Television Influence On China's Popular Culture

As the Open-Door Policy and economic reform encouraged the independency of individual and family, some new forms of consumerism, individualism have occurred. Not only was the economy opened to the world, but also the rest of the country, meaning that China would accept more open and vibrant culture and have more interactions with the outside world. In recent years, consumerism has become more and more important to the development of the contemporary Chinese popular culture. And television definitely contributed a lot in it.

Popular culture is related to an enormous range of aspects. And all kinds of popular culture are connected with people. Popular culture can reflect the market and the consumption can also reflect the popular culture. Chinese

According to official statistics, two-thirds of people in China had access to television by the 1980s, while today; nearly 100 percent of the population has access to television. Even in some countryside and rural areas, more than 90 percent of people have access to television. Nowadays, there are altogether over 3,000 channels are available across the country. We can see the telecommunications in China were established rapidly. In china, the most popular leisure activity for people is watching television. In their daily life, they get information from the television and entertained by it. It shows the importance and widespread of television among Chinese people. Television becomes the basic requirement of a family life. And of course, it is fundamental to the Chinese popular culture. Also in Hong Kong, television has a very pivotal role, even now there is one television station monopolizing for years. And even though the internet has become more popular, television is still the mainstream

When television first came to people’s life, not every family can afford it. So once a family buy the television, it means that they are rich. Television is a symbol of wealth. And with the advanced technology development, television has developed from black and white to color sets. At that time, family that can buy color set was even wealthier. Now, television has developed to higher resolution digital, wider, flatter and thinner screen. The price will go higher as well. It shows not only the rapid development of technology, but also the social status of people. It represents people’s consumer demands for expensive sets are growing. However, interestingly, the author points out that having a flat-screen television in 2003 was very different from having a black and white television in 1983. The social context changed over time dramatically. Maybe because people nowadays have so many material goods than before, the impact of having a flat-screen television is much smaller than having a black and white set twenty years ago. It is not difficult to understand that. We have computers, smartphones, IPad and a lot of technological gadgets for entertaining and receiving news. But people in the past decades only had television in their