The Research Of The Media Contact In Areas Inhabited By Tibetan Herdsmen

The mass media in rural communities is one of the most important focus area which develops communication studies. In this paper, using the ethnographic research methods, the writer chose the HongGeDa Village in ZhuaXiXiuLong Township in the Tianzhu County of Gansu province as the case study, and did the fieldwork in combining the participant observation method and the depth interview method. On the basis of investigating the media contact of this minority community in different periods, the writer tried to analyze the impacts on the people’s lifestyles, habits, production modes of economy, ideology, social interaction, personal developments and folk custom evolution which are caused by this kind of contacting behavior.This study shows that two mediums have not so many obvious effects on the life of villagers, one is the abandoned newspaper, the other is the broadcast which is only used for listening to the folk songs or entertainment programs to relieve the loneliness of herdsmen when they are herding in summer. However, the most familiar medium---TV for the herdsmen,could not be seen the favorite native programs because of the limited optical cable television so that the TV medium just plays an entertainment role and offers little information for the Hong Village, in another words, TV is used as a ritualized equipment in this area. Without any broadband being covered in this village, mobile phone is the unique way to get in touch with the web, therefore the using of Internet in this area is still in the beginning stage for the herdsman’s low media literacy and outdated network infrastructures. Also, the capacities for the herdsmen of utilizing information service to improve the production, living standard and personal qualities are still weak.