Re-thinking Of The Proposition That "The Medium Is The Message":research On The Development Of Neo-Confucianism In The Perspective Of Printing Cultures

In the 1960s,Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan proposed the famous proposition of his media theory—"The medium is the message".This proposition emphasizes the importance of the "media" that has long been ignored by researchers,and prompts abundant thoughts about media with its unique way of expression of divine metaphor.Among them,the most influential one is to point out that the media that really affects the history of human civilization is the constantly developing and changing media,rather than the content that people usually think.This has led people to re-examine the development of human civilization and its causes.American media environment scholar Elizabeth Eisenstein spent 17 years to write the masterpiece "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change:Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe" demonstrated the dramatic changes brought by the printing media to modern Europe from the three aspects of European modem Renaissance,religious reform,and scientific revolution.Printing media is the "agent" of Europe's entry into modern times,which effectively proves the McLuhan's media theories.Because of McLuhan's metaphorical expression,people have many different understandings of this proposition.His metaphor about "The media is a thief,the content is fresh meat" has a certain tendency of "technical determinism",which easily makes people ignore the importance of "content" in the process of communication.However,Chinese society does not produce social changes similar to those in the West.Different from the results of Eisenstein's research,the printing media has brought a certain degree of social stability to Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty.The main reason lies in the eontent carried by the print media-Neo-Confucianism.Therefore,this article will reflect on McLuhan's proposition of "The medium is the message" from the perspective of importance of content.This article focuses on the development history of Chinese printing media from the end of the end of the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty,and combines the history of the imperial examination system with the history of Neo-Confucianism to explain the use and control of the royal power over the content of printing media.After in-depth research,the following research findings are available in this article:Firstly,the technical attribute of the media is very important,but the influence of the content can not be ignored.In terms of content,printing media of Western European have carried a lot of content about change and revolution,while the printing media of China was used to spread the Neo-Confucianism that contributes to social stability.With the wide spread of the Neo-Confuciamsm in the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty,heresy has gradually lost the comfortable soil of existence,and any words and deeds that violate the orthodox will incur public opposition.Secondly,the development of Chinese printing media was accompanied by the revival movement of the Confucianism.With the help of the printing media,Confucianism has regained its mainstream position in the field of ideology and culture.Confucianism in the early Song Dynasty was against the complexity and triviality of Confucianism in the Han and Tang Dynasties.It boldly absorbed the ideas of Buddhism and Taoism,and finally formed a more speculative ideology—the Neo-Confucianism in the society of Song and Ming Dynasties.Thanks to the promotion of the imperial examination system,the printing media became an important earrier of the Neo-Confucianism that is conducive to social stability.Thirdly,the dominator's pursuit of stability in the dynasty changed the development traj ectory of Chinese printing media.At the beginning of the birth of the printing media,the ruling class did not understand the advantages of this new medium.It was not until the end of the Five dynasties and Ten Kingdoms that the government began to organize large-scale publishing activities.After entering the Song Dynasty,the dominator gradually realized the importance of the printing media in politics.They set up special official publishing agencies,and issued various laws and regulations to severely crack down on publishing activities that were not conducive to the rule and maintained social stability.On the whole,the Chinese printing media carried the Neo-Confucianism that was beneficial to the social stability instead of causing social unrest,which indirectly promoted the social stability of the song and Ming dynasties.This conclusion reflects the important influence of power and content on the printing media.We should neither over-interpret the McLuhan's metaphor of "The media is a thief,the content is fresh meat" nor embark on the path of technical determinism.We should also consider the applicability of the proposition that "The medium is the message" in Chinese civilization,and critically examine the media theory that does not conform to the characteristics of the development of Chinese media.