A Study On The Construction Of Chinese Collective Memory In Spring Festival Evening

Since 1983, the annual CCTV Spring Festival gala will be staged at Lunar New Year’s Eve as scheduled. For thirty-two years (1983-2014), the show accompanied the generations grow up, brought great joy, and also created a part of Chinese nation’s collective memory. In the sacred time of Chinese Spring Festival, the show constructs imagined community of Chinese nation through stereotyped narrative mode and isomorphic country-home structure, and reaches consensus on values of audience successfully by extending national memory and repeated expression. At the same time, the show arouses emotional resonance of all the groups through group interaction. According to Maurice Halbwachs, memory is socially constructed. The reason why the Spring Festival gala can persist for more than 30 years and so that become our collective memory is closely connected with the unique position in the mind of Chinese people shaped by the show. From the need of spiritual liberation at the beginning of Reform and Opening up to the need of condensed national identity in the 21st century of social transition period, the Spring Festival Gala makes great efforts to build up collective memory in the world Chinese group. Although the show plays an important role in the stability of social order and national identity, it dilutes traditional Spring Festival culture and also disrupts the heritage of China’s culture.As time changes, people’s collective memory of the Spring Festival gala gradually degrade. With the plural social ideology and the rise of individual voice, people get tired of the show and try to move away from it, which makes the collective memory of the Spring Festival gala weaker and weaker. However, whether the show can continue to maintain Chinese people’s collective memory in the future is closely related to its adaptation to the times.