City Square Dance:Communication Ritual And Group Identity

Since the 90s of the 20th century, the square dance appeared, and began to popular in most cities and towns in China, from south to north. We wondered, what makes square dance such a hot and unique phenomenon in China? What’s the reason of the great cohesion and identity sense in the square dancing group, which generate the long-term persistence. What is the communication mechanism behind it, and how the mechanism works, on strengthening the identity of the group and individual members.In recent years, many academic field begin to pay attention to square dance phenomenon, including folklore study, leisure activities study of the aged, sociology and policy planning study. But there were little discussion of square dancing in the perspective of communication, let alone the study taking a communication ritual perspective. Although there are some study which regarding this phenomenon as a media image construction.In this study, which built on the basis of the interpretation of existing research and media analysis, we use participatory observation, non-structure interview and literature analysis method. We considered square dance as a kind of communication ritual, and find the way of how it strengthened the group identity and self-identity of the members.From the perspective of communication ritual, the square dance is not a functional group who’s aim is transporting and obtaining information, but "a sacred ritual to attract people together in groups or in a common identity".We taking the square dance as a communication ritual, instead of a collection of information sender, communication channels and the audiences. From this point of view, square dance is media and message itself, which is full of symbolic meaning.Square dance become a way of daily leisure and self-display of aged women, and through this way square dance ran the function of integrating. The periodic, repetitive, regular and institutional nature of the square dance is the "compulsory" guarantee of this kind of polymerization; A circle of square dance team interaction mechanisms constructed a "order, meaningful, which could be used to dominate and to accommodate the culture of human behavior", by this way the square dance of the participants involved in the spread of the ceremony; The performance and display of the square dance provides participants with a stage of self-presentation.Communication ritual has the function of gathering, integrating, strengthening the values of the world outlook and forming the identity. From ancient times, people began to use this kind of collective dance, celebrations, festivals and other ceremonial activities, to obtain recognition of self-identity and group identity. Square dance make people who have the same identity together, by the group interaction under emotional logic, and the process of group identification, group goal internalization, and group cohesion formation are completed in the group. At the same time, the internalization of group identity and group value is completed, through the confirmation of the legitimacy of the group and mutual recognition of individual consciousness and group value. People express their emotions, express themselves, unite with each other and share values through rituals. As an adhesive and a medium, communication ritual is a "sacred ceremony that attracts the people together in groups or in a common identity ", in which participants strengthen their values and their conception of world, but also to establish or rebuild the self-identity and group identity, as well as build or rebuild their self-identity and group identity.