The Lost Homeland

For China, such a huge number of peasant population country in all ages,“peasants”,such a word has been given too much about the distribution of interests, status, politicalnature and many other relating to the whole society and touching the state basicmeanings, except for “agricultural producers”. In view of the reality which is peasantgroups cover so widely and peasants problem is so complex, coupled with thedocumentary’s nature is “contemplating realistic society”, combining theabove-mentioned two, from the “documentary image” bearing dual characteristics ofrealistic and freehand seting out, doing research on peasants image of Chinesedocumentary about history, present situation, problems and development, has greatacademic value and social significance.Firstly, the introduction describes the origin of this topic.In addition to that,the relevant concepts of the research process is defined and illustrated in the introduction, and it summarizes the literature review and theoretical comprehensive.The above facts urges this article to determine the topic as “Research on peasantsimage of Chinese documentary（1978-2012）”. Expounding the origin and differencebetween documentary and image, illustrating the documentary selecting scope, clarifyingthe concept of peasants, can lay the foundation for increasing the accuracy of this paper’swriting.The last section of introduction make literature review and theoretical reviewrespectively, not only tease academic study dynamic state and academic study deficiencyin the documentary, the peasent documentary, imaging studies from the shallower to thedeeper, but also establish research method of text research method, demonstrationresearch and theoretical research method, and expound research meaning on three aspectsof academia, industry and social reality.On time coordinates, the peasants image is showing features of from surface to inner,from “local” to “the concrete”, from peasants to citizens. On regional coordinates,peasants image is showing features which perform as three aspects that is the north is amyth of home, central plains experienced a breakthrough pain, the south does thereflection of themselves. On institutional coordinates, peasants image is showing featureswhich perform as three aspects that is peasants image in CCTV is the grand narrative of a country, that in local television stations is a nation’s colorful portrait, and that in HongKong and Taiwan Television is a solemn observe on society. Therefrom, after combingout a evolution covering multiple dimensions and more clear reality about peasantsimage, this chapter expounds the reality which is the essence of the peasent image ispeasants problem, the fundamental nature of peasants problem is the politicalcharacteristic of peasent, also is the problem of identity problem.The second chapter does the study with three dimensions of Cultural Studies, MediaSociology and Political Economy of Communication,and interpretate the model versionof peasants of the “double vulnerable” in this real world and the film version withomni-directional and multi-angle.Firstly, geting Cultural Studies involved, starting with a micro perspective, do textanalysis on landless peasants, left-behind children and autonomy villagers such thesethree types of peasent image. Secondly, geting Media Sociology involved, extendingfrom the meso perspective, do analysis of emotional care which peasent image indocumentary has, that is saving the collective memory, focusing public attention,upholding the Humanism. Thirdly, geting Political Economy of Communication involved,from the macro perspective, the result of making rational thinking of peasent image is:the political system causes the lack of discourse power, economic development leads tothe embarrassment of identity transformation and cultural trends causes the fuzzymeaning reproduction. Therefrom, after clear logic analysis from the inside to the outsideand one by one, the origin of peasent image state is just China’s special nationalconditions and system.The third chapter analyzes dialectically that peasants images in the documentary ismutually connected with politiy, economy and society. After that, it explores the currentsurvival difficulties of peasants images, and from a practical perspective puts forward thethree suggestions beneficial to walk out of predicament.Chinese documentary creators need to introspect the mechanism of production, andmake it from the “gameplaying” between the official and the folk to “breaking” the limitof the system.Besides, they need to explore the change of the role, to change peasantsfrom “the object to be seen” to the subject who “shoot” themselves. As well, they need toenrich the mode of broadcast, from the “single” broadcast channel to the communication network adapting to the “interaction”. So it clarifies basically the development directionof the documentary future creation.Finally, through the systematic and comprehensive research, the conclusion this paper is that peasants image of Chinese documentary from1978to2012is just as forgotten,neglected, misunderstood “the lost homeland” in the process of modernization.Whether Chinese peasants or the documentary creators who shoot films aboutpeasants through their own efforts from the source and nature of circumvention are tryingto dodge the phenomenon which exists in this population widely and is reflected in thevarious “unfair” and “discrimination” in the documentary. But in fact, when this group iscalled “peasants”, which has been unable to avoid the concept of class in the ideology.This is a confused and helpless paradox,and how to explain and solve the paradox is theultimate significance of this selected topic.