“潮汐车道”:冷战、中国式现代化与西方发展研究的第三世界源流

Tidal Lane:Cold War,Chinese-style Modernization,and the Third World Resources in Western Development Studies

本文尝试从中国式现代化经验中的本土信息化发展道路入手,梳理冷战时期中国信息传播科技的技术政治。从信息技术的研发、组织管理、应用普及到社会动员模式的历史中,可以勾陈出一条基于物质限定性而发展出的灵活水平化技术路径。在冷战背景下,包括传播研究领域在内的美国知识界开始积极考察中国等第三世界国家的非西方发展模式,到20世纪70年代第三世界经验已经成为新兴的知识话语,并被纳入主流范式。然而,80年代以来,吸收了中国等第三世界国家革命经验的美国未来学和发展传播话语却反过来框定了中国知识界对信息社会愿景的想象与抉择。从梳理这一多向流动的历史出发,可以帮助我们对20世纪传播学的知识生产以及中国式现代化道路的理解开启更具有历史辩证性的讨论。

Starting from the local development path of China’s electronic information industry,this paper attempts to sort out China’s political strategy in information communication technology during the Cold War.Based on the history of research and development,organizational management,application,popularization,and social mobilization in information technology,a flexible and horizontal developmental path with all of its material limitations can be drawn.During the Cold War,American experts began to examine the non-Western developmental models of China and other third world countries.By the 1970s,the third world models had become an increasingly hot topic and had a revising effect on the then dominant paradigm.However,since the 1980s,the American futuristic discourse and theories of developmental communication,which have absorbed the revolutionary experiences of China and other third world countries,have now turned the table around and circumscribed the Chinese intellectuals’imagination and choice of future.Given the history of these two-way interactions,we may embark on a more historically dialectical discussion on the knowledge production of the communication science in the 20th century and its implications for Chinese-style modernization.