Towards The Ritualized TV Programs

The early21st century saw the emergence of a new genre of TV program in China---"persons of the year",which achieved popularity across the country after its success in CCTV. At the same time, the provincial satellite TV stations, in order to catch the trend, also produced their own "Persons of the Year", and quickly became the main sponsors of these programs. On the whole,these programs, the ritualized news reports, shared a strong sense of public welfare.This paper, from the perspective of media ritual, in analyzing the whole process of these programs (including its preparation), try explain their social significance. These programs (persons of the year) were extolled by some as the greatest creation of the21st century’s TV propagandas, for they adapted a civilian strategy under which the common people can share the same arena with the celebrities. The marriage between the TV and ritual also win these programs unprecedented public attention. Considering their characteristics in operation and their influence on the audiences, we can classified these programs into media rituals in the broad sense.The birth of these programs is no accident:from the macro perspective, it is due to the mingled influence of the transformation of Chinese society, the change of the media conception and the evolution of TV program genre; while from the micro perspective, such programs attribute their birth and prosperity to the distorted social value, the breakthrough of the traditional report pattern. The writer of the paper, after personal participation in the program and textual analysis of the firsthand materials, first explain the preparation and the ritualized part of the program(the climax of the program), and then reproduce in the paper how the ritual was constructed.By the theory of symbol,the writer explain in the paper how the program was showed in a ritualized way and how the communication effects was achieved.By the analysis of Xindong, we can see that the program managed to construct the regional memory and exhibit the regional character of Anhui province in the program. At the some time, the programs also tried to reach the regional and national identification by which they intend to show their the respect to the region and the Chinese nation.In the programs, the symbols of "power" or "authority", be they are visible or not, and the core of the ritual---the value sense, constitute the very way to achieve social control compulsorily or not.What’s more, such program serve as a window by which we can see the social evolution in a particular region, and these programs will adjust to to those evolution and eventually mingle into the social memory.