新媒体环境下葛兰西理论对女性解放的启示

论文总字数：51263字

摘 要

经过多年的深入研究和完善，葛兰西的文化领导权思想已经发展成为成为一套复杂的理论。一开始，它仅仅用于为无产阶级革命的胜利提供指导。现在，文化领导权的理论也渗透到各个学科之中，帮助解决更多的实际问题。现在，因为女性与无产阶级有着内在的共同点：长期处于社会的弱势地位，已经有研究将其与女性主义的研究相结合。同时，新媒体的发展为女权思想的传播提供了一个理想的环境。由于新媒体得到交互性特点，女性获得了更多的机会在网络上表达自我。同时，新媒体的实时性与大众化特点使女性问题受到更多关注，往往也会引发更加激烈的讨论。但另一方面，女性文化与女权思想的传播仍存在局限。女性仍被禁锢于一个固有的传统形象中。同时，“中国田园式女权主义”对女权主义的激进和错误理解也阻碍了中国女权主义的健康发展。如何运用葛兰西的文化霸权理论和新媒体的优势特征，改变女性的刻板印象，提升女性地位，最终进一步实现女性解放，仍是值得人们更加深入的研究与思考。

关键词：葛兰西；文化领导权；女性主义；新媒体

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments i

English Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Introduction 1

Background 1

Literature Review 2

Thesis Statement 3

Thesis Structure 3

Chapter One Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony 5

1.1 Introduction of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony 5

1.2 Practical Meaning of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony in female liberation 7

1.3 Practical Meaning of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony in new media era 9

1.3.1 The Character of Connectivity and Interactivity 10

1.3.2 The Character of Immediacy and Popularization 10

Chapter Two Current Development of Feminism in New Media—Take Sina Weibo as example 12

2.1 The Enhancement of Women's Right of Speech in Sina Weibo 12

2.2 Limitations of Communication of Feminism in Sina Weibo 14

Chapter Three Cultural Hegemony Theory and Further Realization of Women's Liberation in the New Media Era 17

3.1 The Interactivity of New Media and the Enlargement of Women's Right of Speech 18

3.2 The Character of Immediacy and Popularization of New Media and the Enhancement of Female Cultural Hegemony 19

Conclusion 21

Works Cited 23

Introduction

Background

Charles Fourier, a French utopian socialist, first put forward the view that the social progress and changes of a certain era are in accordance with the degree of women's freedom, and the decline of social order is in accordance with the degree of women's reduction of freedom. The expansion of women's rights is the basic principle of all social progress. Later, Friedrich Engels mentioned in his book Socialism: Utopian and Scientific that Fourier first expressed the idea that in any society, the degree of women's liberation is the natural measure of universal liberation. With the collapse of the matriarchal society and the establishment of the patriarchal society, the dominant position of men was strengthed. Meanwhile, the weakness of women's economic and political status was maintained everywhere, which becomes females boundage.

However, with China's Reform and Open and the increasing frequency of world cultural exchanges in the tide of globalization, China and the international community are increasingly closely-related. With the rapid development of information technology, cultural communication between China and foreign countries are becoming more and more convenient. Therefore, Feminist ideas are constantly introduced into China. From the introduction of Western ideas into modern China, to the short-term construction of modern state in the Republic of China, to the socialist modernization of New China, the social status of Chinese women and people's gender concepts have undergone tremendous changes. Especially in recent years, with the rapid development of new media, feminism has found a more timely channel of diffusion. However, in this environment, there are also some voices that are not harmonious enough, such as gender discrimination and inequality, which can not be completely eradicated, and "pastoral feminism" that mistakenly understands feminism. How to make use of the timeliness advantage of new media technology to further promote women's liberation has become a question worthy of consideration.

Literature Review

This paper focuses on three perspectives: cultural hegemony, feminism and the characteristics of new media. The researches related to them are abundant. At present, the elucidation and interpretation of Gramsci's thought has gone beyond the theory itself. Many scholars regard it as an analysis tool to serve the solution of practical problems. However, the theory of cultural hegemony is mainly applied to solve the problems arising from the diffusion of ideology, especially how to deal with the introduction of foreign ideology and the export of national culture and ideology. At present, it is seldom to seen his theory combined with the research of feminism and new media. In Xu Jie and Dai Xuehong’s essay “ The Research of the Construction of Contemporary Chinese Women's Cultural Hegemony from the Perspective of Gramsci's Theory”, the author enlighten people to improve women's cultural status, to awaken women's consciousness and to eliminate recessive gender discrimination based on the self-expression of women's discourse. Only Hong Shilin's "Male Cultural Hegemony and Loss of Women's Self-expression - Perspective of Women's Body Events in the New Media Age" (2014) combines feminism in new media era with Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. In this article, the author believes that "the enthusiasm of new media to produce and disseminate `female body events'is to cater to male cultural awareness." The value of female body events lies mainly in the fact that the dominant social consciousness is male cultural hegemony, which sets female body as an event and guides women to "perform" and "be understood" in reality. At the same time, "male cultural hegemony also relies on moral and legal norms to"discipline"the female body." Talking about and watching women's body events is a manifestation of male culture's exercise of dominance. It plays an enormous disciplinary force, and women often potentially cater to the male cultural hegemony behind the dominant social consciousness.

Although the research on the combination of the three is very rare, there are many articles which put feminism in the new media environment for research. In Shan Yichen's “ The Limitations of Media Criticism from a Feminist Perspective”, the author argues that there are still limitations of gender discrimination and gender stereotype in media communication. In Zhang Han's “ False of Equality: Feminist Media Criticism in the New Environment”(2016), the author argues that “ the emergence of new online media, such as micro-blog, has become the base for women to regain their voice rights based on their low entry threshold and strong openness." Moreover, with the emergence of new media, women groups have the right to speak to a certain extent. Therefore, the next step is to enter the public sphere and compete for the right to speak again. New media integrates the public and private spheres, enabling women to participate more in the public sphere.

It can be seen that although there are many studies involving only one or two aspects in these three research perspectives, there are few studies combining the three. So this research has great research value.

Thesis Statement

This paper takes Gramsci's cultural hegemony as the theoretical basis, and combines with Sina Weibo's user data in the new media era with the phenomenon of heated discussion on feminist topics on this platform, trying to explore the reasons why feminist ideas are widely disseminated in Weibo, as well as the enlightenment it can bring to women's further liberation.

Thesis Structure

The paper is divided into three parts. In the first chapter, the theory of cultural hegemony is elaborately explained. Besides the theory itself, its practical meaning to female liberation and its relation to new media are also analyzed with the examples in real life. The next Chapter is about the introduction of current development of Femenism in new media era, including the enhancement and limitations of the communication of female image in a representative new media platform – Sina Weibo, in order to figure out how the advanced characteristics of new media promote the disemmination of Feminism and some issues that still need solving. In Chapter three, there is a concrete analysis about the enlightenment of using cultural hegemony theory to further realize women's liberation in the new media era.

Chapter One Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony

1.1Introduction of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony

Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony is a bus that runs through all his thoughts. It can be said that it is the logical intersection of Gramsci's thoughts. Other concepts explain and elucidate the connotation and logical approach of the concept of cultural leadership from different aspects and angles, and serve the logical framework of the theory of cultural hegemony. In this sense, to grasp Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony is to grasp the essence of Gramsci's thought.

Gramsci believes that the acquisition of cultural hegemony is not only the prerequisite and the only way to compete for domination, but also the direction to continue to strive after the acquisition of political leadership. He clearly pointed out that a social group can and must begin to exercise leadership before winning power (which is one of the first conditions for winning power); when it exercises power, it eventually becomes the ruler, but even if it firmly grasps power, it must continue to lead in the past ( Gramsci 38) . The characteristics of capitalist society make the struggle more complicated, and the revolutionary mode has changed from flexible and active mobile warfare to stable and conservative positional warfare. Under this situation, the proletariat can only gain political leadership by seizing cultural leadership first. After gaining political leadership, the proletariat should still implement cultural hegemony to maintain its long-term rule( Xu, Dai 10).

Thus, it can be seen that the firm grasp of cultural hegemony is an important undertaking that the ruling class can not neglect at any time. Then, how does the internal mechanism of cultural hegemony work? Since it is a control of cultural level, it inevitably has characteristic of concealment, which is the implicit expression of the ruling class's right discourse. This expression has become the unconscious choice of the whole society by incorporating into the daily life of the masses the principles and norms that conform to their own class interests and governing order, and penetrating into their ideological concepts so that they can be justified and self-identified. This kind of control is ubiquitous, which makes it impossible for people to figure out. It makes the ruled class obey with peace of mind and lose the consciousness and ability of struggle. That is to say, this invisible force makes people in it irresistible. At the later stage of the development of capitalist society, the power of the state began to disperse, and oppression and domination also tended to diversify. Politics dissolved in all aspects of public life and spread to all corners in a daily manner. Families, schools, consumption areas, cultural industries and so on are full of"silent violence". Under the historical situation that power is woven into the invisible net of daily life, the ordinary people who are active in it are locked up by heavy chains. Under the discipline of the ruling class, unconsciously reinforce the restraint and control of the ruling class by passive actions. If people under the control of hegemony can not fully awaken, break the existing obstacles, rebuild their own discourse system and leadership form, but only make partial adjustments under the old system, it will be a desperate fight.

Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony has always been the hotspot of academic research. It provides another new theoretical analysis perspective, which leads people to penetrate into the capitalist society and understand the new governance mode hidden in it, thus providing opportunities and possibilities for the proletariat's awakening of consciousness.

In Gramsci's cultural theory, organic intellectuals are the main support to realize cultural leadership, or the backbone of the proletariat to seize ideological hegemony. For a long time, intellectuals have always appeared in people's eyes in this image: they are an independent group with extensive knowledge, transcending secular disputes, representing a continuity of history. Gramsci put forward his different views on this stereotype. First of all, the seemingly objective and neutral knowledge always has the position and intention of a particular group. Knowledge is always associated with a specific action, and action always has a position. Therefore, he believes that "knowledge is power"( Gramsci 353) and that since every social group originates from the primary function of economic society, it is also at the same time organically creates one or more strata of intellectuals. They will inculcate understanding of their own functions to the social group not only in the economic field, but also in the social and political fields( Gramsci 1). This breaks the independence and autonomy of intellectuals and reveals the economic and political functions of intellectuals. Secondly, Gramsci believes that even the lowest level manual work has minimum technical requirements( Gramsci 4), and different strata of intellectuals only have difference in the intellectual demands of these works. In short, Gramsci defines all the people engaged in labor as intellectuals in a broad sense, and seeks for the differences between intellectuals and other social groups from the whole system of relations, rather than dividing them into physical and mental labor.

Based on the above two points, Gramsci pointed out that organic intellectuals are professionals existing in all kinds of professional activities. They really penetrate into all levels of economic life and are connected with their respective social groups. The responsibility of organic intellectuals is no longer to merely indulge in empty talk, but to actively participate in real life: not only to be an eloquent person, but to be a builder, organizer and persistent persuader( Gramsci 5). They should get rid of the traditional image and participate in and integrate into their own groups, actively organizing and leading the masses, expanding their influence and cultivating common awareness and identity among members. Only when intellectuals become the organic intellectuals, and help solve the problems raised by the masses in their practical activities, can they form a cultural and social group with the masses, which is also the embodiment of the organic nature of intellectuals( Gramsci 240). By rooting in the masses and contacting with ordinary people, intellectuals can gain inspiration, source for research and methodology of problem solving, and realize the organic unity between themselves and the masses, and then construct cultural hegemony.

1.2Practical Meaning of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony in female liberation

Gramsci's theory of cultural leadership has gone through nearly 80 years, and its profound perspective and insights have lasted for a long time. By localizing Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony, which is rooted in China, it has renewed its vitality and made creative annotations on many issues, especially on the promotion of Chinese women's cultural hegemony, which has great practical significance.

Gramsci's cultural leadership devotes itself to the penetration of values and ideology through propaganda, so as to gradually expand and deepen the influence of proletarian ideology, making the masses accept, recognize, internalize, and eventually making it become common knowledge or even irrefutable truth of the public, establish its dominant position in the ideological field, and create a good cultural environment for long-term economic and political development.

Similar to the proletariat, for women who lack their own sexualized discource and are unaccepted by the mainstream voice, they should also get rid of subordination and submission and devote themselves to the construction of women's cultural hegemony( Xu, Dai 11). Women's cultural hegemony means publicizing, penetrating and disseminating in the field of cultural production such as media, education and academic organizations, publicizing the personality of female groups, expressing their reasonable demands, forming a universal consciousness, forming an objective female position in the social and cultural sphere, and making gender relations more just, equal and harmonious. This is not to confront the cultural environment of male centers, but to form a social culture that is really conducive to gender equality and to promote social health, stability and long-term operation.

Gramsci's cultural hegemony and women's enhancement of cultural status have an inherent logical relationship( Xu, Dai 11). On the one hand, the proletariat, the main body of Gramsci's theory, is in an inferior position in capitalist society and is exploited and oppressed by capitalists. Similarly, contemporary Chinese women also encounter discrimination and unfair treatment in the workplace. The similar situation they face makes it possible for women to strive for cultural rights by restoring to the theory of cultural hegemony. On the other hand, in Gramsci's view, the proletariats can only provide conditions for the acquisition of legal rights in the future if they first solidify the collective will of society and arouse the general awakening of the public. Similarly, the lack of subjectivity in contemporary Chinese women's culture makes them need supportive resources in culture to help them acquire subjectivity consciousness and gender identity. Therefore, the common needs of the two on the cultural sphere of group consciousness provide inevitability for the construction of women's cultural hegemony.

Meanwhile, the construction and enhancement of women's cultural hegemony should not rely solely on external forces, but on the active struggle of female, and on the unremitting mobilization and publicizing the feminine subjectivity status, arousing the female's self-consciousness. As the name implies, women's "organic intellectuals" should be the spokesperson of women's rights and interests, the voice of women's demands, and the group whose ultimate goal is women's liberation. This group includes women and gender researchers and activists, intellectuals, professional women, migrant women from rural to urban areas and other groups who have close contact with women's social roles and living conditions. With their specific perspectives and experiences, these groups truly guide women's survival and development in the future and change the fate of women.

The construction of women's cultural hegemony is the practice and application of Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony in the specific situation of contemporary China. It is the conscious expression of contemporary Chinese women's discourse and a realistic solution to the problems faced by women. Under the guidance of Gramsci's theory, manifestation the position of women's culture will help women break the silence, convey their hearts and achieve complete and comprehensive emancipation.

1.3 Practical Meaning of Gramsci’s Cultural Hegemony in new media era

The so-called new media means that relying on electronic information technology, digital multimedia technology, computer network technology, etc., data information can be disseminated in the Internet space, and displayed on smartphones, computers and other mobile digital display terminals. As being already mentioned, the ruling class incorporates into the daily life of the masses the principles and norms that conform to their own class interests and governing order, penetrates into their ideological concepts, and makes it become the unconscious choice of the whole society. They need free-flowing and powerful communication channel to make their ideology spread all around. In new media era, the evolution of media generates advanced new characteristics which could better realize this forceful propaganda.

1.3.1 The Character of Connectivity and Interactivity

Connectivity and interactivity are the most important characteristics of new media( Song, Li 264). Connectivity realizes the real connection between the new media and the audience through science and technology. The feedback information can interact with the disseminator and shorten the distance between the sender and the recipient of information. The traditional media's "one-to-many" dissemination has changed into "multi-to-many" interactive communication and interaction, so that the audience can easily participate in, immediately discuss the important information they are interested in, instantly communicate, and timely give feedback. For example, in some public platforms, the users are able to express their comments on the real-time news. Unlike the impotence to immediately give feedback to the TV station when watching programs on television, most video websites also have comments sections which provide audience with chances to express their opinion. The media institutions controlled by mainstream voice lose their position of monopoly, so the disadvantaged social groups that used to lack discourse power such as women can gain access to the expression of their views.

1.3.2 The Character of Immediacy and Popularization

As a form of media that widely applies to digital and Internet technologies, the new media inevitably have faster transmission speed. With the help of the Internet and advanced and portable terminal devices like personal computers and smart phones, the public can get the information they need in a short time. For the reporting of emergencies, the new media is naturally more suitable as a communication channel. In recent years, people don’t need to get news only on television after arriving home. they could know almost everything immediately by the messages introduced by the applications on the smart phones they carry about. Besides the faster reporting speed of media, thanks to the public platforms such as Twitter and Weibo, which are increasingly common in new media era, ordinary people could become reporter: in recent news, many people at the scene shoot the real-time situation by their cellphones and upload the videos on these public platforms, which effectively help the news spread in a higher speed.

The faster dissemination of news is beneficial for the more extensive outreach of them. At the same time, the terminal devices that help people get information are no longer too expensive or exclusive for general people. Mashable, the US technology media, recently quoted a Pew report that reveals the popularity of smart phones, and the report shows that China's smartphone penetration rate is 58%. Smartphone penetration is higher in developed countries, with 72% in the United States, 67% in Canada, 68% in Britain, 60% in Germany and 60% in Italy. In addition, Australia's penetration rate is very high, reaching 77%. The emergence of some low-priced phone brands also eliminates the monopoly in the market of smart phones. Now it is possible to purchase a smart phone with price lower than one thousand yuan. The free flowing communication channel, the participation of massive public and the popularization of mobile terminal devices generate the character of immediacy and popularization. So in new media environment, the ideology has a chance to be exposed to a larger group of population, and is easier to be incorporated into their daily life and accepted by them. As it is admitted by a group of population that is massive enough, it could finally become a common sense or an irrefutable truth for the whole society.

Chapter Two Current Development of Feminism in New Media—Take Sina Weibo as example

Microblog, is a platform for information sharing, dissemination and acquisition based on user relationship. Users can form individual communities through web pages, update information in 140 words or so, and realize instant sharing. In August 2009, Sina Weibo, China's largest portal website, launched an internal beta version of Sina Weibo, which became the first website to provide microblog services. In just three years, Sina Weibo grew rapidly. By the end of 2017, with more than 376 million registered users, Sina Weibo had become the most popular communication platform on the Internet, greatly changing people's information access, interpersonal communication and leisure and entertainment. On this platform with a great number of users and heated discussion of different issues, Feminism receives more and more attention, which in turn also promotes the popularization and development of Feminism. But at the same time, there are still problems and limitations in the spreading process of Feminism.

2.1 The Enhancement of Women's Right of Speech in Sina Weibo

By 2017, there are 376 million users on Sina Weibo, 56.3% of whom are male, 43.7% are female. But this gap of population doesn’t show any distortion of the number of male and female users, as the male and female population in China are unbalanced: at that time, the population of China is 1395.38 million, including 713.51 million men and 681.87 million women. The proportion of men is about 51.1 percent. At the same time, the default gender of new registered user is male. A considerable proportion of people have more than one Weibo accounts. For most female users, except one primary account that they will change the user’s gender to female, other accounts are usually keep the originnal male gender, as most people would like to hide their real identity in this accounts so that they can express their minds more freely, even irresponsibly. So the genders of these account users are not significant and most users will not delaberately change the default genders of them. So the proportion of the users’ number of different genders is approximately equal to the proportion of the population of male and female, which means, as Weibo has low entry requirement, different genders of people have equal access to this popularized social media. What makes us even more surprised, according to the recent survey by Sina Corp, is that the activity of female users is generally higher than male users, as female users are more willing to write original micro-blogs to record their life or express opinions, while most male users usually tend to repost others’ micro-blogs only. So the female users can claim to have more voice on Sina Weibo.

According to the phenomenon described in the above paragraph, it is not strange that the news topic about female or Feminism can obtain more attention on this platform. Sina Weibo has an real-time updated list of top searches, which shows people the 50 most heated entries at any time. The entries on this list are searched by a great number of people and inevitably may trigger discussions even debates of the public. Most of the hot news about female or Feminism are on this list such as the sexual criminal cases of Liu Qiangdong and Jang Ja-yeon, the Anti-abortion Law recently issued in Alabama or the incidents of sex discrimination in workplace. These news are not only a matter of great concern, but also cause heated discussion in comment section, in which the registered users of Sina Weibo are able to promptly tell their prospectives. Sometimes it could even be seen that feminist have quarrels with dissenters. Meanwhile, some influential accounts regularly writes special mocro-blogs about Feminism on their female columns and greatly spread the knowledge of Feminism in massive public. In the beginning of this year, many people campaigned for the wearing of corsets without rims in order to protect females’ health, as rims would constrict women’s stomach. So Sina Weibo is also an ideal ideological front for feminists to initiate feminism movements. Just like the “ Me Too” movement on Twitter, feminism movements on Sina Weibo is increasingly frequent and influential these days.

2.2 Limitations of Communication of Feminism in Sina Weibo

It is undoubted that Weibo has become a battle field for the initiation and development of feminist movements, but there are still limitations and problems in the process of the communication of Feminism on Sina Weibo.

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