The technological revolution has greatly influenced the whole society,which brought about a new social structure — the network society as an inevitable background in social sciences research.The digital technology and the network society create new environment for the higher education reform.Academic profession development is interrelated with the network society and the higher education reform,and new characteristics emerging.Academic profession is an important topic and research theme of higher education management and the university faculty improvement,However,the empirical research on the new phenomenon of academic profession development in the network society is insufficient,Based on the research background,the core question of this research is “what and how are the external structure and internal construction of the new phenomenon of academic profession development in the network society?”.And four sub-questions are as follows: What realistic characteristics of the network society affect the academic profession development,and what are the characteristics of the new phenomenon of academic profession development? What are the structures and what new role expectations do the structures put forward for the scholars? How does the social identity of scholars interact with the external structure and what are the individual differences and group commonalities in the identity construction? How to understand both sides of the new phenomenon of academic profession development in the network society,and what should higher education managers do?In the literature review,this research adopts Bibliometrics to arrange the development tread and frontiers of academic profession research,reviews the macro and micro research,and grasps the historical trend of academic profession development,relevant research topics with external and internal perspectives,as well as the theoretical connections between these topics.Three core concepts of the network society,academic profession and knowledge production are defined.This research summarizes the identity construction theory and academic identity theory as the theoretical basis of this study.This research takes the Internet knowledge production of scholars in Bili Bili as the window of the new phenomenon of academic profession development in the network society,adopts nethnography as the research method,collects diversified data via online texts,interviews,questionnaires,and other tools,and uses NVivo12 to encode and analyze the qualitative data.The research theoretically focuses on identity construction,which integrates the macro and micro,external perspectives,firstly presents the social reality,the characteristics and the external structure of the new phenomenon of academic profession development,then analyzes the interaction between the external structure and social identity,the academic identity construction of individual scholars and the social identity construction of scholar groups from the perspective of internal construction,and finally dialectically analyzes both sides of the new phenomenon of academic profession development,and what and how higher education managers should do.The conclusions are as follows:(1)The social reality constituted by technological features,such as the application of digital technology,the boom of social media and the reconstruction of information system,has brought about changing academic work and academic culture,and shaped the external context from academic knowledge production to Internet knowledge production.The new phenomenon of academic profession development in which scholars enter virtual public cultural space,approach public cultural life,and participate in the Internet knowledge production has the essence of public knowledge production and social scholarship,with the characteristics of scholars’ cross-border development.The cross-border development demonstrates the diversified development of social service functions as well as the renewal and expansion of social identity of scholars;(2)In the context of Internet knowledge production,the change and spatial interaction of external structure have put forward more complex role expectations for scholars and changed the basis of their identity.Identity is not the determinant but mutual construction of structure.While internalizing structural requirements and developing identity connotation,scholars also actively influence structure through different role strategies,including the breakthrough of roles within the system,the inheritance development of traditional roles,and the acceptance and adaptation of new roles.The individual pursuit and new role practice of scholars reflect the internalization of the requirement of multiple structure and the development of social identity;(3)When scholars move from the single context of academic knowledge production to a multiple context of Internet knowledge production,in the individual narrative of identity construction,scholars construct four types of academic identities due to different role perceptions.There are commonalities in individuals’ academic identity construction,which is related to the individual pursuit,interpersonal interaction and adjustment strategies of role practice of scholars’ Internet knowledge production,as well as the social identity construction of scholars.The social identity from "scholars" to "scholars with cross-border development" has unique characteristics different from traditional scholars and other content producers,which forms the dynamic mechanism of social identity construction.The accumulation and scale of the similarity has attracted the attention of the whole academic professional group;(4)Returning to the original context of academic profession development,there are limitations of new phenomenon of academic profession development at the aspects of individual scholars,university organizations and academic communities,but supportive practices have emerged in policies and regulations,organizational practices and evaluation systems.Higher education managers should dialectically watch the positive effects and potential risks of the new phenomenon of academic profession development,and reflect on the management from the aspects of improving the Internet literacy of scholars,clarifying the supervision of university organizations,adjusting the values of the academic community.In conclusion,this research takes the network society as the key background,combines macro and micro perspectives,forms an overall understanding of the new phenomenon of contemporary academic profession development at the aspects of external structure and internal construction,and provides suggestions for higher education managers. |