The Development And Cultural Problems Of We Media

Since its emergence, We Media has overturned the traditional"sending-receiving"model of information transmission in multi-media. In We Media, the audiences are not merely the receivers of the information, at the same time they are also the producers and creators of the free information. An individual has gained an unparalleled dominant position in the information production and exchanging, in which We Media has dispelled the distinction between the propagator and the audience, and has created a new model of information dissemination. There are three remarkable traits in We Media: 1) The agent of We Media is the ordinary public rather than professional Media organizations. 2) The development of We Media relies on that of the digital and network technology. 3) Third-party Web sites provide the platforms for the We Media. With the development of information technology, various forms of We Media have been flourishing: blog, micro blog, digg, wiki, podcasting, packshower, personal homepage, BBS, E-mail. Instant messaging tools like QQ, MSN also fall into the category of We Media. This thesis firstly makes a definition of We Media and makes further explanations about relevant concepts of We Media. Compared with the traditional multi-media, this thesis also attempts to highlight the unique traits of We Media.McLuhan has pointed that:"Media is a basic motivation of social development; every newborn media can bring out a novel method of perception and recognition of the world for human beings."The influence of We Media upon our method of information dissemination is self-evident. In 2002, the birth of"China blog"marked the emergence of blog in China. In this thesis, the author regards this historic event as the first step of We Media in China. During no more than 10 years, We Media has made a remarkable development in China; the number of users in Blog, podcasting and micro blog is increasing rapidly, and these new forms of We Media are penetrating into various aspects of the society. Taking the historical development course of We Media in China as a sample, this thesis firstly approves the positive influence on Chinese society. Via the analysis on this sample, the author points out that We Media contributes to the promotion of social equality in China; it impulses the reformation of traditional media, optimizing the media ecosystem; it expedites the development of economy to some extent.However, in the light of the striking differences of national condition, cultural tradition, and management of Media between United States and China, recreational, peripheral blogs like Mu Zimei dominate the market of We Media in China, comparing with the significant social influence of political blogs in the United States. As the booming of We Media, the discourse power of public is unleashed, forming a unique grass-rooted culture of We Media's own. Meanwhile, the consequent cultural issues such as superficiality and kitsch, being sequacious, information fragmentation, have passive effect on the society. In the last part of the thesis, the author attempts to give some reasons for these issues mentioned above, and proposes some countermeasure for dealing with these issues.