The Study Of The Qiang Ethnicity’s View On Social Wealth From The Perspective Of Communication

This thesis, based on the theory of communication, economics and sociology,analyzes the view on social wealth of the Qiang Ethnicity in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County from the perspective of communication. And this thesis takes this as an example to explore the plight of the development of communication and economy in ethnic minority areas. The former studies of the view on wealth often overlook the cultural background, media environment and other factors in economic development. The reason of the slow modernization process of the Qiang community and the plight of economic development may be the neglect of their own economic concept. This study will analyze the Qiang ethnicity’s view on social wealth from the perspective of media communication, and place it under a far more magnificent and objective background, which is a breakthrough and innovation both in research perspective and in interpretation content.This thesis uses the multi-sited ethnographic research ideas of mass communication, along with literature analysis method, field research, comparative analysis and personal interview survey, to systematically analyze the concept of wealth in Qiang Ethnicity from the perspective of modern media. The main source of data used in this thesis is the random sample survey. Combining these data with the specific results of personal interviews, this thesis analyzes the condition of how Qiang people in Beichuan have access to media, and finally implements it into the study of the view on social wealth of the Qiang Ethnicity.The main contents are as follows: Firstly, this thesis analyzes and summarizes the basic economic situation in the Qiang territory, including three basic economic features from the perspective of immigration economy, mountainous-area economy,and village-community doctrine of the Qiang ethnicity. Besides, this thesis analyzes the specific economic behavior of the Qiang people aiming at their view on social wealth, and points out the cultural root behind the phenomena. Secondly, combinedwith the questionnaire survey, this thesis collects the fundamental information about the mass audience and the economic development in the Qiang territory in Beichuan,sums up the statistics about how local people use media, and specifically analyzes the wealth concept in the Qiang society and their behavior from the view of wealth production, wealth representation and wealth consumption. Thirdly, this thesis analyzes the connection between the media communication and the forming of wealth concept in Qiang society in terms of the media development condition, media ecological structure, and media content preference. Fourthly, this thesis analyzes the drawbacks of the modern wealth concept of the Qiang people and the problems in the information dissemination process. This thesis analyzes the enlargement of the "information gap" in the local media communication and the inclination of media entertainment, summarizes the limitations of the local media development, and concludes the problems of the media information distribution and the effectiveness of media communication according to the condition of media cultivation. Fifthly, this thesis explores the development of the Qiang society and the construction of modern media ecological environment, thus, proposing feasible measures for economic development and construction of modern media ecological environment for the other ethnic minority areas.According to the research, there is an inner concept of wealth in Qiang society,along with a set of complete behavior regulations and social rules: Because of the migration economy of the Qiang society, the Qiang territories in Beichuan take the rough-oriented pattern of production, replacing the production sites every few years;the mountainous-area economy in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County increases the difficulty of local farming, the issue of soil erosion gradually influences the production and normal life of the local people, while the abundant natural resources in the forests also guarantee the basic needs for living of local residents; there is a obvious economic feature of “village-community doctrine” in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, which neutralizes the tendency of social classification when the production capacity is relatively laggard, maintains the basic operation and circulation of society and economy efficiently, and helps every family in the village become "affluent family", thus, enhances the sense of belonging and cohesion among the residents. The views which the Qiang people in Beichuan hold on the mountain forests and wealth have distinct features. And as the important productive capital for the Qing ethnicity in Beichuan, the mountain forests have important practical significance and spiritual values to the Qiang society. The residents in BeichuanQiang Autonomous County believe that it requires hard work to obtain wealth. And nearly half of the residents also believe that hard work cannot guarantee a great harvest. They consider the wealth production as a process when people are connected with the gods in nature and influence each other. Thus, they may less stress on the importance of developing advanced science technology in modern society. Apart from house, land, gold and silver, jewelry and other material conditions, the wealth in the Qiang society is mainly represented by their prestige in the Qiang community. The Qiang people have a distinct immediacy in their consumption view. And they oppose the capital accumulation, and attach more attention to the spiritual consumption. The consumption on sacrifices, gatherings, celebrations and other aspects may help the Qiang people win the respect from society, and help achieve their self-worth. This consumption also helps unite villages and ethnic groups, eliminate the gap between rich and poor and stabilize the Qiang society.Development is the basic rule of social evolution. The wealth concept of the Qiang people has changed under the influence of development of society. For the Qiang ethnicity, there might be obstacles and difficulties in the development process,but there is also a new choice. In Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, compared with other social factors, the mass communication influences the Qiang people’s wealth concept in a slow, progressive, and even inconspicuous way. This is because that the mass communication, as a modern technology, is hindered by the self-protection of traditional culture when changing the social concept of the public.That’s why it’s imperative to explore the formation of the Qiang’s wealth concept and the internal mechanism which impacts the local economic level, and to build the reasonable communication mechanism for the ethnic minorities.There is a positive correlation between the media development and the modernization of wealth concept in the Qiang society. Meanwhile, there is also a positive correlation between the acceptance degree of mass media and the education level. The higher the education level of the audience is, the higher the acceptance degree of something new of the audience is. The imbalance of the media ecological structure has restricted the modernization of the Qiang people’s view on the social wealth. The backwardness of economy and culture in the Qiang society has seriously hampered the development of local media ecological environment, and then, the lagging development of the media ecological environment is not conducive to the transformation and innovation of the national society. With the development of society,the frequency of how the Qiang people in Beichuan access the mass media hasincreased significantly and the number of media is enlarging. These changes promote the revolution of cultural concepts including wealth concept in the Qiang society,accelerates the modernization process in the Qiang society, and shows an important effect on the local economy. However, actually there is a severe bias in the media content in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County and also an imbalance in the media development. The loss of the Qiang dialect leads to a serious dilemma of their ethnic identity in the Qiang community, so that the core concept of wealth of the Qiang ethnicity is still stuck in the old values of national wealth, and the acceptance of the modern wealth concept is rather superficial. On the one hand, the lagging infrastructure construction and lower literacy level in Beichuan Qiang territory enlarges the "knowledge gap" between the Qiang community and the developed regions. On the one hand, the inclination of media entertainment is very obvious, and less importance is attached to the communication information related to economic development. The mass audiences in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County are less capable of discerning communication information independently and the negative effects brought by media cultivation lower the effectiveness of local media communication. Also, the lack of sense of national identity in media exacerbates the problem that the mass audiences in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County don’t really trust the media. This thesis analyzes the drawbacks of the modern wealth concept of the Qiang people and the problems in the information dissemination process, and then proposing feasible suggestions for social development and construction of modern media ecological environment for the Qiang ethnicity, which can also help establish a scientific guide in terms of mass communication development construction. Therefore,this study will theoretically enrich and improve the socio-economic analytical framework of the Qiang Ethnicity study, and establish a more effective media communication mechanism: on the one hand, the development in ethnic minority areas and the issue of disseminating ethnic culture should be coordinated; on the other hand, more efforts should be taken to support the balanced development of media ecology.