Study On The Images Of Chinese Male Stars On Weibo From The View Of Intergenerational Differences

The progress of network technology has accelerated the development of mass media.Thus,social media has become increasingly popularized among the public.Social media,as an internet communication platform,has the characteristics of immediacy,interactivity and openness,which makes people keen to show themselves on these platforms.Stars and celebrities are no exception.Social platform has become an effective way for stars to not only show themselves or share their lives but also interact with fans.At the same time,the cultural and entertainment industries in China also ushered in fast development after the Reform and Opening up entered in a new era.The rapid improvement of productivity has driven the development in newspapers,books,broadcasting,film and television fields,etc.Also there was a huge number of foreign cultures fading in and beginning to have an impact on China's entertainment and cultural industries.Among them,Korean cultural products such as K-drama,K-pop music and variety show had great influences on China's entertainment industry.Thus,a large number of talent shows aiming at selecting idol groups showed up and set off a "talent show fever" in China.The masculinities these idol members hold are always tenderness,delicacy and cuteness,while their stage images are full of makeup and jewels,which make them a feast for both audience's eyes and minds.Therefore,masculinities showed on media of male stars began to change from the single dominant one such as "tough guy" and "strong man"which was popular in traditional values of masculinities in the past decades in China,gradually to the cute,pretty even beautiful ones which are opposed to the traditional one.This marginalized type of masculinity was criticized by the public opinion after appearing on big screens in a massive way,and some male stars even suffered from cyber violence because their non-traditional masculinities could have a negative effect on teenagers.On the contrary,the author found that older male stars in China were hardly judged by public opinion about their masculinities or images even some of them could be untidy occasionally.The author thinks that the reason for great differences in types of masculinity of male stars in different ages is necessarily related to the intergenerational differences.Under these circumstances,this thesis conducted content analysis and visual analysis to introduce the differences between 15 male stars in different generation,and explained the reason behind this phenomenon based on the view of media and gender.The thesis is divided into four parts.The first chapter mainly introduces the research background and the significance of the research.Firstly,both foreign and domestic researches on masculinity are collected and sorted out.The first chapter also proposes research problems,research objects and methods to be used in below chapter.The second chapter demonstrates the different masculinities on social media between male stars in different generation by using content analysis and visual analysis.The third chapter makes an analysis on factors resulting in mentioned phenomenon.The fourth chapter is conclusion and discussion.After analyzing 15 male stars'images on Weibo,it is found that male stars in different generations show different masculinities:male stars born in 1950-1965 show much more dominance and authorities in their images than other two generations;male stars born in 1965-1980 show more diverse masculinities;male stars born in 1980-1995 show more vulnerability and delicacy than other two generations.This is related to their different background and opinions about value due to intergenerational differences.Besides,the increasingly growing idol industry in China is also a key factor.