“未来”的观念变迁及其传播思想史面向

The Evolution of the Concept of the"Future"and Its Perspectives in the History of Communication Thought

本文首先梳理了“未来”的三类观念星丛:神文主义的谶纬和占卜、乌托邦以及科幻文学,并着重论述了19世纪以来未来观念发生的重大变化,即理性化和科学化的“复魅”过程,它源于社会巨变以及过去的迅速贬值,并深受“三论”的影响,目的论的思维重构了时间序列的因果逻辑,其应用也从军事领域转移到社会领域。晚近以来的未来观念在信息传播技术的发展中找到了新的表达方式,《第三次浪潮》《后工业社会的来临》《未来的冲击》等未来学著作将信息视为社会变革的驱动力量,这种未来观念的影响力迅速蔓延全球,也深刻影响到了当代中国的社会进程以及新闻传播的学科范式。在工业浪潮以来的“未来”想象、未来主义思潮在中国、新闻传播研究的“未来”倾向等主题上,未来主义都给传播思想史带来了丰富的议题资源和有待清理的思想遗产。

The essay begins by outlining three conceptual clusters of the"future":theological prophecy,utopianism,and science fiction.It then focuses on the significant changes in the concept of the future since the 19th century,particularly the processes of rationalization and scientization.These transformations stem from societal upheavals and the rapid devaluation of the past,driven by the influences of systems theory,information theory,and control theory.Non-deterministic teleology redefined the prevailing relationship between temporality and the future,and the field of futures studies adopted ideas and technologies from military paradigms to explore social inquiries.In recent years,the future has found new expression through the development of modern technologies in information processing and decision-making by computers and cybernetic devices.Works by futurists,such as^(*)The Third Wave^(*),^(*)The Coming of Post-Industrial Society^(*),and^(*)Future Shock^(*),positioned information as the driving force behind social change.This vision of the future has spread globally,profoundly impacting contemporary China's social processes and influencing the paradigm of journalism and communication studies.Futurism has contributed a wealth of resources and intellectual legacy to the history of communication thought,particularly in how the future has been imagined since the industrial wave,the futurist trend in China,and the futuristic tendencies within journalism and communication studies.