Mediated Distance:The Construction of Proximity and Difference between Migrant Workers and Mainstream Groups
This study focuses on the media texts on Chen Zhi Event,examines the ways in which the media mediate the distance between migrant workers and the mainstream,investigates the narrative and discursive strategies employed,and assesses their implications.The study finds that the initial release of non-fiction writing and most of the subsequent commentaries create a proximity between migrant workers and the mainstream based on the universal human nature of the"quest for meaning",which codifies class differences as symbolic identity differences in an egalitarian perspective that masks the material aspects of inequality.In addition to the dominant trend of proximity,a few texts demonstrate alternative constructions of distance by rewriting individual and class differences,outlining distinct mappings of how media positions the public and its moral coordinates.Drawing on Silverstone's notion of"proper distance",this study argues that these three types of textual practices mentioned above,i.e.,de-differentiation,re-writing of individual and class differences,fully reflect the complexity of the mediation of distant others as a political and moral enterprise.The moral power and political efficacy of media texts must be grounded in a constant negotiation and open discussion of our proximity and difference with distant others.
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维普
