【作者】 徐小立；

【导师】 秦志希；

【作者基本信息】 武汉大学 ， 新闻学， 2006， 博士

【摘要】 以美国为首的西方国家随着战后经济的普遍繁荣和技术革命的深入,已进入到一个后工业的大众消费时代。消费主义文化是西方发达国家中普遍存在的一种价值观念和生活方式。作为一种价值观念,消费主义把消费视为生活的目的和意义的来源,是人们自我表达和自我认同的工具;作为一种生活方式,消费成为人们生活的重心,并且消费的符号象征意义明显,人们消费的目的更多的不是为了实际需要的满足,而是不断追求被制造出来、被刺激起来的欲望的满足。就特定意义而言,全球化的实质就是消费主义文化的全球性扩张,因为资本的全球扩张首先就依赖于消费主义文化为其鸣锣开道,可以说消费主义文化是全球化的文化动力,也是文化全球化的核心内容。而广告及电视等大众传媒正是消费主义文化意识形态全球播散、推广的火车头、推进器。1990年代以来,伴随着文化全球化进程的深入,在社会、经济、文化全面转型和传媒市场化改革的背景下,我国大众传媒消费主义文化的产生成为一种历史的必然(本文所论的传媒消费主义主要指广播电视及市场化传媒,不包括传统意义上的党报)。所谓传媒消费主义,一方面体现在传媒对消费主义价值观念和生活方式的传播,使其直接影响着社会生活及日常消费;另一方面也表现为传媒自身的消费主义文化的变异,即传媒在经济利益的驱动下,以消费为目的,围绕自身产品(传播内容)的“可消费性”来组织生产。传媒自身的消费主义化与传媒传播消费主义文化相互关联,由此实现着传媒与社会消费的合谋。1990年代以来的中国传媒消费主义文化的转向主要表现为:媒介传播内容的重点逐渐由社会生产转向社会消费;媒介的主体人物形象从改革开放前在社会生产的各个领域中涌现的“生产英雄”过渡到以各种文娱体育明星为重点的“消费偶像”;媒介的主要功能从以往的“宣传教育”始而转向消遣娱乐;媒介符号正在发生从文字语言主导到视觉形象主导的转换。传媒对消费主义文化的传播,主要是通过一些消费主义特征明显的典型媒体和内容来实现的,比如时尚生活类杂志通过给人们灌输关于格调、品位、时尚和个性等概念以及具体而微的消费指导引领着人们的生活方式;广告通过创造消费的神话宣扬着商品拜物教;各种电视剧通过华丽世界的形象展示给受众提供消费主义生活的虚幻体验;明星报道通过“消费偶像”的塑造来引导大众消费;电视娱乐节目致力于感性快乐的生产;报纸情感专栏通过对感情欲望的宣泄以满足人们的窥私欲等等。传媒在传播消费主义文化的同时,消费主义文化又滲入到传媒的肌理之中,使得传媒自身发生消费主义文化的变异:新闻传播者既是本来意义上的信息的提供者、环境的监测者,更是传媒产品和市场商品的推销者;受众由享用媒介公共服务的公民而被视为传播内容和市场产品的消费者。媒介生产与消费的商业逻辑开始入主传媒,消费主义文化语境下的传媒运作,遂由此前的“生产”决定“消费”变成了“消费”决定“生产”,从而驭使传媒内容生产围绕“可消费性”旋转,并注重成本利润的算计,由此促使传媒的运作机制,包括运作理念、制度安排、生产流程和叙述模式等发生一系列的变化:传媒的运作理念实现了从计划经济到市场经济的观念转变,普遍树立了按照市场规律来组织新闻生产的意识;制度安排上围绕市场经营目标而设计,比如提升经营部门的位置,以内容的“可消费性”为主要标准设置媒体的评估体系;成本收益的算计决定了媒体为谁生产、生产什么、不生产什么以及如何生产等主要生产流程;对“可消费性”的追求还使媒体偏爱内容展示的叙事方式并且尤其偏爱冲突性叙事,等等,一系列的运作变化进而改变着媒介文化的整体面貌。对消费主义文化的评价应持审慎态度。可以说,中国大众消费文化的兴起是中国改革开放与现代化运动的文化伴生物。在其当初,消费主义文化消解了泛政治意识形态的束缚,还世俗人生以自身的正当性,具有历史的进步意义;然而,消费主义文化又存在固有的弊病,消费主义生活方式在资源和生态环境上具有不可持续性;消费主义作为一种消费操纵的手段,形成对人的意识形态的宰制,加剧人们通过消费所进行的“地位竞争”并引发无法抑制的欲望,不能从真正意义上改善当代人的生存状态;同时消费主义文化还在某种程度上解构民族优秀传统及价值取向,对中国的文化走向产生着令人担忧的影响。就传媒自身而言,消费主义文化在释放人的本能欲望、增强媒介自身的感染力、诱惑力的同时,又侵蚀着媒介应有的文化本性,削减文化的崇高性、深刻性及文化的多样化。传媒消费主义文化与传媒市场化直接相关,传媒市场化一方面解放了长期被禁锢的传媒生产力,同时又因市场固有的消极外部性以及国内传媒市场的不完善而导致了“市场失败”和“市场失灵”。我们必须把传媒消费主义文化现象放在全球化及我国社会转型的背景下去辩证地体察其复杂的文化意味,从而探索传媒健康、可持续发展的可能性。更多还原

【Abstract】 We are facing an era of mass consumption as the post war prosperity and technological revolution going into depth with U.S. as the leading power. As a cultural value and a lifestyle prevalent in western countries, consumerism takes consumption as the source of life significance through which people identify themselves and express themselves. Consumption becomes the priority of life. The symbolic value of consumption is given prominence in that the goal of people’s consumption is no longer for actual need, but for satisfying the constantly created desires.In a specific sense, globalization is the globalization of consumerism as consumerism paved the way for the globalization of capitals. Consumerism serves as the cultural dynamics of globalization and the core of cultural globalization with advertising and such media as television running as the locomotive and promoter for the ideology of consumerism to spread throughout the world.The culture of consumerism becomes an inevitable social reality in China since 1990s with the ongoing process of cultural globalization and the social, economic and cultural transformation in China brought force by media market reformation. Here, the culture of consumption is restricted to the commercialized media and excludes the party newspapers in a traditional sense.Consumerism of media refers to the spreading of consumerism values and lifestyles, which exert direct effects on social life and daily consumption, and the alternative form of consumerism in which the media under the drive of economic profits organize themselves around the consumability of the product (media content) and for the goal of consumption. The consumerism of media of their own is interrelated with the media transmission of the ideology of consumerism which becomes a conspiracy between media and social consumption. The cultural manifestation of consumerism in China since 1990: the staple content of media content has shifted from social production to social consumption; the primary image of media has changed from the pre-reform“heroes in production”to the“idols of consumption”in the circle of entertainment and physical sports. The function of media becomes providing entertainment, no longer propaganda. The symbols of media have transformed from written words to images. The spreading of consumerism by media is primarily realized by such typical media and media content as fashion magazines with characteristics of consumerism. These magazines provide guidance for peoples’lives by cultivating such values as tastes, standards, fashion and individuality. Advertising advocates a cult for commodity by creating a miracle of consumption. Various TV dramas offer audience illusionary life experiences through those magnificent and splendid characters. News coverage on Pop stars fashions the way of consumption. TV entertainment programs are committed to the production for sensory pleasure. The emotion column of newspapers gives an outlet for feelings which aims at satisfying people’s need to peep at other’s privacy.Consumerism has penetrated into media when they commit themselves to the spreading of consumerism. On this process, media themselves have undergone certain changes: news providers are the information transmitters and monitors of the environment in the original sense as well as the promoter of media product and marketable commodities. The public are viewed as the consumer of media content and marketable products who enjoy the media public services. The commercial logic of media production and consumption enters into media and functions in the context of consumerism. Thus, the former notion of production guiding consumption becomes consumption guiding production. The process of media content creation centers around consumability, which gives priority to cost-profit consideration. It invariably leads to the changes in media mechanism in terms of operating ideology, institutional arrangement, production process and narrating modality. The operating ideology has changed from a planned economy to a market economy, in which the news production is organized by abiding the market laws. Institutional arrangement aims to realize the goal of market management: the emphasis on the importance of sales department, the setup of evaluation system based on news consumability, the cost-profit consideration has a decisive say on such matters as for whom media work, what media produce, and not produce and how they produce. The pursuit for consumablility highlights media’s preference for a narrating modality on conflicts. A series of operating mechanism changes has brought new looks for media culture.A cautious attitude is taken in evaluation of consumerism. The mushrooming of Chinese popular culture is a byproduct of China’s opening-up and modernization process. At the beginning, consumerism disintegrated the pan-political ideology and justified the secular life, which is of great significance. However, consumerism demonstrates its weakness: the lifestyle of consumerism is not sustainable in terms of resources and ecological environment. Consumerism exerts manipulative control over people’s mindset, exacerbating the position competition and the unconstrained lust for commodities incurred. Consequentially, consumerism by no means improves people’s live in a fundamental sense. Moreover, it deconstructs the traditional virtues and values to such a degree that the Chinese culture orientation becomes a great concern. Consumerism is ruining the original cultural traits of media, diminishing the nobility and profoundness of media and eliminating cultural diversity while releasing people’s hidden desires and increasing media attractiveness. Media consumerism has a direct bearing on media marketization. Media marketization liberates media productivity long hampered, while leads to market failure and market dis-functioning due to the negative external factors and imperfect internal media market.Media consumerism is to be perceived against the background of globalization and societal transition in China. It helps explore the complexity of culture in a dialectical sense and probe into the possibility of healthy and sustainability of media.更多还原