| Since the 20th century, electronic media have been playing an important role in human life. Undergoing the oral time and printing time, the transmitting way of human civilization has entered a new epoch, the electronic media age. This thesis attempts to analyze the important changes that have taken place in aesthetic culture and its operating system. And the thesis is divided into seven parts.The introducing part mainly discusses the significance of aesthetic culture study in electronic media age and the contemporary scholars' researching situation. The thinking process in writing the thesis and the methods of researching are also explained. The coming of the electronic media time brings tremendous changes to people's life, and influences aesthetic culture's existence profoundly. It is of important significance and value to make a thorough inspection into the changes of aesthetic culture during this time, to expose the operating system hidden behind these changes, so as to respond to the human living situation and to promote the development of aesthetic culture in our county. The contemporary scholars' viewpoints in this field are classified into four types. First, the view of regarding the aesthetic culture as an ideal culture; second, a critical view of the aesthetic culture; third, the aesthetic culture theory of the mass practice; forth, the view of historicism about aesthetic culture study. Obviously theses studies offer wealth of thoughts for aesthetics and these different opinions can possibly draw close to the truth in dialogues and conflicts. The last part is about the studying method, which is to decode the aesthetic culture in the electronic media age by using the cultural hegemony theory of Antonio Gramsic. The thesis holds the view that the aesthetic culture in electronic media age has the dual logic : freedom and control; that is, the free transfer and controlling scheme form the typical hegemonic operating way of this aesthetic culture.The first chapter elaborates on the changes of the aesthetic culture in electronic media age. This chapter is divided into two sections. The former organizes the history of the notions of aesthetic culture and expounds emphatically the aesthetic cultural views of Schiller, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer and F.R. Leavis. From this longitudinal analysis, the aesthetic culture shows that it has extremely strong ideal elements since its appearing as a concept until the middle of the 20th century. People hope to sew up the split human nature, resist the invasion of the machinery civilization and maintain human nature perfect by the aesthetic culture. As a negative strength to resist the reality, the aesthetic culture is shrouded in an ideal and mythological aura. But with the coming of electronic media time, tremendous changes have taken place in it. Then the latter part points out that the aesthetic culture moves towards the secularization in the electronic media time, because of the high interference of technological elements and the penetration of the consuming ideology which make the gradual shrinking of the elitist self-discipline and the noble aesthetic aura of the traditional aesthetic culture. This secular aesthetic culture becomes the dominant culture in this period.In the second chapter, the freedom of the aesthetic culture in electronic media time is explored. The first section points out that as a secular aesthetic culture, in electronic media time it inevitably goes to the populace's life, a trivial but real daily life. Simultaneously, those desires for pleasure emerge which were once squeezed by the traditional aesthetic culture. And massive private topics begin to move towards the public space. Thus, the aesthetic culture in electronic media time oversteps the authority of the traditional aesthetic culture in content. The second part explains that the various spreading ways of the aesthetic culture brings great freedom to people in electronic media time. First, in electronic media time the aesthetic culture is not far away from the mass, and no longer belongs to the privileged stratum. The large-scale duplication technology makes it possible for common people to contact with the aesthetic culture widely and freely. Besides, the image symbol which the aesthetic culture uses in electronic media time is simpler and undoubtedly easier, in contrast with the writing symbol of the traditional aesthetic culture. This is another reason for its tending to the common people. Secondly, the aesthetic culture in electronic media time can break the limitations of people's local life, and lead to a global fusion. The regional limitations in traditional society make people difficult or unable to get in touch with the aesthetic culture of "the other" beyond their local life, but the transcendence in region makes people have the unprecedented freedom in electronic media time. The unlimitedly open space helps people everywhere enjoy the aesthetic culture equally and immediately. The third section mainly discusses the participating freedom of the aesthetic culture in electronic media time. The people have discarded the passive state of existence in the past, and strive for interaction and participation in electronic media time, which manifests in two main forms: hypothesized contact and free writing.The third chapter discusses the controllability of the aesthetic culture in electronic media time and points out that the freedom in electronic media time is conditional, that is, along with the freedom, the control of aesthetic culture also launches strongly. First, the aesthetic culture in electronic media time is controlled by technology. The proportion of technology in aesthetic culture becomes much greater; the independence of technology gets rather stronger during this period. The technology is no longer merely one method to promote the aesthetic culture's development; to a great extent, it has become the purpose itself and the basic existence which makes the technology exceed the performing rationality and the human subject. Moreover, as a kind of hypothesized technology, its logic has already overridden the real logic and its image has become the yardstick of reality. This kind of transcendence and camouflage and usurpation to reality must impinge upon and change people's ways of thinking. Next, the aesthetic culture is infiltrated by commercial factors. In electronic media age, the production of aesthetic culture has mingled with the commercial interest unprecedentedly; the production of aesthetic culture has become the desire for chasing material interest, and the products of aesthetic culture have become thorough commodities, even human beings themselves are unconsciously "sold" to advertising business men and sponsors while watching TV and seeing movies. Generally speaking, the aesthetic culture pursuing commercial profits has two operating ways: standardized operation and enquiring. The former makes cultural production according to a fixed pattern to earn profits while the latter propels manufacturing and selling industrial products directly, whose typical pattern is advertising aesthetic culture to attain commercial goal through enquiring the mass to be consumers. Finally, the aesthetic culture in electronic media age is controlled by the power system. In this age, the operating of the aesthetic culture always embodies the intention of the fixed power system, which, though usually invisible, plays a powerfully controlling role. On one hand, the cultural experience formed by movie and TV and other media is cut and restricted by multiple authorities; on the other hand, colonialism exists in the cultural field. Some mighty countries export their conceptions of culture and value, and distort that of others, especially eastern nations' image wantonly.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the human living conditions in electronic media age. Ultimately, the various expressions of the aesthetic culture are closely connected with the human living conditions. They come from the specific human living situation, and display even form the human living way and experience at the same time. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section elaborates on the human living situation in such a high-speed operating society. First of all, information explosion makes people keep an unprecedented close contact with society, which satisfies people with the rights, even all-inclusive ones, of knowing the facts of the society. However, such enormous amount of information inevitably submerges people's tiny stature, so it greatly affects people's psychology and behavior. Second, with the acceleration of living pace, people are increasingly under the pressure of time, their lives become busier simultaneously. This kind of busy life makes people lose contact with their inner world, and have a deep fatigue—a psychological and spiritual one besides physical fatigue. What's more, the high-speed operating society causes a break of time to the contemporary people. People don't have enough time to recall the past and think about the future, therefore all have become a present and current existence. The second section probes into people's living conditions in such a mass society which differs from the traditional society in human types, social relationships and social forms. First, the individual is controlled by "the other's guiding" in mass society, with the result of the forfeit of people's individuality. Obviously, as a most high-efficient "mass" media, the electronic media incontestably plays "the other's strong guiding" role in this mass society. Second, in mass society people have a loose relationship and lack understandings and contacts at the same time. The indifferent intercourse shows not only the decreasing quantity, but the lack of contacting depth, which gives people a profound sense of isolation. And it seems to be an inextricable destiny for people to take TV as a companion every day. Third, though people can carry out their various activities freely in the mass society, they never have "free body". For the development of the electronic media places people under a surveillance system which is stricter and easier to carry out. People's freedom is increasingly deprived by the "superpanopticon" named by Mark Poster.The fifth chapter is about the relationship between freedom and control in the aesthetic culture during electronic media age, with an exploration of the possible direction of the development of the aesthetic culture on that foundation. In this part, the thesis gives a detailed elaboration on the relationship between freedom and control of the aesthetic culture in electronic media time by using the cultural hegemony theory of Antonio Gramsic. The thesis believes that the aesthetic culture is neither a pure freedom, nor an absolute control, but a constant conflict and compromise. However, the compromise has a definite limitation: its purpose is to realize the producer's intention in the aesthetic culture, which reflects the hegemonic operating way of aesthetic culture. So the question is how to resist the hegemony and go out of its control. Fiske and other scholars of Birmingham School put forward the mass resistant theory which throws some light on this question. Once the mass power forms, and transfers from guerrilla warfare to mobile warfare, as Antonio Gramsic put it, the people will inevitably capture the leading power (the hegemony).At the same time, because the hegemonic operating way of aesthetic culture contains technological controlling factor, the thesis also makes corresponding discussions on how to walk out of the technology control. The last of this chapter presents the thesis' view on the developing direction of aesthetic culture in the near future. After analyzing the original attribute and presenting the various indications at present, the thesis believes that the future of aesthetic culture will certainly move on towards freedom.The conclusion part makes a summary of the aesthetic culture in the electronic media age. The thesis emphatically points out that the aesthetic culture in the electronic media age is a kind of technical and secular culture.
|
PDF Full Text Request