Heroes of Wealth: Mythical Construction of Mass Communication in Contemporary China

Abstract

From our childhood to civilized society, MYTH and HERO never quit. However, now the myth is no longer an ancient narrative activity, but transformed to a unique thinking model to counteract modern implemental rationality, and then a metaphor of ideological mass culture in contemporary consuming society. Thus, the HERO of the modern myth is a metaphor, generalization and distillation of the crowd enshrined by mainstream ideology. As the representative of contemporary China, this paper answers why and how figures of wealth are shown to the masses as a hero, and what is the attitude of the masses towards the above image. Since the context of the mainstream ideology and social transformation behind FORTUNE HERO is also the context of entire society, this paper will not consider it as it stands. The logic and strategy of constructing FORTUNE HERO summarized from historical research and text analysis, can be applied to analyze the various other modern hero myths. Behind the HERO and audience of mass communication, we can find an alienated modern man. Therefore, the induction and deduction between text and law, would reveal the alienation of mass communication hidden behind modern hero myth, which means the deficiency of intersubjective dialogue between media and audience suppressed by the ideological system. Based on the critical study, this paper shows the way of reconstructing a hero myth of media. The audience’s media literacy should be promoted to achieve the communicative rationality of intersubjectivity.

Presenters

Peng Hyson Chen
Student, Postgraduate, Wuhan University, China

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Media Literacies

KEYWORDS

Mass Communication, HEROES OF WEALTH, Myth, Alienation