Cultivation of Young Students’ Core Value in New Media Environment〔*〕

Zhang Xinbiao

(South China Normal University,Guangzhou　Guangdong　510631)



Cultivation of Young Students’ Core Value in New Media Environment〔*〕

Zhang Xinbiao

(South China Normal University,GuangzhouGuangdong510631)

New media is not only an emerging media and a unique cultural form,but also a mechanism producing,expressing and disseminating ideology such as the socialist core values.In the process of cultivating college students’ core values,characteristics of new media such as information production,expression and propagation should be deeply understood and exploited.Accordingly,college students’ positive values will be fully guided by new media,thus cultivating and shaping a new generation firmly fulfilling the socialist core values in China.

new media;college students;core values;cultivation;ideological and political education;ideology

Ⅰ.Characteristics of new media

Impact and affect of mass media on society is increasingly important.In 1967,Marshall Mcluhan said “medium is message”.Until now,the media has become “the fourth power” in society.Moreover,as to contemporary college students,“more than 90% of the external influence which leads to a basic understanding of the society,grasp of the rules of the game,and even the formation of outlook on life and values,is from the media”.〔1〕

New Media is a kind of all-to-all propagation.With characteristics of mutual network and interactivity,it breaks the boundaries of linear propagation in traditional media.Furthermore,quickly blooming into the dominant medium,it creates a new way of social life and behavior in information age,inevitably leading to a shock and change of society and culture.

1.Limitless propagation in space-time

In virtue of technology innovation,limit of information dissemination in time and space has been broken,and the width and depth of spreading extent also been enhanced.Hence,with the breaking of boundaries of traditional information transmission in means,platform and model,micro-blog and wechat have becoming the main ways of information transmission in network.〔2〕Besides,information of new media,both having a massive content and an instant velocity,is produced and released almost simultaneously.

2.Real-time interactivity among audience

In new media,the one-dimensional audience no longer exists.The audience is an information receiver,as well as a producer and disseminator.Moreover,audience’s right to select and speak is growing in new media,and they make their voices heard through interacting with new media platforms.

3.Superposition of effect in propagation

New Media is a type of all-to-all propagation.During the process,individuals usually choose to publish and disseminate information according to their own ideas.Thereby,spread of individual-to-group and retransmit of individuals among audience will both result in superimposed of information effect in dissemination and circulation constantly and indefinitely,thus causing tremendous public controversy.

4.Difficulty in selecting among audience

As a way of transmitting information,new media has gradually penetrated into daily life such as shopping and dating,making information in every corner of society rapidly spread out in the first time,improving college students’ desire for knowledge;meanwhile,based on technology convenience,new media makes the unorganized massive knowledge,information and values enter students’ perspective in a more fragmented way through the terminal receiver,consequently influencing young college students’ values.The deeper young students contact with the mass media,more difficult they choose and judge when facing knowledge and information.

Ⅱ.Influence of new media in cultivating college students’ core values

Owing to characteristics of wide coverage,strong impact,high trust and sound spreading mechanisms,the mass media is playing an increasingly important role in society today.It is not only a producer and communicator of knowledge and information,but also an expresser and transmitter.When it is changing people’s way of life and thinking,it promotes the transformation of personality and formation of new values through advocating education,disseminating knowledge and delighting spirit at the same time.

1.New media providing favorable conditions to foster core values

Firstly,new media is conducive to enhancing college students’ political identity.The proposition and formulation of core values disseminates rapidly through the new media,making the concept of political parties and the country be widely spread in the whole society,in turn achieving political mobilization to students and ordinary people.“Promoting prosperity democracy,civilization and harmony” is strengthening the consciousness of people and a nation,accordingly boosting college students’ political identity to the party and the socialist cause.

Secondly,new media helps cultivate college students’ civic responsibility.The interactivity of information spreading in mew media allows college students to change from audience to interlocutor.In the new media environment,values of “advocating freedom,equality,justice and rule of law” are spread,making college students have a richer understanding of national conditions and the community,further bringing them realize that concern and participation in politics is a kind of right,and also an inescapable responsibility.

Thirdly,new media is propitious to developing college students’ consciousness of participating in social affairs.Having features of “close to reality,life,and the masses”,new media builds an information transmitting and interacting platform in order to promote supervision of public opinion,thus providing convenient conditions to care for community and participate in public affairs for college students,eventually making them effectively participate in social practice and political training.

Finally,new media is in favor of formatting college students’ healthy and positive personality.With the help of new media,college students can express their feelings and life demands freely and directly,and communicate with other participants with freedom.Through new media,values of “patriotism,dedication,integrity and kindness” can make students fully receive education of ideological mainstream.Meanwhile,students as a political body are manifested in the process.

2.New media impacting on nurturing core values

One is that information hegemony blurs college students’ ideological tendencies.With the increasing maturity of new media technology,mass of information inside and outside is delivered intensively in limited and private time and space,especially western information hegemony which is in a hostile ideological state to China.Tied with cultural information,ideas and values,information is spread and transmitted,assaulting ideological position of developing countries,ultimately making young people blindly admire the west and become extremely easy to be influenced by western ideology.

The other is that information garbage blurs college students’ value orientation.Government monopoly on information is broken by the Internet,especially by the birth and expansion of new media,and the one-dominator pattern of public opinion is eliminated quickly.Consequently,a mass of information is produced,duplicated and disseminated.On one hand,the space of free speech is broader than any other era in the past.“Due to underdevelopment of public domain,the Internet has almost become an only exit of ordinary citizens to resist information monopoly and make a sound.” However,once the plausible,trade-offs and filtered values filling in new media such as the so called “chicken soup for the soul”,“success” or “inspirational story” cross the border,they will not only become worthless information garbage but also blur people’s values.On the other hand,corresponding to some college students’ extreme psychology,some arguments,ideas and values which hide political purposes disseminate into the terminal through the point-to-point new media and are recognized.All of these above will lead to a deviation of core values as well as the ideas and norms it advocates,finally resulting in deviation values.

Lastly,vague boundary of information weakens college students’ consciousness of nation and country.Due to the anonymous equality of subject and information popularization,the network power tends to be a flattening structure,an unbounded space and a direct participation.Accordingly,a virtual world of global integration created by new media blurs college students’ concept of people and a nation in reality,making some college students believe that boundaries of country and nation disappear in network,so they may choose to get away from the real world.In addition,it is possible that global consciousness highlighted by new media reduces college students’ consciousness of people and a nation,which may even dispel the collectivism and patriotism in China.

Ⅲ.Principles of new media in fostering college students’ core values

1.Principle of equal interaction

In a equal,open and positive way,expression of values in mass media can inhibit and regulate those irrational and unhealthy values and interests;meanwhile,it actively guides those interests which are legitimate and healthy but may conflict with the fact,helping college students correctly understand and deal with conflicts between personal desires and reality.Hence,the new media should be made full use of to replace the previous one-dimensional model of values education,thus emphasizing dialogue and interaction between double subject or subjects,so as to creating a free scene of communication:“No dialogue,no exchange;no communication,no real education”.

2.Principle of real-life situation

Marx believed that “existence of people is the process of their real life”,“social life is essentially practical”.Only by practice will the purpose of fostering core values be fully achieved.Therefore,through new media,people should focus on life and identify college students’ entry point in cognizing,selecting and practicing the core values,consequently making students experience,percept and rethink in a variety of real and simulated life situations through wechat,micro-blog and other new media.Thereby,college students’ identification and recognition of people,society and country in values will be enhanced,finally internalizing identification and recognition of core values into their value goals and behavioral norms.

3.Principle of recessive penetration

Different from the dominant indoctrination education,cultivation of core values emphasize recessive penetration to college students on campus,social interaction and everyday life.Popularity and rapid development of micro-blog,wechat,SMS,mobile newspaper,campus BBS and other new media provides a wealth of carriers and platforms for the implicit penetration of core values.And so it does,all the new media mentioned above both reveal the contemporary college students’ characteristics and emphasize the inter subjectivity of education,bringing students awareness and identification of core values imperceptibly,so as to achieving the purpose of practice.

Ⅳ.Approaches of new media in nurturing college students’ core values

By means of education and dissemination,the culture spread by correct values necessarily reflects socialism and the values it guides is inevitably the socialist core values.Therefore,as to cultivating college students’ core values through new media,there are mainly three approaches,namely path of value in ideal and belief,path of cultural value and path of achievement by the subject.

1.Path of ideal and belief:cultivating value of practical ability of national consciousness

In the process of information dissemination,signal dominant ideology should be strengthened by new media.Achievements of popularized ideological education should not only benefit college students,but also guide students to participate in social practice and fulfill the socialist core values.Besides,through interactively share and exchange images,pictures and articles,new media should make students understand national conditions and care the society;through organizing mini charity and competition,new media can attract college students to widely participate in public-spirited activities,cultivating their social responsibility,as well as spreading positive energy.Eventually,college students can achieve self-realization,social value and the Chinese dream.

2.Path of cultural value:fostering capability of value awareness possessing consciousness of social responsibility

Through establishing and improving mechanisms of production,dissemination and supervision,new media should promote positive and healthy mainstream culture internally.Subject matter and technique of performance should reflect national construction requirement,so as to propagating mainstream values and digesting negative social impact brought by commercial cultural products,finally ensuring correct value orientation guided by mass media.In this way,college students can fully understand the sense of social responsibility and follow the law of value perception and judgment,thus fostering ability of value perception and judgment,further forming the ability of value consciousness.Namely,through self-awareness effort and self-discipline,individuals will turn the values which represent social progress trend into their value pursuit.

3.Path of achievement by the subject:cultivating ability of selecting beyond healthy personality value

Besides uplifting self-consciousness and shaping youth idols,new media should also guide young people cross over individual interests and achieve interactive development between personal and social interests.Using modern media and ways of communication such as micro-blog,QQ group and wechat public platform,educators can contact with college students online and offline,listening and solving their practical problems encountered in learning,career planning,campus life,workplace etiquette and training of professional ethics,ultimately enhancing their awareness of stakeholder.

All in all,new media is not only an emerging media and a unique cultural form,but also a mechanism producing,expressing and disseminating ideology such as the socialist core values.Undoubtedly,it will have a revolutionary impact on cultivating and building college students’ core values.As to comprehensively shaping of college students,new media does not limit it in extrinsic behavior such as communication,sharing and learning,also it fundamentally remolds college students’ character and spirit.Therefore,in the process of cultivating college students’ core values,characteristics of new media such as information production,expression and propagation should necessarily be deeply understood and exploited,so as to fully guiding college students develop positive values,thus cultivating and shaping a new generation firmly fulfilling the socialist core values in China.

References:

〔1〕Wang Tao,Dai Jun,Research of Changing Trajectory and Law on College Students’ Values since Reform and Opening Up in 30 Years,Higher Education Research,2009(10).

〔2〕Hu Yong,Hubbub — Personal Expression and Public Discussion in Internet Era.Guilin:Guangxi Normal University Press,2008.

About the author：Zhang Xinbiao(1982—),Ph.D.in School of Politics and Administration,South China Normal University,Lecture,the main research:ideological and Political Education,Culture Criticism.

〔*〕This work was funded by The historical materialism innovation research on General Party Secretary Xi Jingping’s important speech series,Major National Social Scientific fund project(142DA004),as well as The research on the realization of socialist core value in college cultural hegemony based on mass data,the 13th Five-year Plan research project(moral special) of 2016 Guangdong Province Education Science(2016JKDY13).