Media And Rural Residents Of Social Transformation

Rural development is a hot issue for China. Especially in today’s highly informational and media-influenced era, the media penetration and impact on rural society has become the academia’s constant focus. On the other hand, with rural interpersonal relationship as its mainstay, the change of the frame of communication significantly demonstrates the rural development and change. Thus. the relationship between mass media and rural social communication is concerned by many scholars.This paper takes Qingpu District, which is a new metropolitan suburb sample in the Yangtze Delta Region, as the research object. It takes more than400rural families from12villages in this area as the samples. A correlation analysis was held on the basis of questionnaire survey, with the support of crossing theory of communication and sociology. Basic statistics of the media ownership, media consumption behavior, media exposure rates as well as family relations, neighborhood relations, and community relations are taken out so as to explore that whether the mass media actually affect the frame of communication in rural society:and if they do. what the properties of the influence are and why.It is shown in this paper that the mass media slightly affect the frame of communication in Qingpu’s rural society and lead it to a "superficial" level. To put it more clearly. the mass media strengthened the basic identity and communication behaviors towards relatives. friends and relationship among neighbors of the rural residents. They also weakened the confidence level of and emotional devotion to relatives, friends and relationship among neighbors of the rural residents. Meanwhile. the democratization in rural community was also enhanced by the mass media. The reason why the mass media have the influences mentioned above may be as follows: The rural residents’ deficiency in media literacy probably does a lot in the depression of media’s influence on rural society. And more or less, the modernization and "superficialization" of the rural interpersonal relationship are formed by the media’s "demonstration effect".