{"id":5944,"date":"2019-11-20T16:52:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T08:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sex.ncu.edu.tw\/jo_article\/?p=5944"},"modified":"2021-07-03T10:40:35","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T02:40:35","slug":"chinese-prosperity-and-its-aesthetic-of-vulgarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sex.ncu.edu.tw\/jo_article\/2019\/11\/chinese-prosperity-and-its-aesthetic-of-vulgarity\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Prosperity and Its Aesthetic of Vulgarity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u3010This was the keynote speech given by Josephine Ho,\u00a0Chair Professor\/Professor Emeritus, National Central University, Taiwan,\u00a0<\/span>at the\u00a0<\/span>9<\/span>th<\/sup>\u00a0<\/span>ELIA (European League of Institute of the Arts) Leadership Symposium, “<\/span>Mapping the Common Ground: Collaborations Across Cultures,”\u00a0Nov. 20-22, 2019, Hangzhou, China\u3011<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I would like to thank the China Academy of Art for inviting an outsider like me to this conference so that I could cross disciplinary boundaries to share some of my ideas about social and cultural change and its implications for art\/aesthetic education.<\/p>\n

The theme of this session is \u201cdifference as resource.\u201d\u00a0 In Taiwan where I have spent most of my life, \u201cdifference,\u201d more often understood as \u201cdifferentiation,\u201d has developed into an affectively charged and heavily manipulated concept through years of political strife over ethnic politics and then gender politics.\u00a0 Social movements and theoretical constructions converge on the concept of \u201cdifference;\u201d global economic restructuring in recent years have further rotated the fate of Taiwan from prosperity to stagnation and hence transformed \u201cdifference\u201d into a focal point of felt loss and resentment that made any hope of finding commonalities increasingly dismal.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifference\u201d could be a reflection of fundamental contradictions under given historical conditions; it could also be simply a feeling of divergence that rises from meeting with unfamiliarity, dissimilarity, or incomprehensibility.\u00a0 Yet, embedded in historical and social realities of existing politico-economical powers and ambitions, the felt sense of divergence often carries implications of high and low, superior and inferior in hierarchical positioning or posturing.\u00a0 This implicit or explicit differentiation makes cross-cultural collaboration into possible occasions of assimilation and incorporation as well as moments for contestation and resistance.\u00a0 How to dismantle this hierarchical differentiation and soften the accompanying tension, creating opportunities for both sides to find ways of reaching peaceful coexistence and cooperation, is not only the focus of this conference but the continued goal of all of us in this age of growing unrest.<\/p>\n

I have chosen to use a very local phenomenon in China as entry point into my thoughts on cultural differences, the tension therein, and possible communication and integration.\u00a0 Hopefully, my argument may also afford implications for thinking across cultures.<\/p>\n

From-the-Soil (\u201cTu-Wei\u201d\u571f\u5473<\/em>) Aesthetics of Vulgarity<\/strong><\/p>\n

The prosperity that we are witnessing in China today carries its own specificities that pose new challenges for art\/aesthetic education.\u00a0 One of the most prominent and controversial developments may be what has been referred to as \u201cthe radical democratization of cultural production,\u201d and the (blatantly non-modern, non-western) aesthetics of vulgarity (\u201cTu-Wei<\/em>\u201d) that has evolved along with it.\u00a0 In fact, with China\u2019s affluence as its basis, information technology as its carrier, and network flow or likes\/hits as its prime value, recent blowouts in popular culture cannot help but raise social anxiety and controversy.<\/p>\n

For a lack of better translation, I have adopted the English term \u201cvulgarity\u201d to stand for the Chinese term \u201cTu-Wei <\/em>(literally \u201ctaste of the soil\u201d).\u201d\u00a0 The word vulgarity may have aptly captured the low status of \u201cTu-Wei<\/em>\u201d subculture and the social disdain it suffers, but vulgarity fails to include reference to Tu-Wei<\/em>\u2019s origin as detailed in Professor Fei Xiao-Tong\u2019s\u8cbb\u5b5d\u901a classic work From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society\u9109\u571f\u4e2d\u570b<\/em> (1947): that is, characteristics derived from a rootedness in the soil (Tu), the organization of the Chinese society, and its general way of life<\/em>.\u00a0 Of course, by now, cultural dissemination and market activities have already saturated and hybridized the meaning of \u201cTu<\/em>,\u201d from originally a position clearly in opposition to the urban, the Western, and the modern, to now complicated and layered meanings that are hard to identify, to be loosely described as \u201cvulgarity\u201d in the present paper.<\/p>\n

Since 2015, the aesthetic taste of the general public has been an annual focal point of discussion on Chinese intellectual websites.\u00a0 Netizens take pleasure in displaying and roasting photos of various vulgar-looking new buildings, horrific interior designs, shockingly straight-forward signs, ugly children\u2019s playground facilities, over-lusciously decorated TV dramas, and shoddy artistic creations that are unrelentingly parading the pride of the Chinese nouveau-riche.\u00a0 While the camera pulls these items out of their immediate contexts to highlight their grotesqueness and eccentricity, the media\u2014much in the spirit of the 2008 barrage upon the phenomenon of Shan-Zhai (counterfeit) products and cultural phenomena\u2014launch fierce attacks on such glaring displays of the upstart.\u00a0 Both waves of attack express a similar resentment and disgust for disgraceful performances of the crude and the vulgar that are seen as denting Chinese efforts to achieve global respectability.<\/p>\n

At about the same time, smart phones, communication software, short-form mobile video platforms quickly integrated and spread through the market.\u00a0 As tools of cultural production become readily accessible and affordable, multitudes throw themselves into the production of short-form mobile videos that feature their daily lives and common fantasies.\u00a0 Using all their imagination to display their wits, wisdom, and creativity, they created and uploaded numerous outlandish short videos that left audiences cursing but laughing and continuing to watch at the same time.\u00a0 Although this form of cultural production has suffered much scrutiny and purification because of the hyping, the lewdness, and the falsification often involved, it still grew into a massive new phenomenon.<\/p>\n

The media of course are interested in this fashionable phenomenon.\u00a0 In 2018, a special issue on vulgarity culture was published by a popular weekly journal.\u00a0 One article that claims to \u201cconduct an appreciation of vulgarity\u201d points out that the vulgar short form mobile videos that filled TikTok, Kwai, and Weibo came mainly from marginal populations located in remote magistrates and townships as well as the edge of cities where the populations are limited in their aesthetic acculturation and outlook but have become infatuated with city-folk lifestyles due to media saturation.\u00a0 The article then claims: \u201cVulgarity is the extension of native-soil consciousness in modern China that has mutated into an expression of fun of life, personal style, and cultural atmosphere<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0Notwithstanding, the sweeping influence of vulgarity culture gave rise mostly to social anxiety.\u00a0 At the end of 2018, another influential weekly journal put out an article tiled \u201cVulgar Tastes are Destroying Our Next Generation.\u201d \u00a0The article collected and featured the most unbearable visual images of vulgar cultural productions in an effort to arouse disgust and antipathy through evoking traditional Chinese values on the education of their young.\u00a0 In spring of 2019, another special issue titled \u201cSociety of Low Sense of Beauty\u201d came out. \u00a0Though reserving the possibility of some sense of beauty and stressing that different social groups have their own aesthetic standards that are \u201cderived from real life\u201d with \u201ctheir own original vitality,\u201d hence their \u201caesthetic deficiency\u201d should be \u201ctolerated,\u201d the special issue asserts that the ill effects of this aesthetics of vulgarity has already spread across China.\u00a0 One article titled \u201cThe Ten Illnesses of Chinese Aesthetics\u201d in the special issue describes how this fashionable Chinese aesthetics encourages outrageousness and eccentricity, to the extent that people no longer feel shame for, and instead take pride in, their own ugliness, vulgarity, and stupidity.\u00a0 Such habits, the article says, will influence the development of people\u2019s character, making them \u201cfeel antagonistic toward patience, depth, and thoughtfulness,\u201d and making them \u201cloathe the value of hard-work, learning, and continuous development.\u201d<\/p>\n

These last few points also constitute the main concern of educators.\u00a0 After all, as vulgar tastes seep into daily life, and likes and hits and flows further add to the attraction of such low styles, it is believed that the sensibility and temperament of our students may move further and further away from what higher art education aims at.<\/p>\n

Politically Correct Civilizing Process<\/strong><\/p>\n

The energy that motivates this aesthetics of vulgarity derives from the sense of entitlement that has grown with the rise of China.\u00a0 The nation has consistently emphasized the collective strength and solidarity of the people as a whole, so, with the rise of China, even people in remote communities are feeling a new sense of pride and confidence, and, with the help of readily available technology, they turn their life realities and fantasies into short form mobile videos, not only to amuse and entertain themselves, but also hoping their self-expressions would be appreciated and affirmed.\u00a0 Of course, economic gains constitute another powerful incentive.<\/p>\n

Yet, as the nation grows strong, overturning a century of humiliation, China\u2019s international status and role are also enhanced, which gives rise to a civilizing vision that targets being recognized and admired by the international community, infused with the traditional belief that \u201cthe rich shall be good-mannered,\u201d and takes the international arena as the site for its performance.\u00a0 This desire happens to converge with growing Western efforts to disseminate universal values such as equality, civility, order, constraint, etc. globally.\u00a0 The result is a rigidified civilizing process that demands politically correctness and uniform absolute standards and requirements for civilized behavior, leaving local cultural performance and life practices at the mercy of severe scrutiny and criticism.<\/p>\n

The most widely-known example in recent years has to do with the ethnically based practice of eating dog meat.\u00a0 In city life in an affluent society, dogs no longer play the practical roles of safe-guarding the house or helping with hunting, and turns toward becoming house pets that provide intimacy and company in this world of lonely individualism.\u00a0 Yet when the media features sensational reports on the Dog Meat Festival in GuangXi province or the dog meat restaurants of northeast provinces, people who had lived in peace in separate communities suddenly found themselves opposed to each other.\u00a0 Under the universal banner of animal protection, pet lovers treat the dog meat eating custom as a national shame to be eradicated.\u00a0 The difference between city and country lives is then presented as class difference, and further invested with delicate emotions that surround the national image and reputation.\u00a0 As the controversy widens, a stronger sensitivity toward animal (pet) protection is developed: any action or discourse deemed not living up to the spirit of caring for pet animals will be severely scrutinized.\u00a0 As the criticized practice is considered outright backward and cruel, and the stigmatized population lacks reasonable defense in the face of heavy international pressure, social laceration grows deeper and wider.<\/p>\n

When different values come face to face with one another, they could peacefully conduct acts of learning about each other, negotiating their differences, and understanding each other\u2019s world, hence turning differences into dialog and coexistence.\u00a0 Yet the contemporary civilizing tendency harbors a sense of superiority and self-righteousness that polarizes the differences by assuming for itself a position of champion for justice, while treating the other party as having violated an unacceptable moral aberration.\u00a0 The polarization then justifies relentlessly lashing out against the unfit Other.\u00a0 Such a civilizing tendency is naturally inhospitable to the vulgar culture that is clearly base, provincial, and unrestrained.\u00a0 Likewise, it has little patience in behaviors such as crowding or cutting in line, and overlooks the reality of the Chinese society where the huge density of population and the need to maintain efficiency in transportation cannot afford the ease and the luxury of slowly waiting in line.\u00a0 It resents the noisy seniors whose voices disturb the beauty and tranquility of scenic spots and refuses to look into the unstoppable expressions of excitement and contentment of that generation that had suffered almost endless difficulties and limitations to reach this day of better life and fun.<\/p>\n

The stern harshness of the civilizing tendency gains even more strength and legitimacy when it comes to gender and sex-related issues eagerly promoted by the West in recent years.\u00a0 Fear and detestation of violence in this age of peace, desire for equality in this age of liberty, inhibition of desires and flirting in the years of progressiveness\u2014all are now concentrated on gender and children-related issues, resulting in an increase of force for regulation and policing in the name of prevention of sexual harassment and sexual assault, and safeguarding safety and equality.\u00a0 From daily life to arts and literature to teaching and education, more and more surveillance measures and even legal structures are being installed and applied both in real space and virtual space, and in the name of the good cause of \u201cprotection of the weak.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0This hyper sensitivity toward political correctness, as exemplified in the #Metoo movement, cannot help but leave an ever-shrinking space for any intellectual or creative work.<\/p>\n

In China today, the aesthetics of vulgarity and the civilizing tendency, though opposed to and segregated from each other, actually share a common basis of affects and motive force: they both aspire to rise above, to supersede, to be recognized, to be appreciated, and to be admired.\u00a0 The aesthetics of vulgarity harbors an envy and emulation of the civilizing tendency, though overshooting or crude copycatting usually results.\u00a0 On the other hand, the civilizing tendency, when faced with vulgar subjects or practices that fall short of discreetness, gracefulness, and depth, often replies with proud contempt and censure.\u00a0 This differential response not only lengthens the chain of humiliation, but also prepares an utterly inhospitable environment for the vulgar.\u00a0 The opposition and competition between the vulgar and the civilized naturally impact upon the sensibility and habits, motivation and quality of art students, bringing a new challenge to higher art education.<\/p>\n

Changing Positions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Faced with the division between high and low cultural tastes, many would call for more aesthetic education and cultural polishing, so as to raise the low toward the high.\u00a0 But why is it always the low that is required to better itself through emulating the high?\u00a0 Unilaterally demanding that the low move toward the high is to deny the value of the feelings and experiences of the millions of senior farmers in the countryside and millions of young people working in the cities.\u00a0 And to do that in this day of overall prosperity is to say that the marginal populations do not deserve the channels of self-expression or the good life that is now upon them.<\/p>\n

When different aesthetic tastes and ideas of civility confront each other, what is needed is of course not the seemingly progressive but actually hollow discourse of \u201cdiversity\u201d or \u201crespect,\u201d but genuine efforts to achieve sincere recognition.\u00a0 In that sense, space and time and resources need to be allowed for the underprivileged aesthetics of vulgarity, so that both sides have a chance to learn about each other\u2019s lived history and realities at the moment, that the dreams, values, feelings, and visions of both sides could be appreciated, and that both sides could understand and appreciate the other\u2019s aesthetics and ideas of civility.\u00a0 This will be a necessary process for getting to know our society better and maintaining peaceful coexistence among various groups.<\/p>\n

This kind of moving closer to each other is not at all impossible as different cultural tastes often shift and change their positioning in response to emerging new conditions.\u00a0 For example, in 2018, a new TV show became a big hit as it mixed bel canto<\/em> performances and popular songs through the transformation of 36 good-looking young bel canto<\/em> singers into popular song idols in the course of the show.\u00a0 The show not only added substance and quality to popular entertainment but also created more exposure and hence market for the so-called high arts.\u00a0 Following in this trend, TV shows are now created to feature minority bands, professional dance troupes, acting competition shows, using elements from the growing idol culture or fandom culture that had never been considered worthy of the artists\u2019 time.\u00a0 These shifts have not only created new audiences but also obscured the original hierarchy and division between different forms of performance arts.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the culture of vulgarity and its most popular themes have also seen changes and developments.\u00a0 Low-key millionaires in dramas of reversal of fate may be common mammonist themes in vulgar short form videos, yet recently new adaptations are emerging to parody such drama by using politically incorrect showoffs of wealth, blatantly framed in self-satires that prompt reflections on the audience\u2019s part.\u00a0 Furthermore, common people who make up the contributors to short form mobile video platforms do not necessary stay the way they are.\u00a0 In fact, a recent gala event, put up by TikTok to advertize its success, presented many \u201cTikTok video artists\u201d alongside star performers.\u00a0 The implicit identification of TikTok users as \u201cartists\u201d certainly encourages users to continue to produce short videos of the TikTok style, hence leading to possible new stylistic changes in the process of publicity.<\/p>\n

An Aesthetic Education Aimed at Social Integration<\/strong><\/p>\n

So how do we respond to this wave of vulgarity?\u00a0 When the saturation of technology pushes the aesthetics and tastes of the common people into the face of the intellectuals, we cannot help but say: \u201chic Rhodus, hic <\/em>salta<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0(\u201cHere\u00a0is Chinese Rhodes,\u00a0make your jump here!\u201d) \u00a0As elites, we intellectuals have the duty and the obligation to take the initiative to create connections with ordinary folks, and to promote the further transformation and integration of different cultural tastes and styles.\u00a0 In other words, the common ground that we are seeking in cross-cultural collaborations cannot be uniformed aesthetic standards, sensibilities, or norms.\u00a0 Instead, to avoid the animosity or contempt that have been bred by recent geopolitical competitions, we need to apply the same<\/strong> concern, understanding, appreciation, and learning to the different <\/strong>socio-historical-affective contexts that have given rise to different aesthetics.<\/p>\n

Since the days of the Chinese revolution, provincial or national forms of culture have been considered to be necessary nourishment for literature and the arts in new China.\u00a0 Obviously, vulgarity culture does not belong to provincial forms or national forms; it is simply and truly just vulgar and bastard.\u00a0 But what I am trying to say today is: \u201cTu-Wei<\/em> (vulgarity) feels proud and self-important about its own performance and specificity in this age of Chinese prosperity, yet on the other hand, it harbors an admiration and aspiration for civilized modernity and urbanized West.\u00a0 This mis-recognition and mis-understanding of itself and others carry curious entanglements with the globalized civilizing project that is worthy of our attention.\u00a0 In addition, vulgarity culture has found itself dragged into the realm of geopolitics lately.\u00a0 Just two weeks ago on November 5th<\/sup>, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on possible threat to U.S. national security by Tik Tok, the central platform for Tu-Wei<\/em> (vulgarity) short form mobile videos, saying that TikTok has been collecting its US clients\u2019 personal information, even data from US officials through the TikTok app.\u00a0 At this moment, vulgarity-infested TikTok has risen to the importance of Huawei in its delicate involvement in geopolitics and the clash of civilizations, that is all the more worthy of our further observation.<\/p>\n

Different cultures learn to understand one another in interaction and co-existence\u2014this is a very important and dynamic process of cultural integration, especially for this moment as China is plagued by powerful antagonisms and pressed by domestic problems.\u00a0 Faced with the aggressive expansion of civility by the West and the intellectual superiority and moral legitimacy of Western universal values\u2014and let\u2019s not forget the social unrest and laceration they have effected\u2014at the present moment, how to recognize, understand, and live with the practices and the life world of Tu-Wei<\/em> (vulgarity), how to promote the peaceful coexistence and communication\/integration of various differences, is the mission of all intellectuals.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

Q & A:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. In developing cross-cultural collaborations, are there some universal assumptions and practices of dialogue, collaboration, and meaningful conversation that we can rely on cross-culturally? What are some of the pitfalls and lessons learned that you have either experienced or witnessed?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Every culture holds unto its own set of chosen universal values, but the particulars that correspond to these universal values may differ vastly from other cultures.\u00a0 For example, many cultures believe in democracy.\u00a0 For western countries, democracy may mean \u201celectoral politics\u201d and that only.\u00a0 For China, however, democracy may mean \u201cpeople first,\u201d and its policies work very differently from the logic of electoral politics.\u00a0 For another example, many nations practice capitalism these days, but the way it is conducted in different national contexts are quite different.\u00a0 Capitalism as it is practiced in the West is mostly profit-driven without state planning, but in China, capitalism and its functioning are considered and practiced with the stability and betterment of the state and its people in mind.\u00a0 The question is whether we would apply patience and wait to see how different approaches turn out for the life of their respective populations, rather than waging a trade war to insist that \u201conly my way is the right way.\u201d\u00a0 In that sense, universal values such as freedom, democracy, equality may not be as important as other universal values such as patience, kindness, and compassion.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Both of you are experienced academic leaders and international project builders. <\/strong>Can<\/strong> you each comment on how have you seen the obstacles of cultural understanding play out on either an institutional level or intercultural level for a project? And how have you intervened to guide the creation of space for mutual understanding?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Institutions bear clear hierarchical power structures, so it\u2019s very hard to reach mutual understanding because the allocation of differential power already tilts the relationship in such a way that one side rules over the other.\u00a0 In 1996 when we were organizing our first conference on gender\/sexuality issues, the application for funding had to go through a university review committee.\u00a0 At the review, the delegates from science and engineering departments asked: \u201cGender is just man-woman relationship.\u00a0 What is there to study about?\u201d\u00a0 We had to defend our case by emphasizing the equality and autonomy of different fields and disciplines, claiming that our interest in gender related research is a legitimate and respectable move within the English Department.\u00a0 Then at the Ministry of Education review, our case was turned down because, as the reviewer wrote, \u201cthis conference does not work to promote the happiness of marriage and family.\u201d\u00a0 We then wrote a long and strong rebuttal to make our stand, and leaked the case to the media.\u00a0 At the time, the women\u2019s movement was attracting a lot of attention, so our case also got some exposure.\u00a0 The pressure from the media report may be what prompted the Ministry of Education to revoke its decision and grant us 1\/5 of the budget that was applied for.\u00a0 In both cases where the power of decision was held in the hands of the higher levels on the institutional hierarchy, there is little room for maneuver.\u00a0 In other words, it is obvious that mutual understanding within the institutional hierarchy is difficult to achieve as conflicts of interest exists, along with various considerations and hostilities.\u00a0 That is why when encountering such tensions, I emphasize \u201cpeaceful co-existence\u201d rather than simple integration or even understanding.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. In your respective keynotes, you made related points regarding the inherent nature of education <\/strong>and<\/strong> mandate for educators to bridge cultures and understanding. Do you see intellectuals owning the mandate called out by Josephine to promote the peaceful coexistence and integration of various differences? Do you feel that higher education is promoting the kind of meaningful encounters that\u00a0<\/strong>Beno\u00eet <\/strong>has outlined?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Higher education can hardly carry out such mandate today because it itself is under pressure from encroaching neo-liberal models of academic performance, as educators are forced to devote themselves to the production of papers and other requirements from the administrative level, so, rather than taking their time to simmer their ideas and promote the kind of profound education that we are calling for, faculty members are working throughout the year under immense pressure.\u00a0 Junior faculty members are especially stressed out under pressure to publish and work for promotion.\u00a0 It is at this critical moment that established senior professors should stand out to protect younger colleagues by resisting new institutional requirements, modifying\/mitigating old rules, reading young faculty\u2019s project proposals and working papers, or simply giving them advice on various professional decisions.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. I heard you were an active feminist for decades, but today you have stayed away from the feminist movement, and even criticized the Metoo movement in your paper despite its important meaning for today\u2019s violence-ridden world. Can you explain why you have turned away from such violence?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Yes, I had been an important promoter of the feminist movement and even the gay movement in Taiwan in the 1990s.\u00a0 But since 2000, Taiwan\u2019s social movement turned toward building governance in association with the government; in other words, moving toward legalism in which more and more legislations and regulations are put into place, creating surveillance and oppression over the society and hence rigidifying social space.\u00a0 This is what I cannot agree with, so I decided to take a break from feminism.\u00a0 You say this is a violence-ridden word, I would not dispute that observation; it is a serious problem to be dealt with.\u00a0 But in no way should it be like what the Metoo movement does, greatly expanding the definition of violence to cover a lot of different discordance in interpersonal interaction, making ambiguities, mis-readings, and misunderstanding into acts that need to be reprimanded without a doubt, and all fortified with the law.\u00a0 Such results have already made various campuses and workplaces into battlegrounds.\u00a0 And that is not what I would like to have seen.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Most of the problems you mentioned have a lot to do with the way our media function. Both social media and mass media are exacerbating this atmosphere to create a society of lies, rumors, accusations that keep truth from being seriously and sincerely discussed.\u00a0 How do you see the role of the media? <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            If you are asking for ways to deal with the media, I don\u2019t have any good answers.\u00a0 After all, this is a huge question and the media lie outside the hands of us little people.\u00a0 But aside from such pessimistic assessment, there are still pockets of hope that we could look to.\u00a0 First of all, though lies, rumors, accusations abound in the social media and the mass media, there are still small groups linked through the same medium that works to pass on honest opinions and experiences in an effort to break through the grid of lies, rumors, and accusations.\u00a0 These sincere groups may be small, but they do pose some resistance to the spread of lies, rumors, and accusations, making it impossible for the latter to occupy the whole social space.\u00a0 Secondly, just as the social media divides and creates animosities, they also provide the same convenient means through which family members, colleagues, comrades could be connected and continued to exchange their opinions, stories, experiences, discussions in ways that would not have been possible without the social media.\u00a0 Their congregation makes the social media into much more than the cold-blooded vessel faulted by so many people; instead, the social media could perform functions of congealing and gathering.\u00a0 For these two real developments in resistance and congregation, I think the media are still savable and hopeful.<\/p>\n

            \u5f15\u7528\u672c\u9801\u8acb\u4fdd\u7559\u539f\u59cb\u7db2\u9801\u8a3b\u8a18<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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