Research Of The Influence Of Mass Media On Metropolitan Career Women's Political Participation

In the basic frame of constructing socialist democratic politics and attaining gender equality in political arena in our country, with shanghai career women as our study objectives, from the perspective of sociology and mediaology, and by combining quatitative and qualitative reseach methods, this sicentific research describes the fundmental state of metropolitan career women's political participation and their mass media contact, analyzes and explores the effect of mass media on their political participation.Through description of the condition of their conscicousness of political participation, the study finds that in modern metropolitan society, the metropolitan career women have relatively intense conscicousness of political participation. They commonly have rich knowledge of political participation, relatively strong attitude towards political participation and relatively high willingness to be an administrator of the country. However, most of them regard themselves as having ordinary or weak ability in managing our country and the society.The political participation behavior of metroplitan career women is relatively low. Specifically speaking, compared to metropolitan career men, metropolitan career women has lower rate of membership to the Communist Party of China, but higher participation rate of quasi-political orgnizations and various trade associations. In the aspects of political vote, political expression and political contact, the career women's participation rates are all not very high. However, in comparison with men, they have no significant differentiation in political vote and expression, but have significant difference in political contact.This research also finds that there exists difference among the media contact styles of metropolitan career women, which thereby affects their political participation pattern. The mass media affects mainly the consciousness of political participation of metropolitan career women. The contact time, frequency, and the prefered information, especially news information contact of mass media, signicantly influence metropolitan career women's political participation awareness. The mass media comprises a main political expression channel of metropolitan career women. Different recognitions of mass media's political function result in different political contact behaviors, propaganda of social participation with political character on mass media influences the social participation of metropolitan career women. However, the number of mass media owned by metropolitan career women doesn't relate to their political participation.In conclusion, mass media has great but limited impact on metropolitan career women's political participation. Social environment, mass media and the social status of individuals all have a share in influencing metropolitan career women's political participation, and at the same time, social environment and the social status of individuals also affect the media contact pattern of metropolitan career women. After eliminating other factors that influence the political participation of metropolitan career women, the study discovers that mass media affects metropolitan career women's political participation especially the consciousness of political participation greatly and independtly, but the effect has abated comparatively.It should be seen that, the mass media, though not a determining element, but an important factor, exhibits dual influences on metropolitan career women's political participation and its political participation function should be fully brought into play.