Sixty years ago, on March 20, 1962, the American sociologist C. Mills Wright Mills died at the age of 46. On the 60th anniversary of his death, we re-read his most influential classic, The Sociological Imagination, and in this way reflect on the imagination of the social sciences.
Let's start with a current phenomenon.
The results of the preliminary examination of the 2021 National Graduate School Entrance Examination were recently announced, and in today's increasingly "volume" of the examination and research, communication science has become the focus of heated discussion among candidates on the day of the release because of its almost highest score line. As the most "hot" humanities and social science major in China at present, communication studies attracts mathematicians to apply, but behind the prosperity of a faction, the continuous discipline anxiety has always been difficult to dissipate. According to the communication scholar Rogers in the History of Communication, the modern discipline of communication began in the United States in the 20th century (although this narrative has been questioned a lot). The "four founders" of communication disciplines summarized by scholar Wilbur Schramm, such as Paul Lazarsfeld and Karl Hovland, are mostly from psychology, political science and other multidisciplinary disciplines. This makes it possible to say, even today, "What is the original theory of communication studies?" "It is still the question that this historically short-lived discipline is often questioned.
However, the "subjectivity anxiety" of this discipline also means the openness of the discipline's imagination, which gives communication science more possible development paths. Mainstream communication science in the United States focuses on the study of information transmission activities in human society, which is now the public's literal understanding of this discipline. However, while establishing disciplinary boundaries helps to institutionalize an emerging discipline, it also seriously narrows the scope of research in the discipline. In Revisiting the Grey Area: Writing and Remembering the History of Communication Studies, scholar Liu Hailong criticized it earlier. In today's Chinese communication science community, the voice of "breaking down disciplinary barriers" has long been familiar, and many more interdisciplinary fields such as media environmental science and communication political economy are booming.
As Mills writes, the cultivation of sociological imagination comes in large part from the fact that researchers do not stick to "establishing their own specialized research according to the departments of the college." However, as interdisciplinarity becomes a trend, new anxieties are emerging. Many communication students may encounter a common question when choosing a topic for their thesis: "Is the topic you are studying a 'communication science' problem?" On the one hand, we strive to emphasize our own interdisciplinary characteristics, on the other hand, we are extremely concerned about the boundaries of disciplines, and this paradox faced by communication science can become a classic example for us to think about the development process of modern humanities and social sciences to a certain extent.
Liu Hailong's view is that communication studies certainly has its own unique perspective, on the other hand, there is no need to worry too much about the so-called "subjectivity of disciplines". In a society with rapid development of media technology, we need to update our existing understanding of the phenomenon of human transmission, recognizing that the problem of communication is far more than just the efficiency of information transmission, but also the problem of "body", logistics and even "virus". Only by fully excavating a new perspective on "communication" and "media" can we give communication science the vitality to continue to move forward.
Written | Liu Yaguang
Liu Hailong is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Journalism, Chinese Min University. He is the author of "Revisiting the Grey Area" and "Propaganda". His translations include "Ten Basic Principles of Journalism", "Introduction to Communication Theory: Analysis and Application", "Milestones in the Study of mass Communication Effects", etc.
Mills' disagreement with early communication science
Beijing News: In "The Sociological Imagination", he once criticized Lazarsfeld, one of the main founders of communication science, who also collaborated on research, but when conducting the "Interpersonal Impact" survey, the two had divergent ideas. How do we understand the connection between Mills and communication?
Liu Hailong: Mills engaged in a lot of communication research in the early days, and "The Sociological Imagination" not only criticized Lazarsfeld, but also mentioned Samuel Stouffer, Stuart Dobb, etc., who were important figures in early communication and propaganda research. He did opinion leadership research at Decatur with Lazarsfeld at Columbia University, and later works, including Elite of Power, were also very concerned with the role of the media in society.
C. Mills Wright Mills), an American 20th-century sociologist, was born on August 28, 1916, and died on March 20, 1962. He studied at the University of Wisconsin under H. Gus and H. Becker, where he received his Ph.D. in 1941. He taught at Columbia University for a long time. His work, The Sociological Imagination, is one of the most highly cited books in the social sciences.
These studies before and after his time are also related. When doing opinion leader research, at the beginning all the data was collected by Mills with the students, and it was done very hard, not a sample survey in the traditional sense of sending a questionnaire, but interviewing one by one, such as asking a housewife on which topics were influenced or influenced by others, and then snowballing to continue to find the influencer or the influenced. In fact, it can be seen that his research pursuit is not to simply collect data on the surface, but to personally contact specific people and grasp real relationships in the interpersonal network. Later, in "Power Elite", he put the problem of interpersonal influence into a larger framework, that is, how the elite uses the media to manipulate the masses, and he also pointed out the role of this manipulation in the formation of irrational public opinion, which is more obvious in today's self-media era and populist era.
Mills's critical stance on power was very different from the mainstream communication science of depoliticization at the time, and Mills, who executed the project, and Lazarsfeld, who was in charge of the project, became enemies because of differences of opinion and never appeared together on the same occasion for the rest of their lives. Interpersonal Influence was later re-analyzed by Lazarsfeld and Katz after Mills withdrew, which is the book we see now.
Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) was a sociologist and communication scientist. Born on 13 February 1901 in Vienna, Austria, he graduated from the University of Vienna in 1925 with a Doctorate in Mathematics and later became interested in social psychology and communication studies. He is the author of "Mathematical Thought in the Social Sciences" and "The Language of Social Research".
Todd Kitlin later criticized him in a famous essay, Media Sociology, which specifically mentioned the background of the research's investors. The sponsor of this study is a magazine whose readers are positioned as lower-middle-class women. Mills has tried to show through research that interpersonal influences are vertical controls of flow from top to bottom, not horizontal flow. This conclusion is not good for magazines and advertisers. Because if the impact is vertically flowing, then advertising only needs to be run to elite magazines, not promoted at all levels. In addition, the problem of research design was also very delicate, and the first three of the four research areas of design at that time were daily necessities purchase, fashion, and film, and the last one was public affairs (i.e., politics). The conclusion is that the vertical flow of interpersonal influences is more obvious in the last question, and the first three are horizontal flows, so interpersonal influences are mainly horizontal flows. But in fact, the first three can be attributed to the category of "consumption" according to classification, and consumption, in fact, boils down to the influence of vertical flow opinions such as mass media marketing.
Beijing News: This theoretical orientation proposed by Mills is very different from the initial period of American communication science. Schramm's myth of the founders of communication science, although it made the discipline institutionalized, also narrowed the academic imagination of communication science. Much of the "abstract empiricism" that Mills criticized applies to criticism of communication.
Liu Hailong: Kitlin's article mentions this aspect. The survey we just mentioned confuses two kinds of influences, one is the structural, top-down influence of power, and the other is the interpersonal influence between people, and interpersonal relationships and power are essentially two completely different things that cannot be simply compared. In fact, this also reflects the neglect of power and structure by many scholars, and mistakenly believes that many major changes can be completed through interpersonal influence. Without this kind of observation, in fact, empirical research such as Lazarsfeld seems to be empirical, but it is actually only an "abstract experience" that cannot touch the context of social reality.
However, Mills was more often a theoretical "lone brave", because at that time, Lazarsfeld's research was based on an industrial model, and market research and polls were a very popular industry. The whole communication research is actually more like running a "business", doing research in a very standardized, project-based way. After Mills, this has basically become a style of consultative research in American communication studies and even the entire social sciences, and has also been vigorously promoted in China in recent years, and Mills has also criticized this "bureaucratic" research trend, which is actually contrary to the humanities and social sciences research that emphasizes personal care and specific experience. So in fact, Mills can still go a step forward, and there are profound social structural factors behind this ills, which cannot be solved by the improvement of individual "imagination".
Revisiting the Grey Area: Writing and Remembering the History of Communication Studies, by Liu Hailong, Peking University Press, July 2015.
Identity issues in communication studies
Beijing News: Back to communication itself. Two years ago, when Tsinghua University planned to cancel the major of journalism and communication, the society began to discuss the question of "whether journalism is unlearned", in fact, the problem of discipline anxiety also exists in communication. As a very typical interdisciplinary discipline, communication studies often faces the question of not having its own independent theory, and the research problems are borrowed from the perspective of other disciplines. In your opinion, what is the unique perspective that belongs to "communication" and "media"?
Liu Hailong: First of all, we need to make it clear that media/communication studies is not an independent discipline, but a field. In fact, whether communication/media constitute an independent perspective has indeed been controversial in itself. I think that if you look at the origins of communication, "power" or influence may be the focus of an entry problem in communication, and the first communication research deals with issues including government propaganda campaigns, political communication, and rhetoric in persuasion.
In addition, the media theory that has been discussed a lot in recent years is also an important concept introduced by communication science. So what is the unique perspective of "medium", I think it can be boiled down to a "third sex". We know that the Western philosophical tradition from ancient Greece emphasized more on "duality", such as the subject-object dichotomy, The Cartesian duality of body and mind, and so on. Heidegger wants to break through the duality between things and people, thinking that it is actually one, and people who pick up a hammer know how to use it, which is a kind of "hand-holding". But this still ignores a "mediation" problem: after picking up the tool and starting to use it, the process is not natural, and there is at least the intermediary role of the "hand". The "hand" or "body" is actually a medium in a philosophical sense. This example is intended to illustrate that the medium is not an entity, but a perspective that makes us realize that there is an "intermediary" transition between many binary opposites. This is a fundamental conceptual change that will affect our rethinking of the relationship between people and the world. The mediatization or mediatization theory that is discussed more often now is to reintroduce the media into the discussion of social issues.
I have paid special attention to "body" issues in recent years, and I have actually been inspired by this perspective. Looking at our latest technology today, including VR, metaverse, etc., they are actually very related to the medium of the body. In the past, we often thought that we could "directly" recognize the world, and deal with the world, the role of the body has been hidden, and now we are facing a state of communication that evacuates the body, and suddenly, your relationship with the world, your basic understanding of the world, will have subversive changes. This has rarely been paid attention to in the past communication research, but it is actually the most fundamental problem of communication research. On these issues, new ideas put forward by some media theorists can open the boundaries of our imagination, such as John Peters's proposal of new media in "Strange Clouds", which actually brings us back to the basic function of the media before the mass media, rather than just focusing on transmitting information and symbols.
Qiyun, by John Duheim Peters, translated by Deng Jianguo, Fudan University Press, December 2020.
Beijing News: Communication studies is often referred to as the "crossroads", where the ideological resources of various disciplines are gathered. On the one hand, communication scholars often emphasize the need to pay attention to interdisciplinary visions, on the other hand, this discipline seems to have always had the anxiety of "subjectivity" and wants to prove its high degree of discipline. What do you think of this?
Liu Hailong: Like I just said, I think communication science has its own unique perspective, such as the perspective of the media, but we can't say how unique this perspective is. For example, we are now studying the problem of logistics systems, and management may focus more on the efficiency of logistics, but we may be concerned about the technical infrastructure and the control of workers.
In fact, I have always believed that subjectivity anxiety in disciplines is a very nihilistic thing, and we only need to face the real problem, solve it with a unique perspective, and give knowledge contributions. And one thing we need to note is that "subjectivity" often means "independence", but many of the core concepts in communication science are themselves not independent, for example, media means "connection", which is another law, and we cannot ignore the thing that connects the two ends to talk purely about the medium. So I've always said that the most stringent term for communication should be the sociology of media or the sociology of communication, which must be more than just a matter of communication.
Propaganda (2nd Edition), by Liu Hailong, China Encyclopedia Press, January 2020.
We will also find a very interesting phenomenon: the more disciplines that lack "identity", the more they care about the identity of the discipline, but some disciplines that have long ceased to have the so-called legitimacy of the discipline will not frequently mention this statement. As a result, communication studies has become the most disciplined social science in China. I call it a kind of "deep discipline", we are constantly "building walls" in various forms to make ourselves look like a discipline, holding the most meetings in the social sciences every year, and the institutionalization of various disciplines is in full swing - of course, including the application for communication studies becoming more and more "volume". But this is more of a formal "prosperity", and internally, domestic communication research is still relatively rudimentary academically, and even lacks a stable and consensus standard for judging the "good or bad" of research.
To some extent, this anxiety also comes from the change of the times. The directions that were very hot at the beginning of communication science, such as public opinion research and various effect studies, after the arrival of new media, and even the rise of big data and artificial intelligence, the new discoveries that can be made are almost lackluster. It is very simple that in the past, we did effect research in the hope of "speculating" on consumer behavior through sampling data, and now the technical conditions can directly allow you to see and even predict these behaviors. Therefore, communication science still needs to break the tradition and think about some more fundamental problems. In recent years, everyone's attention to "media" and its related theories has also been an effort.
Summoning the imagination of communication
Beijing News: In addition to physical problems, you also wrote about "virus transmission" during the epidemic, which is also a very imaginative mention, but it is inevitable that people will have doubts, thinking that the virus is more of a strict immunological problem, and it will be far-fetched to link it with transmission. What would you think of the boundary problem of the communication imagination?
Liu Hailong: In fact, my article is mainly to provide us with a different perspective on the virus from the perspective of communication, which may not be complete, but it is certainly valuable for us to look at the problem from many aspects. Every discipline, every theoretician, does not speak the absolute truth, nor can it define the perspective of looking at the problem from one perspective. We will find that traditional communication theory talks about communication and communication, whether it is to improve the efficiency of communication or improve people's concepts, it will think that "reaching understanding" is the ultimate goal.
But the virus becomes a good reference for us to reflect on the nature of transmission, because in the virus, the immune system "can not recognize" and the transmission "fails" is the best outcome. This actually expands the range of objects we can talk about in communication science, such as "things" can also be included. And this formulation is not a flying fairy, and the communication scholar Rogers, who we are all familiar with, also talked about viruses in the famous "The Spread of Innovation". It is subordinate to news, hybrid maize, politics, and the proliferation of new products to a more general concept of communication. I have PhDs writing about "logistics", which doesn't seem to be a traditional topic in communication studies, but they're all valuable. When our imagination is opened, we will actually find that communication is a very broad concept, and there are many everyday words in our lives, using vocabulary related to communication science.
The Diffusion of Innovation (Fifth Edition), by E.M Rogers, translated by Tang Xingtong, Zheng Changqing, and Zhang Yanchen, Publishing House of Electronics Industry, January 2016.
Beijing News: Regarding stimulating the imagination of sociology, there is a very important aspect that pays attention to generating specific theories from local experience, which is also the suggestion made by Mills after criticizing "abstract empiricism". As a science that originated in the West, communication studies, like many other disciplines, has also experienced the debate of "localization". In recent years, you have also emphasized the importance of combing through the concepts of "dissemination" and "media" in traditional Chinese thought, which are quite different from their connotations in the West. Can you talk about it in general?
Liu Hailong: Not only communication studies, in fact, the localization of any discipline needs to overcome the problem of using its own materials to set up Western paradigms and theories. At present, this work can be described as a long way to go, because it has high requirements for the accumulation of multiple disciplines such as history and archaeology for researchers. I will briefly talk about some interesting topics, a big difference between The concept of communication between China and the West is actually related to religion, and it is difficult to talk about communication in the West without religion. To excavate the concept of communication in Chinese local thought, it is very important to pay attention to the connection between communication and "heaven". "Heaven" may be naturalized at first, but later abstractly develops into an ideology. The second is the purpose of communication, the Western concept of communication has always placed great emphasis on "equality" and "independence", but China's communication pursues a harmony and identity. For example, we really like the metaphor of "water" because water eventually comes together.
From a more imaginative perspective, there are also many interesting "mediums" in ancient China, such as divination, ritual music, sacrifice, temples, travel (entering Beijing to catch the exam), and writing. The problem of writing is particularly worth mentioning, we can see from the Chinese's emphasis on calligraphy, in fact, Chinese the awareness of paying attention to the media is stronger than that of Westerners, we are very concerned about the "intermediary" and "indirectness" of doing things, and establish relationships with others through the "media figures" mentioned by Yang Liansheng. Just as the essence of calligraphy is not in what you write, but in the writing itself, the rhythm between those lines and the human body. In a sense, calligraphy itself is also a kind of "video", you look at the handwriting of calligraphy, you can even imagine the gesture of the writer's body movement, and "experience" (the original meaning of "experience" is to understand through the body) its mental state. Calligraphy itself is a medium, a record of living body gestures.
Beijing News: Mills places great emphasis on the public intervention of intellectuals, including his reference to "pamphlets" in the book, believing that this form of communication is very suitable for connecting the public with advanced academic circles. In terms of allowing knowledge to spread and reach the masses, communication scholars may be more experienced. What kind of way should intellectuals intervene in the dissemination of knowledge?
Liu Hailong: First of all, we need to realize that it is extremely important to make knowledge go to the masses, in fact, we are also aware of the social impact of "ideas". In the past, we may have felt that the things that especially the humanities and social sciences have come up with are of little use to society, but the reality that is happening shows that this is not the case. More typical is like Rosa's accelerated society, Han Bingzhe's burnout society, these concepts gradually popular, indeed on the public to re-look at work, consumption, etc. has a certain impact, everyone's reflection on the phenomenon of "996" and so on, it is difficult to say that there is no role in the liberation of this concept.
However, it should be admitted that the "chain of contempt" in Chinese academic circles still exists, and professional scholars often feel that writing for the public is a lower matter. But in fact, scholars who do a good job of popular writing actually have irreplaceable abilities, such as the ability to transform knowledge. Like the philosopher Han Bingzhe, he may not have much theoretical originality, but he is rich in reserves, exquisite rhetoric, and can point to real problems and integrate knowledge beautifully.
Precisely because popular writing is very directed to the real problem - various "pain points", I think one of the biggest hidden dangers is whether this kind of writing is just to cater to the market? Although Mills talks about research should solve personal confusion, personal confusion is also very likely to be used by forces such as business, and now it is more typical of the knowledge anxiety generated by some knowledge payment projects. So back to the "sociological imagination" we talked about at the beginning, in the matter of knowledge dissemination, we are not only referring to personal confusion, but also to certain structural problems, and to disseminate knowledge with a "serious" attitude towards structural problems. One of the most important, and which I think distinguishes between good and bad mass writing, is that the writer is presenting the complexity of things to the reader, and does not present himself as a spokesman for truth.
Written by liu yaguang |;
Edited | Sissi;
Proofreading | Xue Jingning and Guo Li.