The Communication Structure Of Rural Communities

The research aims to examine the structure of information flow in rural communications,interpret its principle and mechanism,and rebuild the analytical logic of theoretical research.The basic hypotheses are that(a)people's activities of information contact are closely embedded in and directly or indirectly affected by the specific social and cultural conditions in which daily life lies,(b)Chinese rural residents have got some specific,observable and distinguishable characteristics in the processes of information reception and dissemination which shaped a unique communication structure,and(c)this structure is the result of localized communication analysis which shapes a landscape that western classical communication theories have not paid close attention to.These opinions are based on the observation of the social and cultural environment in rural China.Chinese villages have three basic attributes: traditional native culture,living together around villages and social identity of peasant.The development of media and transportation since the reform and opening up did have reestablished the scale and boundaries of rural society,and the nature of Chinese rural society was gradually changed from acquaintance society to weak acquaintance society or semi-acquaintance society which led to weakened social ties between villagers.However,geographical location,consanguinity,native culture and so on are still the primary material and spiritual foundations of villages.The information contact mode characterized by interpersonal communication is still deeply rooted.On such background,the concept of community is adopted to describe research object,that is,the rural population,and resorted to three analytical dimensions: spaces,daily communications and media use.In terms of methodology,Baima village in S province of northern China is selected as a case to carry out an ethnography research with the main forms of participated observation and informal interviews.The results show that:(1)Spaces are still the key dimension to understand rural communication activities even in contemporary enviroments.Open spaces and privacy spaces together serve as the necessary communication infrastructure,providing material conditions for the circulation of information.That organizes the communication practices to a structure I called Group-Circle Mode.(2)The mode is reconfirmed through the analysis of villagers' daily communication.Three key clues,say clans,circles and intermediary,serve as agents to bond the small information groups among the villagers and so that set up the foundation of Group-Circle structure.(3)Their uses of mass media have not dispelled the circle mode.TV and Internet in village did not play a visible role to improve the information quality or obliterate interpersonal communication.New media technology has either little effect in changing the villagers' information acquisition.Based on these findings,this paper introduces the concepts of Riffle Pattern to describe the general characteristics and Self-Harmonized Order to interpret the underlying logic of the structure of rural communication.The Riffle Pattern regards the villagers and their communication activities as a sub-system under the broader social overall system.Small groups rallied around spaces,kinship and such on form the basic units--as so called circles--of the communication system,which look relatively independent and keep exchanging information from each other.The information disseminates from the center of the circles and spread to others just like the water ripples splashed by raining riffle.The Self-Harmonized Order explains why the communication pattern is established and satisfied in villages by elaborating the underlying processes of self-adaptation and self-regulation.The structure and function of rural communication maintain stability in these continuous processes and thus reinforce the consolidation of rural society.Finally,this paper proposes one kind of community logic to organize the research paradigm of rural communication,which combines two perspectives of space and crowd to examine the practices of rural communication and thus provides a probably new path to understanding the Chinese rural communities.The theoretical value,practical significance and possible deficiencies of this study are also disscussed.