Innovations in communication theories: the man is the message

Abstract

In reworking Marshall McLuhan’s famous assertion ‘the medium is the message’, Chen Yanru’s book ‘Innovations in Communication Theories’ proposes an eye-catching subtitle: ‘The man is the message’. While mainstream communication studies are dominated by the empirical school originated in North America, which focuses on the ‘process and effect of communication’, Chen advocates for a paradigmatic turn to the ‘man’ who is ‘inundated with the mechanisms of communication’ (p. 38). Instead of denying McLuhan’s historic contribution, this book extends the statement ‘media is the extension of human being’ and sheds light on the one essential element that is embedded in various forms of communication, which is human beings (p. xii). As shown by the name of its original Chinese version (心 传, the communication of heart/heart-to-heart communication), the inquiry of this book into ‘human beings’ is a process of seeking human hearts, which includes ‘individual psychological processes, emotional changes, progression in thoughts, and even establishing beliefs’ (p. 39). The shift from ‘communication mechanisms’ (especially in mass communication) to the ‘man’ in communication, along with the main title ‘Innovations in Communication Theories’, reveals the author’s intention to contribute to the theoretical thinking in communication studies through unraveling how media serves as ‘the extension of men’ beyond sensory perception. As Chen notes, ‘Media may be our ears and eyes, but they should never take the place of our minds’ (p. 163). This is of particular significance when it comes to the case of post-socialist China in the developing period of market economy, where the emergence of individualism, utilitarianism, consumerism, and hedonism (p. xi) has given rise to the decline of common morality and belief (truth, goodness, and beauty, p. 30). Given the cohesive force to bind the hearts of the people together (p. 30), mass media communication, as suggested in Chapter 3, has the potential to build the faith of the Chinese people and advance China’s spiritual civilization (p. 29) against the backdrop of post-socialist economy. In this vein, Chen proposes the ISM (identity, strength, and mission) model for reexamining the Chinese people’s crisis of belief by taking cultural sensitivity into consideration. While identity refers to individuals’ relation to the country/society/other people, strength is ‘what they can do’ and mission stands for ‘what they must do’ (pp. 31–32). With the ISM model, Chen believes that the Chinese people can build an indigenous belief/‘ism’, ideally becoming the ‘carrier of [five-thousand-years] Chinese culture’ in the face of ‘the challenge of globalization’ (p. 32). More profoundly, Chen points out the tricky/complicated identity of today’s Chinese mass media. In addition to promoting mainstream values and building Chinese public morality, mass media is inevitably the ‘sales agent of big foreign brand products’ in pursuit of commercial interests (p. 31). Chapter 5 further elaborates the multi-functional role of mass media in post-socialist China, which includes enlightenment (i.e. collaborating with the government to enlighten the masses on certain issues of national interest, p. 59), encouragement (i.e. mediating the tension between social stability/harmony and revealing social problems/illness, ‘aiming at