The Relations Between Farmers In Transitional Period And Mass Media

This thesis takes farmers in transitional period of China as the study object,relationships between mass media and these farmers as study target. Combined deepanalysis with the case of Tangxia Village, this thesis aims to find and reconstructcommunication prospect of mass media in China rural area.Transition of the Chinese rural society which is an important part in China socialtransition to modernization, certainly will make rural social structure divided andreorganized. In this thesis, farmers in Tangxia Village are divided into four groups:worker-farmers, rural migrant workers, rural rice growers and rural elites.Mass media is a product of modernization. Farmers make use of the mass mediawhich consists of news, TV series, variety shows and advertisements. This utilizationmakes farmers resocialized in order to adapt to the social transition. In my research, wewill find that TV media has established dominance over the others, which influencesfarmers’ production and life deeply. However, new media, such as Internet and mobilephone, are increasingly occupying an important position.This thesis also demonstrates the influence that mass media had on farmers intransitional period. Mass media can promote developments of politics, economy andculture in rural areas. Furthermore, developments of rural areas will promote furtherchanges in mass media. For Chinese farmers, mass media is the main approach tocontact with urban civilization directly. When they see the thriving urban civilizationthrough mass media in their own eyes, it will have a substantial impact on theirreflections to their own ideas and actions.In the end, this thesis also analyzes the existing problems in rural mass mediacommunication, and makes suggestions to improve farmers’ media literacy and narrowthe “knowledge-gap”.