(DOWNLOAD) "Between Three Worlds: The Internet and Chinese Students' Cultural Identities in the Era of Globalization (Report)" by China Media Research " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Between Three Worlds: The Internet and Chinese Students' Cultural Identities in the Era of Globalization (Report)
- Author : China Media Research
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 226 KB
Description
Walter Lippmann pointed out in his seminal work Public Opinion (1991) that there is a real world out there and a world of pictures in our minds. He went on to elaborate that the pictures in our minds are often determined by the media's depiction of reality. Nowadays with the spread and reach of the mass media, we may pose the following question: do the world beyond our reach and will, the virtual world as depicted by the media, and the world in our minds always concord with each other? If not, what is the relationship between these three "worlds"? With the prevalent presence of the Internet in the lives of Chinese college students, on whose shoulders rests the future of China, how do they react to the influence of globalization, especially Westernization, that might come through the Internet? Are the post-1980 generation of Chinese youth as "Westernized" as is supposed by many cultural critics and scholars? How do they perceive their own cultural identity, or identities? To what extent has the Internet (and possibly other new media) influenced their identification with China's cultural tradition? These are the main questions that this paper attempts to address. But before proceeding to the study, we need to take a look at relevant or related writings produced in recent years, mostly about cultural identity in the age of the Internet and within the context of globalization. The question of cultural identity in the era of the new media has been either touched upon or treated in detail by a number of renowned scholars (e.g. Hall & Du Gay, 1996; Jones, 1997). Jones argues that technology improves and impoverishes love at the same time, referring to the way of interpersonal interaction, especially the Internet. Friedman (1994) analyzes the practice of identity and the construction of cultural forms as they relate to the social forms of experience that are rooted in increasingly large-scale social processes. Personal identity in the age of the Internet is discussed by Turkle (1995), who to some extent places her exploration within the larger framework of postmodernism. Taking television as a relatively "new" medium, Barker (1999) elaborates on the interplay between globalization and cultural identities, pointing out the need for the cultural politics of identity and especially for its re-description and development of new languages along with the building of temporary strategic coalitions of people. Similarly, another author (Rheingold, 2000) also touches upon the social aspects of computer networks at their earlier stage of development. Though somewhat relevant to this study, it is dated, considering the fast and vast development and expansion of the Internet since the turn of the century, especially in China.