural strength. The consumption discourse constructed by media pseudo consumption environment has a more natural and convenient influence on journalistic fields which would soften the field of hard news in the traditional sense. What’s more, media pseudo consumption environment brings the distant life into the audience’s daily life causing a profound effect upon their ideology and daily life.However, there is a fracture in China’s real consumption environment:on one hand, there exists a group of consumption elites who are tempted by the society fiercely; on the other hand, a group of humans who are entangled with the reality and kinds of temptations, but they still indulge themselves in the consumption of culture. In this case, the gap between the mirror image and reality, and the difference between different realities result in the disharmony of the society. Meanwhile, the tendency of consumerism in media pseudo consumption environment and its influence on mass media, daily life and other fields narrow the social expression into individuals’everyday life which impedes the function of mass media in much wider social problems. In a word, there is still a long way to go to balance the double identity of the media:market subject and "environment supervisor". Among the various reseach approaches, the author here emphasizes the significance of the rising of life politics on the ecological optimization of media pseudo consumption environment.