Using the respective intellectual engagements of Dallas Smythe,Wilbur Schramm, and Dan Schiller (hence “3S”) with China from the 1970s to the present as points of entry, this article applies the transcultural political economy of communication framework to explicate both the transcultural and transnational knowledge/power dynamics between China and the West and the concomitant domestic academic politics in the development of Chinese communication scholarship. While demonstrating how mainstream American communication research as represented by Wilbur Schramm has had a profound impact in undermining China’s indigenous Marxist journalism scholarship and shaping the development of communication scholarship in the reform-era China, this article also recovers the “lost” history of Dallas Smythe’s research trips to China in the 1970s and underscores the signifcance of Dan Schiller’s ongoing critical analysis of a globalizing digital capitalism in which China is playing an increasingly important role. In demonstrating the “multiple realities” that have been constitutive of China’s academic exchanges with the West, this article argues for the continuing relevance of Dallas Symthe-inspired research questions regarding the possibility of developing a socialist knowledge/power paradigm as the only viable challenge against the universalizing pretensions and impositions of capitalistic development paradigm.
The rise of mass communication in the 1920s demonstrated the comprehensive in?uence of the emerging psychology at the time on social science. French group psychology, German psychoanalysis and Watson's behavioristic psychology had a profound impact on communication, despite their different perspectives. They injected the elements of the mass society, the irrational cognition of group psychology, and the scientifc measurement methods of individual psychology into the ?edgling communication studies through the main founders of American communication, such as Lippmann, Lasswell, Lazarsfeld, etc. As a result, the mass psychology paradigm of communication research formed. In the period of World War II and the Cold War, communication continued to strengthen the mass psychology paradigm because of the need of psychological warfare. The latter deprived the various possible development directions of communication and shaped it into knowledge tool for internal social control and external defense of the Cold War. Therefore, there has never been a real mass communication but only real mass psychology. After the end of the Cold War, faced with the great changes in the political and economic framework, the problems faced by the United States also changed fundamentally. The mainstream paradigm of communication lost its continuous resource support. However, due to habitus, communication scholars still insisted on using mass psychology to understand the communication phenomenon. Thus, the imagination of American communication studies was exhausted.
In the United States, according to previous studies, in addition to the narration by Schramm and Rogers, there are two other kinds of studies which extend or reflect instead of challenge the history view of Schramm. One is established by James Carey. With a ritual view of communication instead of a transmission view, he argues that Chicago School and Lipmann should be the founders of American communication studies. The other study is called New Historicism. This article tries to neutralize the two totally opposite concepts of history narration, reintegrate the works of the beginning of communication studies in America and other first-hand materials including tapes and letters of Schramm and other scholars cited by researches. The study is also based on the work and the self-statements of four founding fathers, especially those of Lasswell and Lazarsfeld. The study aims at narrating the interaction on three different levels before and during WWⅡ and the early years of Cold War: the personal life, academic experience and political stands of Schramm and four founding fathers; the establishment and development of communication theories; the domestic and international political situations, which further demonstrates inside-out that communication studies, as a subject of social science formed during WWⅡ, its problems and research methods are not independent from historical and political environment, and it is hard for those research results to get rid of the control of state and ideology.
Introducing ‘Rewriting Communication History’ in America on one hand, this paper tries to rethink 1980s of China on the other hand, when American version of communications theory been imported into mainland China and people believe in Marxism have doubts, it reexamines especially those people who understood feedback into ‘mass line’ and believe that is another way to imagine the science of communication. This paper thinks that we still have to deal with such diffcult problems as the tension between the critical understanding and mainstream narrative of communication history, the evolutional premise of communication historiography, and the formation and structure of communication theory of Schramm.
The issues of “party property” and “affnity to the people” are important propositions in Marxist news theory. When discussing issues of “party property” and “affnity to the people”, the academic community often overlooks the ideas, theories, and practices of the “people's newspapers” in the process of CCP's revolutionary practice. In fact, the “people's newspapers” is a key concept derived from the concepts of “mass character” and “people” in the news propaganda work during the Yan 'an period. During the War of Liberation, the “people's newspapers” once referred to mixed use of “affnity to the people”, but it was out of the “affnity to the people” category. After the founding of New China, the “people's newspapers” even rose to the basic idea of the national newspaper system. Exploring the theoretical starting point, discourse evolution and historical practice of the “people's newspapers” should be of great signifcance for re-interpreting the party newspaper's theory of party property and affnity to the people and carrying forward the fne tradition of serving the people in the CCP's press work.
Technology dominates the change and development of journalism Between journalism (journalism, media, journalism production and dissemination, journalism control, journalism reception, etc.) and technology，which is the “law of technology dominated journalism”. The basis of technology-led journalism lies in that technology, as the core element of productivity system, fundamentally determines the journalism as one of the manifestations of ideology. The main contents of Technological Leading Law can be summarized into four aspects: technology evolution dominates the renewal of journalism format; technology evolution dominates the way of journalism activities; technology development dominates the renewal of journalism media format; and technology evolution in?uences the change of journalism concept.
First emerged in Europe and the United States, constructive journalism has increasingly gained people’s attention all over the world, although the academic community has not formed a unified definition and journalists have different opinions. Based on the existing literature and practices, this paper explores the definition, characteristics, practices and revelation of constructive journalism. Deeply rooted in positive psychology, the reporting framework of constructive journalism concentrates on solutions to social issues and on empowering audiences. Constructive journalism has a positive impact on the audiences’ emotions and has increasingly achieved commercial success.
Urban journalists are important organism that will contribute to city operation and also are organic members of the urban civil class. From social stratifcation as a starting point to study urban journalists group, it is a kind of non-mainstream research method, broking through the traditional academic context of functionalism and structuralism, focusing on the everyday life of ordinary citizen journalists and the stratifcation relations attached on it. This research is a kind of medium anthropology practice. In the stratifcation relationship of journalists, the identity change is complex along with the factors of celebrities, professionals and socialite. The power characteristics are divided into two aspects: occupational privilege and non-occupational privilege. As a community, urban journalists, though uniformly external warfare, are also composed of complex small sections. In everyday life, city journalists present the stratification feature through discourse, role playing and empathy. On this basis, they have some senses of resistance against the managers of media institutions and other professional groups in the same city.
