Television Culture And The Socialization Of Miao And Dong Youth

The paper is a research on the television medium's influences on the adolescents'socialization from the perspective of sociology, based on the field research in the Miao Village and Dong Village of Xijiang in Southeast Qian county of Guizhou province through questionnaire investigation, participant observation and deep interview. The status of the contact between the adolescents and television medium include the quantity of the televisions and their receiving methods in the villages, the frequency and the segment of time which the adolescent watching TV, the taste of the adolescent on the program and so on. The vital influence by the television medium on the socialization of the adolescent manifested in entertainment, learning messages, social relations, imitations of patterns and life styles.The research concluded that: for the adolescents of the Miao village and the Dong village, firstly, watching TV is an important method of entertainment of the adolescents'life; secondly, watching TV is the most important approach of receiving messages of them; thirdly, watching TV is a vital medium from which they master and use the Chinese word and language, get and understand the messages of the world, learn the knowledge of the laws and the society; fourthly, they are fond of imitating the roles and its actors or actresses whose excellent qualities can be taken examples for them in the TV programs by themselves and also their parents; fifthly, the communities by same interests can be created through their communications on the programs, in a word, watching TV is good for the adolescents. But watching TV also brings bad influences on the adolescents, such as that the erotic scenes in the programs promotes the adolescents fall into precocious love and deviation, the violent scenes in the program enhances their aggressiveness, the advertises misleads their opinions about consumption. Most importantly, the TV enlarges the generational gap when the adolescents have a say on the TV and push aside the family elderly's opinion.With the social changes in Countryside, new ways of socialization necessarily takes in stead of the conventional ways, and consequently the old man lost their status. Through the messages from television, the functions of the cultivation for the elderly are imperiled, on the other side, the adolescent makes it handy,"a binary structure in family"appears.By the economic development, the internet comes into the villages which are adored by the adolescents more and more. As a medium which is more unbounded and more independent than the television medium, necessarily impacts on the dominant status of television medium, and also impacts on the socialization of the adolescents. The relationship of the generations in the villages will also be impacted by the popularization of the television and internet mediums, the modern medium is clearing up the authority of the elderly in tradition.