Research On Media Image Of Youth Model Under Changes Of Social Culture

Taking content analysis approach, this paper examines reports about youth model from1950to2009in China Youth and analyzes historical changes of Chinese youth model imageduring these sixty years. The purpose of this paper is to disclose the connection betweenmedia image construction and social and historical context as well as identify the essentialforces affecting media image construction.It is found that the media image construction about Chinese youth model in ChinaYouthhas undergone many significant changes. This paper describes the changing trend from sixaspects: physiological image, regional image, political image, knowledge image, occupationalimage, image of deeds and values. Combining political, economic, cultural and othercharacteristics of the different periods, it is obvious that the changes of the media imageconstruction about Chinese youth model are closely related to the social and historicalcontext.This study suggests that the youth model is the production of social construction. Mediaplays a vital role in this construction process. The concept of “field” is introduced to theanalysis and several importand influencing forces in the field of media image construction areanalyzed. It is found that, during sixty years of youth model construction, the impact ofpolitical force presents a significant weakening trend, in contrast with which, the force ofaudience attention has become more and more powerful. Taking the force of media gatekeeperwhich changes with social and historical context and other forces for addition, these forceshave been looking for a new balance all along and have greatly affected the media imageconstruction about Chinese youth model.This study then further learned that, since founding, China’s social culture alsoexperienced profound historical changes. In the early years, there has been a significant political focus of Chinese social culture, which was replaced by a economic focus after theChinese Economic Reform. In addition, China’s social culture also impacted bypostmodernism thoughts since the1980’s, as the result of which, China’s social values havebecome more and more diverse.