On The Media Changes And Literature Evolution

On traditional view, the media just is the channels or tools for information transmission; there are not substantive effect to the creation and acceptance of literary. Literary scholars also pay more consideration to the factors of politics, economy, religion, education and other aspects when they study the process of the literary evolution. To be sure, these factors have already had profound effect on literature, but the media's influence also can not be ignored. First of all, the media experienced the process of the evolution by words of mouth, the tortoise shells, bones, metals, stones, bamboos, fine silks, newspapers, broadcasts, films, televisions, networks and mobile phones, and the literature correspondingly experienced the evolution of oral literature, written literature and the network literature etc. Second, in the process of media types gradually increased, culture's educational functions have been achieved, and literature is widespread for the public and is not only controlled by the elite. Third, the inherent characteristics of different media endow different meanings to the development of literature and have a subtle and important impact to the rhetorical of literature. Finally, the development of the ancient literature is based on the ancient media, and with the born of modern media, the existence basis of the ancient literature is changed, which also change the destiny of literature, and bring the literature into a new field.In recent years, with the growing prosperity of the communication, literature researchers gradually begin to scan the literature on the aspect of the media's communication, they find that the media and the literature are closely linked since ancient times, and the media is not only the external channels of material transmission also one of the important dimensions of the literature itself. Media has achieved the information transmission of literary meaning and also contributed to a fundamental change in literary form. And, with the advent of information age, the literature are gradually influenced by media, it not only make the literary enlarged that contains movie literature, network literature and other new members but also let the status of literature declined, and the literature's spiritual consumption become as common as food and clothing that what is more and more generalized. As the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan said: the media is an extension of the human body. So even the literature can not be separated from the media for a moment, in order to meet the new media forms which are the continuous extension of the human sense organs, the shape of the literature is adjusted continuously. This kind of trend will continue to be prolonged in the future development of the literature.The article is written by the influence of this idea, and it is divided into five parts. In order to state it conveniently, the first chapter discusses the media period which is associated with the literature, and lead the period of the communication media into the literature. The carrier of literature communication will be included and give the reasons from four areas which are the spoken media, word media, print media and electronic media. On the aspect of the media, the second chapter will be divided into three periods that are oral literature, written literature and electronic literature, and literature is generally divided according to the born time of the literature and the nature of the literature carrier. And each stage are analyzed and summarized according to the basic features of literature. From the third chapter to the fifth chapter, the text respectively discusses the literature's development in the past, present and future. Among them, the third chapter talks about literature in the past and describe the era of the literature media when it is not abundant, literature's spread is limited because of media's undeveloped. It was always mastered in the hands of a few elite, and even literature was monopolized that it was still closely combined with politics. Literature attached to politics, and literature also was the tool of politics. Then with the media become more and more abundant and easy to carry, then the status of literature declined, the audience are increasing and the popularity of literature are improving. The fourth chapter discusses the present literature. Analysis of the main measures of literary communication while the modern printing entered into China from classical Chinese to vernacular, from profound and elegant to simple and popular. Then it discusses the broadcasts, films, televisions, computers, mobile phones and the appearance of the other media, the literary forms become more abundant and diverse, and depending on the power of communication, every area of the human's life have been affected by the literature. The fifth chapter discusses the future literature. On the basis of the analysis of the past and present literature, there is a bold prediction on the future development trend of literature in this chapter, in terms of change and unchangeableness in the future media society, language space is squeezed and virtual reality is replaced both by the pictures, and a new literature form will appear while many unknown secret is clearly viewed in front of the electronic media.In short, the author hopes to scan the functions of the media's changes during the literary evolution, to arousing more extensive attentions and make a little contribution in the field of literary studies.