Why do the underclass refuse to use smartphones? ——Based on the grounded research of Chongqing porter group
LIU Guoqiang YAN Tingwang
Author information+
Liu Guoqiang is a professor at School of Journalism and Communication, Sichuan International Studies University. Email: 68286453@qq.com.
Yan Tingwang is a postgraduate student of School of Journalism and Communication, Sichuan International Studies University. Email: yantingwan86@foxmail.com.
Based on the underclass research in the communication studies, this paper adopts the grounded theory and selects the stick-men (Chongqing Bangbang) to study the motivation of underclass to refuse to use smartphones. Through encoding, it extracted 28 concepts, 7 sub-areas and 3 main areas including consumer conservatism, acquaintance society and “weak” identity construction. The study indicates that consumer conservatism constitutes the conceptual basis of the refusal of the underclass to use the smart phone, and the interpersonal communication mode of the acquaintance society dissolves the necessity of the use of the smart phone in the workplace, providing practical support for their refusal; the underclass highly agrees with the identity of the “weak” at the subjective and objective levels, and the smart phone is discarded as an element that is mutually exclusive with the image of the weak. Consumer conservatism and acquaintance society are rooted in the rural ideas of “Chongqing Bangbang”, while the identity of the “weak” stems from long-term social exclusion and stereotypes. Due to the mutual recursion and dynamic mutual construction of the two factors, smartphones are recognized as a burden on the underclass. The research has shown that smartphone denial among the underprivileged is permeated with rational considerations and can be regarded as a daily resistance to the wave of new technologies, providing a contextualized understanding for reflection on digital divide theory.
LIU Guoqiang YAN Tingwang.
Why do the underclass refuse to use smartphones? ——Based on the grounded research of Chongqing porter group. Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication. 2022, 44(7): 74-96