A Study On Mainstream Discourse To The Construction Of Collective Memory Of "August 1st Army Day" In The PLA's 90th

2017 marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of Chinese People's Liberation Army.In order to celebrate the glorious history of the People's Army,diverse commemorative activities have been held advocated by government in all circles of the society.August 1,founding of the People's Army by China Communist Party,is regarded as a historical starting point and has become a high-frequency word in the mainstream discourse at this stage.The historical event:Nanchang Uprising on August 1st going onto the screen,the actual military parades and variety shows held solemnly to celebrate the founding of Chinese People's Army and the mass media carrying out centralized propaganda altogether constructed a collective memory of August 1st.The concept of"collective memory" was first come up by Habwach.He highlighted the contemporary nature of memory construction and the vital role of collective memory in social structure.This paper presents the theory of collective memory by Habwach and his successors as the analytical framework.It chooses the two most well-known representatives among commemorative activities,thematic movies "The Founding of an Army" and Zhu Rihe's military parade,as the research objects,taking the methods of text analysis and discourse analysis to deeply analyze the images and ceremonies,and explores the collective memory's construction of"August 1" by the mainstream discourse.The study finds that the construction of collective memory originates from the current political and realistic demands.It can be activated and strengthened by reappearing the historical event through popular media;It can also be reconstructed and standardized by showing the"great nation and powerful armies" images through the actual military parade in the battlefield so as to achieve the political and national identity.This study combines the theory of collective memory with the local experience of China,tries to dig out the content and way to construct collective memory of"August 1st Army Day" by the mainstream discourse and explores the evolutional mechanism from collective memory to national identity and its practical significance to national development.