Embedding And Enfolding:Research On The Mediated Governance Of A Northwest Village In China

The relationship between media and rural governance is a key topic in the research of communication and rural society.However,most of these studies are carried out under the "tool-effect" path,emphasizing the compatibility between the tool attributes of media and the efficiency of rural governance.This kind of research simplifies the relationship between media and rural governance into the "grafting" of media functions in the field of rural governance,ignoring the deep interaction and evolution of media and rural governance.Based on this,the concept of "media-oriented rural governance" is used in this study,and the relationship between media and rural governance is regarded as a long-term process in which media is embedded into the field of rural governance and the two are interdependent.With "embedment",a diachronic and practical verb,as the entry point and foothold,the interpretive path of "practice-process" is constructed.Wufang Village in Gansu Province is selected as the field point,the in-depth interview and participatory observation method are used,the changes in the context of The Times are taken as the analysis background,and the changes in media forms are taken as the background.Based on the local governance practice generated by the media by multiple action subjects in the village,the process of media embedding into the rural governance field and the media governance landscape created by it are presented in a panoramic manner.The research finds that different media forms and their derived media practices have been embedded into the rural governance field in the ways of daily life structural embedding,cognitive embedding and relational embedding,and present the media-oriented rural governance landscape of "constraint governance","affective governance" and "collaborative governance" respectively.Specifically,in the collectivization era,after the auditory media represented by broadcast and loudspeakers entered the rural society,they fully intervened in the structure of daily life of the village by restricting the physical state and behavioral norms of the villagers,anchoring the temporal and spatial context of the village,shaping the habitus of the action subject and other auditory media practices,so that the governance practice and daily life practice of the village are highly superimposed.Presents a "constrained governance" landscape;After the visual media represented by open-air film and television enter the countryside,the viewing practice generated by the two media and the communication and interaction derived from the viewing are embedded into the rural governance field by shaping the emotional connection between individuals and the country,constructing the individual identity cognition and the subjective consciousness of independent participation in public affairs.Arouse the initiative of the action subject to participate in the governance from emotion and thought,and then show the characteristics of "affective governance";The new network media represented by wechat groups embed themselves into the relationship network composed of multiple governance subjects and constantly adjust and reconstruct the relationship order among governance subjects.Wechat group realizes the connection and linkage among multiple governance subjects by constructing a hierarchical governance model,forming a flat and strongly related governance network with "cooperation","collaboration" and "co-governance" as the key characteristics,and then presenting a "collaborative governance" landscape.By analyzing the process mechanism of media embedding in rural governance,it is found that media-oriented rural governance is a continuous accumulation process,and reflects the changes of contemporary rural governance concept and structure.Nowadays,the above three different types of media coexist in the field of rural governance,showing a trend of integration and symbiosis.This paper argues that the role played by media in rural governance is not a "governance tool" to improve efficiency,but an "action field" to accommodate governance practices,and proposes that the current media-oriented rural governance should seek complementarity and correlation between different media embedded in rural governance mechanisms(daily life structural embedding,cognitive embedding,relational embedding).Taking the structure of daily life,the cognition of multiple action subjects and the network of governance relations as three dimensions to discuss media participation in rural governance,the paper focuses on the integrated governance practice which is formed by the overlapping of various media forms and the interweaving of different media governance practices,in order to provide a research fulcrum and perspective for the future research on media governance of rural society.