The Study Of Anti-intellectualism In Online Question And Answering Communities

Anti-intellectualism as an attitude thatexistsin thought and culture,it usually resists knowledge and despisesintellectual in an irrational way.Though anti-intellectualism is considered as an‘imported good',it has a long history in China.In recent years,anti-intellectualism combining with network mediagradually permeatesthrough every aspects of our daily life.Nowadays,in the network,lots of people advocate the ideal of ‘ Study is useless'.Some network catchwords which aiming at despising intellectual,such as ‘ Brick Specialist',‘Called the Beast' have been spread widely.In the other hand,onlinepopularization of science has become more and more difficult.People show blindness scare in some issue such as‘transgenic food',‘food additive'.They resist knowledge and don't believe in science.Online question and answering communities which aiming at sharing knowledge and opinion also express the phenomenon of anti-intellectualism.‘Zhihu'is one of a typical example.To some extent,anti-intellectualism can break the monopoly of knowledge and culture from elite class.However,the most of worries which anti-intellectualism brings is it totally repudiates knowledge and humiliate intellectual.It will result in serious crisis of humanistic spirit.This thesis takes‘Zhihu' as an example and ‘anti-intellectualism' as a research subject.In the introduction,it clarifies the origin and significance of this study and also makes a literal review.The first chaptercollates the existing concept of anti-intellectualism.Combining with the network environment,this study gives a concept of anti-intellectualism.In this chapter,it also discriminate two concepts(‘cultural populism' and ‘anti-rationalism')with ‘anti-intellectualism'.In the second chapter,on the basis of the introduction of‘Zhihu',this study uses specific examples to conclude the patterns of the phenomenon of anti-intellectualism.The third chapter deeply excavates the causes of widespread of anti-intellectualism in ‘Zhihu'.The causes conclude three parts: culture,social environment and stratum.The last chapter puts forward two introspection of the phenomenon of anti-intellectualism in online question and answering communities.