文化研究视野中的“红段子”—表征、结构与文化

经典的政治传播研究往往由两类学科所统摄:政治学和社会学。结合信息社会的背景,前者一般在信息传播的语境下,对政治学的传统问题重新进行梳理和理论考察,提出诸如"数字民主"(布莱恩.罗德,《数字民主》)、"虚拟政治"(马克斯.斯劳卡,《大冲突》)等命题,进而探讨信息时代"政治"的真谛;而后者则关注政治信息的传播效果以及相应的社会影响,典型的如曼纽尔.卡斯特的《网络社会的崛起》,深入探讨了网络的政治管理和传统线性政治管理之间的不同。用"文化研究"来研究政治传播则不同:一则"文化研究"认为文化是"生活方式",因此政治不仅是政府和政客们的事情,也是引车卖浆之流们的事情;二是文化研究特别关注所谓的表征(repre-sentation),即将政治符号化的力量和路径,以及支配这种力量和路径的意识形态。本组专辑的四篇文章正是从这两个角度切入了政治传播。朱丽丽的《民族话语、视觉奇观与消费主义》以2010年春晚为分析对象,探究了这场晚会中的国家话语和民族话语,进而从社会心理与商业逻辑两个角度对这两种话语的形成路径和社会心理做了细致分析;杨德睿的《认同焦虑与肉体偏执狂:台湾传媒的政治煽色腥的根源探析》以台湾政坛为研究对象,探讨所谓"煽色腥"(sensationalism)的信息传播为何在台湾政坛能大行其道,其根源并非全在于政客的政治目的和媒介的传播目的,而是台湾人"认同焦虑"进而对感性过于偏执的产物;汤筠冰的《国家仪式的视觉转向及其传播的路径转型》敏锐地提出来一个命题,即随着传媒的发展,国家仪式的传播开始视觉化,其发挥政治效应的机制也发生了明显变化,进而带来了一种政治文化的转型;祁林的《文化研究视野中的红段子》用霍尔(Hall)"表征"的研究方法考察了所谓"红段子"在中国成为一种社会现象背后的政治机制以及这种机制可能产生的社会效应。四篇文章的研究都立足政治,最终又都游离政治——关注人的感觉和社会变迁,颇具跨学科的意味,而这正是"文化研究"的精神。

Editor＇s Note： Classical study of political dissemination is always controlled by two subjects： politics and sociology. In the information age, the former, under the context of information dissemination, reexamines and carries out a theoretical in- vestigation of traditional issues concerning politics, puts forward propositions like ＂digital democracy＂ （ Brian Road, Digit- al Democracy） and ＂virtual politics＂ （Mark Slouka, The Big Conflict） and then probes into the essence of politics in the information age; the latter focuses on the dissemination result of political information and corresponding social influences, as is shown in Manuel Castells＇ The r/se of the Network Society, in which he expounds the difference between network politi- cal management and traditional linear political management and thus capitalism is restructured. However, it is quite different if cultural study is taken ： first, cultural study maintains that culture is the way of living so politics is not only the business of government and politicians but of others; second, cultural study emphasizes the so- called representation, i.e. , the power and path making politics symbolic and the ideology manipulating them. The four pa- pers chosen are about the political dissemination from these two angles. Zhu Lili＇s Ethnic Discourse, Visual Wonder and Consumerism explores the national discourse and ethnic discourse in the 2010 Spring Festival gala and analyses the path for them and social psychology from the angles of social psychology and commercial logic; Yang Derui＇s Identity of Anxiety and Physical Paranoid： Sensational Politics in Taiwan Media studies Taiwan politics, probes into the reason why the so-called sensational information dissemination is popular in Taiwan politics and concludes that it＇s not completely originated from the politician＇s political objective and the media＇s aim of dissemination but from Taiwan Residents＇s identity of anxiety and their para- noid of sensitivity; Tang Junbing＇s Visual Shift of National Ritual and Change of the Path for Dissemination puts forward a proposition that with the development of the media, the dissemination of national rituals becomes visualized and therefore, its political mechanism changes too and results in a transformation of political culture ; Qi Lin＇s Macro Network Civilization in the Perspective of Cultural Study, by means of Hall＇s representation, explores the political mechanism behind the social phenomenon of macro network civilization and possible social effects. The four articles are all based on politics but in the end drift away from it by focusing on human feelings and social changes, which actually tend to be interdisciplinary and this is just where the spirit of cultural study lies.