The Media Power Of Historical Reflection, Critique And Reconstruction

The paper classifies the thought history of "media power" into "European and American" developments, in the analysis of the two different developments, summarizes the primary opinions and theories about "media power" research in the history of communication as a discipline, and compares and reviews the two different theoretical customs from such dimensions as methodology, research fields, research perspectives, and theoretical objectives. The paper suggests that the most significant problem of "media power" research is the special situation that "media power" research in the communication history has neglected the "power" itself, and either has done the "media" in "media power". In view of this situation, the paper, adopting "ideal type" of sociological methods, implies three different ideal types of media power as "interests-conflict model", "authority-legalization model", "Foucault model", and expounds the phylogenic conditions of the three types of media power from the four dimensions: speed, calculability, cost of access to information and communication channel. The paper concludes that media power is a power pattern with many forms and features, and it needs innovative understanding and construction according to different technical and practical conditions. Especially under the conditions of the Internet, as media power have undergone essential changes in its nature, media power is no longer such a.simple relation as control, but a power relation prevailing everywhere in society, constantly generating, productive and positive. Not only the power pattern is various in its form, but the pattern is undergoing transformation in its nature. Media power is actually transforming itself from a power which is solely suppression, control or dominance, to a power pattern which contains simultaneously those controversial relations: suppression and production, negativity and positivity, and pessimism and enthusiasm.