A Study On Media Rituals Of Disaster News

Abstract:Using the slogan of "We are all**people" has become an unique phenomenon after the disaster.What is the relationship between the slogan and the medium?This article concerns on this phenomenon and the response for this meta-problem.This article argues that the social integration of "we are all**people" is caused by media rituals.Therefore,the meta-problem in this paper is embedded into the discussion of the disaster media rituals.As the combination concept of communication and anthropological concepts,there is a research tradition of the media rituals more than 40 years.However,the researchers have studied more on the perspective of communication and ignored the anthropological perspective,resulting in that the relationship between media rituals and social integration is directly borrowed from which lies between rituals and social integration and that there is no exploration about the internal logic and operating mechanism between them.This article attempts to return to the scene of anthropological ritual research,and then look back at the relationship between media rituals and social integration.Through the study of classical works of anthropological ritual,this paper argues that the "symbol" and"emotion" emphasized by anthropologists in ritual research are ignored by media rituals researchers,they act as the lubricants and binders in the interaction of media rituals and social integration.Therefore,this article attempts to salvage the "symbol" and "emotional" concepts from anthropological ritual studies.Meanwhile,combining with Sociology of Emotion,it aims at making up and refining the symbolic and emotional logic between media rituals and social integration.This article mainly studies through the literature combing method,taking a Case of Wenchuan Earthquake News,to study the media rituals of disaster news in six chapters.The first chapter mainly discusses the causes of the disaster news media rituals.Disaster news media rituals is mainly caused by both social and media reasons:people in disaster are accustomed to seeking rituals to deal with disasters.But modern media-oriented societies have led traditional rituals to be transplanted into the medium or replaced by the media.Therefore,modem people in the crisis turning to media rituals is the social reason;The tradition of researching media rituals has been long.Its inner reason lies in the heterogeneous isomorphism between the medium and the ritual.Even though they are different forms of culture,they are symbols of the system.And there is an intrinsic link between each.As a result,it can ensure the legitimacy of the media rituals,and that is the media reason.The second chapter mainly elaborates three functions of disaster news media rituals.According to the relationship between the media and the rituals,media rituals can be divided into three different functions:"ritual","defined" and "propaganda".The "ritual" refers to the presentation of the traditional rituals of news reports;The "defined" refers to the news reports by giving facts to meaning,to narrative ritualistic and finally makes the facts coincide with the three stages of "separation","marginal" and "polymerization".The media "propaganda" refers to the media itself as a ritual.According to the actual situation of the media,it can be divided into physical rituals and virtual rituals.The audience rites about the ritual,or enters the virtual ritual.The third chapter mainly analyzes the production elements of disaster news media rituals.The media rituals mainly produce social time,social space and symbolism.After completion,the audience can be summoned to the rituals space and symbols,and ultimately complete the production of itself.Ritual time and ritual space are socialized.They are the condensation of relationship and emotional.So they have the effect of social integration;Symbolic,as the basic elements of the media rituals,constitutes a symbol system.At the same time,it can play the effect of transmission and separation.All three elements take effect through the emotional logic.Social integration is the same share based on the sharing and recognition of them.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the operation fulcrum of the disaster news media rituals.The media rituals act through the inner feelings of the audience.According to the number of the audience and the depth of emotional role,it can be divided into the feelings fulcrum and emotional fulcrum.The media rituals first acts on the individual's emotional fulcrum,awakening the personal audience's short-lived emotions;and then acts on the audience's strengthened internal feelings,to get the emotional recognition within the group.Ultimately,personal and group emotions resonate in the media rituals,and get their own legalization,and thus promote and support the media rituals exhibition.The chapter five focuses on the effectiveness of the disaster news media rituals.The effect of media rituals is not one-sided or one-way.Otherwise,they can always be accompanied.Taking the New Durkheim doctrine as the standard,the effect can be divided into positive and negative effects.Strong effects include soothing fear,discipline emotion and the order reversion;Weak effects include media rituals mixed with secondary fears,making emotional opposition and leading to continuous accountability.The strong and weak effects of the media rituals show the integration and confrontation between opposing sides in the emotional logic.The sixth chapter mainly discusses the positive and negative motive force of disaster news media rituals.Unlike the endogenous run fulcrum,this force of the media rituals is the strength which exists external the subject,mainly from the cultural and social structure.Their needs for emotion constitute positive force of media rituals,or the suppress constitute negative force.However,the culture and social structure always have a demand for emotion and rationality,the media can reconcile the driving force and the reactionary power of the media rituals through the reorganization of the interpersonal relationship.Through the above six parts of the discussion,this paper attempts to clarify:In the process of social integration leading by media rituals,symbolism and emotion play an important role.Symbol is the most essential element of a media rituals,which builds a media rituals as a symbolic system;At the same time,symbol has a "feeling level",to stimulate the audience's emotions,so the ultimate role of the media rituals lies on emotion,it goes through symbolic and the emotional logic to play the role of social integration.Therefore,the media rituals,symbolic,emotional and social integration concrete a complete action process.In the post-emotional society,emotions become false and cheap;and in the post-truth era,the emotion can control people's soul more than the truth.In the society and era which absence of sincere feelings and great influence of emotional,media rituals should play their role in awakening,stimulating,producing and dispatching emotions,contributing to building a society of emotional civilization.Meanwhile,the media ritxuals research is also the continuation for the Confucian thought,is the recognition and respection of the traditional culture.Therefore,the media rituals and its emotional communication logic research not only has practical significance,but also has the historical value.