Stratification Study On Contemporary Chinese Popular Culture In The View Of Aesthetics

Popular culture is the most noticeable cultural phenomenon in the changes of Chinese culture and society since reform and opening policy were carried out in 1980s. As a member of culture,popular culture owns the same characteristic of stratification,which is influenced by many aspects such as social economy,politics,individual needs and so on. The generation and development of popular culture stratification show its prosperous vitality and powerful social function and greatly change traditional culture pattern in contemporary China. People's daily life and personality molding are deeply influenced as well. This thesis plans to study the generation and characteristics of popular culture stratification and the social effects it initiate,and then take a further step on how the social effects work.Chapter One introduces relevant domestic and western culture stratification theories. The representatives of western stratification theory are Weber,Bourdieu,Claude Levi-Strauss,Parsons,Kroeber,Kluckhohn and so on. Among domestic scholars,Zhong jingwen puts forward culture three-layer theory,Pang Pu proposes cultural structure layer theory,Zhang Dongsun puts forward social culture layer theory and Li Zehou proposes thoughts on culture stratification aesthetics. So it's obvious that culture have different layers. No matter from the angle of psychology,regime or the social class it represent,culture stratification takes it as a whole to grasp the evidence of culture coexistence and evolution mechanism.Chapter Two deals with the coexistence structure of contemporary Chinese culture. Chinese culture demonstrates a compound character structure in which many layers of culture co-exist. The coexistence structure of contemporary Chinese culture means there are many different sub-cultures co-existing by the means of correspondent significance or value outlook. The culture which appears in aesthetics activities also demonstrates such stratification. The particularity of politics,economy,culture,Chinese society leads to four basic forms of culture during its developing progress: political culture before 1980s,elite culture from 1980s to 1990s,exotic culture in the first half of 1990s and popular culture since mid-1990s.These four forms of culture are all mainstream culture in different periods of time. On one hand ,they are related to particular social developing condition; on the other hand,the adaptability of culture meets the needs of different times.Chapter Three is about the study of popular culture stratification generation. Study popular culture in the whole background of culture since political culture,exotic culture and elite culture represent different social history and life reality. Groups represent different social history and life reality generally form different value judgment that adapt to their living environment,As a result it leads to popular culture stratification. In aesthetics activities,the developing history of popular culture is the stratification history of popular culture. The diversity of culture leads to popular culture stratification. Furthermore,different stratification of culture shapes literary mass of different time periods and it's restricted by external conditions. Having been reflected in aesthetics activities,popular culture stratification will generate correspondent stratification forms. During this dynamical progress,adaptation,transformation,decomposition,integration,reconstruction will appear.Chapter four deals with the literary morphology characteristic of popular culture stratification. In aesthetics activities,the stratification of popular culture has its own characteristic,which is closely connected to popular culture stratification phenomena. Popular culture stratification keeps the same pattern as diversifying development of whole social life. Diversifying stratification characteristics in the field of popular culture are obvious under such kind of diverse,multi-layer culture development. The diversity of popular culture forms literary morphology properties among internal popular culture stratification. The conflicts of diverse culture don't mean culture fracture. The conflicts and mutual complementarity of diverse culture promise prosperous vitality of contemporary Chinese popular culture. We could analysis different aspects of the diverse multi-layer performances of contemporary Chinese popular culture. This thesis will mainly probe different culture layers,regional popular culture and stratification of popular culture dynastic history and explain the existence of conflicts and mutual complementarity characteristic of diverse culture. On this foundation literary morphology characteristic of popular culture stratification will be constructed.Chapter five will give a lateral stratification of popular culture in the view of value theory. In accordance with value theory and"onion"theory,culture stratification will articulate that culture content could be structurally compared to a series of common basic assumptions and value theories,and also the behavior,attitude and faith that supported by them. After stripping layer by layer,we take most typical consumptions of popular culture as the outer layer of its value demonstration. The realized value layer is the mid step of popular culture stratification: market operation and new media practitioner. As key value of popular culture are utility and ethical custom,the exterior consumption of popular culture itself is to reach its key value theory——the gratification of ethic and interests.