Abstract

In the process of modernization, China's rural families are experiencing all kinds of unprecedented changes. As the fifth mass media, what role does the emerging mobile media play in the contemporary Chinese rural area? To answer this question, the author chose Yang village in southeastern Guangxi, participant observation and indepth interviews to explore the impact of mobile media on Chinese rural families.

In the first part of this book, the author examines how mobile communication affects binary relations in families of Yang village, including courtship and mate selecting, marital relationship and parent-child relationship. In the latter part, expanding the scope to all the genealogy families as a whole, family story telling under the new media context is analyzed. At last, the interaction between mobile communication technology and modernization is explored.

The stability and harmonization of rural family promotes the sustainable development of the whole rural society. This research can help understand new media's impact on the structure-changing rural family unit under the process of modernization, understand how to use new technology to improve communication in nuclear family, extended family and communication between the whole rural society and the modern world. I hope this book can inspired others.