Research On Television And Changes Of Legitimacy Of Political Authority In Rural Society

TV media has changed the information input mode of rural areas, TV become another way for farmers to understand the national policy, contact the political information, and to achieve political socialization, it replaced the situation that grassroots monopolize political message and represent the government image directly, this situation have what kind of inner force on farmers'political participation and rural political governance , as well as the legitimacy of the political authority in rural community.Based on three field surveys in Xijiang Miao Village, Leishan county, Guizhou Province in July 2009, July 2010 and March 2011 and concluded : As TV media went in rural areas, it provided farmers with various types of information and entertainment, and at the same time, set up a virtual space for political engagement. Under the control of the central government, a variety of political messages are output and spreaded through television, which is shaping a symbolic political authority in rural society, and forms the political "ideal type" in farmers'mind. Under the long term enlightening in the virtual political space, Farmers are not only accumulating political messages, but also developing their political awareness and political knowledge, and take the symbolic political authority as a reference to test the real life political environment. When the actual performance of grassroots political power can hardly achieve the standard of idea type, or cannot meet the farmers'psychological expectations, they would take it as a reference tool to challenge the legitimacy of the authority of the grassroots. Specifically, television plays four kinds of important role for farmers to challenge the authority of grassroots: the encouragement in consciousness, theory reference, psychological back-up and practical applicating tools. It eventually led to the decline of the legitimacy of grassroots authority, and a center-marginalized pattern of central authority and grass-roots authority ---- the legitimacy of central authority, which provided by the television , shaped and strengthened in the virtual space; In reality, the legitimacy of the grassroots political authority is declining ---- this is the result of a series of deconstruction effect which caused by TV into rural areas. The separate national legitimacy reflected in forms as follows: ideology and the actual performance, rights and prestige, Central and local. That is what I discussed, the changing process of political legitimate authority in rural society caused by TV, which based on the field study of television in Xijiang Miao Village, Leishan county, Guizhou Province in July 2009, July 2010 and March 2011.