Author:Xu Jiayu Gong Huimin
When young people go to school and men go out to work, middle-aged women who have been rooted in rural areas for a long time will undoubtedly become local talents who can be cultivated and can help rural revitalization.
Therefore, this paper focuses on middle-aged rural women and examines their continuous interaction and mutual construction with Douyin media technology.
The field site of this study is a village in the southeast of Shanxi Province——— Shangfu Village. At present, the village has an area of 1,405 acres of cultivated land, with 652 households and a total of 1,642 people.
Since the 80s of the 20th century, Shangfu Village has established collective enterprises such as coal mines, power plants, and ironworks, and the villagers have "left their hometowns and entered factories on the spot", and then individual economies such as supermarkets, greenhouses, and restaurants have emerged, which has solved the employment problem of a large number of middle-aged women.
At the beginning of the 21st century, with the implementation of the comprehensive reform of the transformation of Jincheng City's resource-based economy, the village collective industry with coal mine as the core has gone bankrupt one after another, and the related individual economy has also been hit hard. A large number of male villagers have to go out to work, while women take on the responsibility of guarding their children and caring for the elderly.
At present, the penetration rate of Wi-Fi and smartphones in Shangfu Village is relatively high, and middle-aged women in rural areas can connect with the outside world more conveniently. With the advantages of "short, flat and fast", Douyin has been deeply embedded in the daily life of middle-aged women in Shangfu Village.
Cheap smartphones, with free Tik Tok
Middle-aged women in Shangfu Village have always maintained frugal consumption habits, and choose more smartphones with about one or two thousand yuan. Affordable and durable domestic smartphone brands such as OPPO and vivo have become their first choice, although some people use Apple mobile phones, but basically their children have been eliminated.
For us, the mobile phone can chat on WeChat and brush Douyin, why spend so much money to buy a good one, if Douyin is not free, I will not **. (51 years old, housewife).
As activists who produce and spread gossip, middle-aged women in Shangfu Village began to use Douyin due to the sense of belonging to the group and the culture of face.
I didn't play at first, and when my friends were talking about Douyin, I felt like I was falling behind, so I hurried a**. (50 years old, tour guide).
In this process, the phenomenon of cultural feedback occurs from time to time in the Douyin practice of middle-aged women in Shangfu Village, that is, the younger generation helps the older generation integrate into digital life.
Douyin is a child to help me**, I can't play when I'm old, and I'm embarrassed to ask friends, but the child is quite positive. (56 years old, farming).
Before they had access to mobile phones, middle-aged women in Shangfu Village mainly relied on television as a medium to spend their leisure time, and the fixed programs and broadcast time slots made it difficult for them to meet their cultural and entertainment needs due to their busy farm work and housework.
After the appearance of Douyin short**, their daily life and media time were coupled, and "busy and idle" became a new living habit.
Fieldwork has found that people will "play in the air", that is, take time to play Douyin. For example, starting a live broadcast while cooking, and filming ** while taking grandchildren.
After I have a mobile phone, who still watches TV, I cook, take care of the baby, and work in the field with my mobile phone, and I will brush Tik Tok whenever I have time. (58 years old, farming).
Supporting the elderly, taking care of the family, educating children, and playing multiple roles, middle-aged women in Shangfu Village have realized leisurely entertainment anytime and anywhere through Douyin, and their psychological pressure has been released.
What do you like to brush?
The middle-aged women in Shangfu Village love the three main aspects of humor and funny, skill learning, and singing and dancing.
Doing housework, farming, and taking care of the family, the daily life of middle-aged women in rural areas is boring, and even though square dancing activities are regularly held in the village, the survey found that the participation rate of middle-aged women in Shangfu Village is not very high.
In contrast, funny** will be more in line with their entertainment needs, and among all the subjects interviewed, everyone talked about their love for funny**.
At the same time, "learning to cook on Douyin" is a common topic in the chatter of middle-aged women in the village.
What ingredients do you need to prepare, how long to cook, Douyin will teach you step by step, and my family will say that the dishes I just learned are delicious. (49 years old, vegetable shop owner).
This not only increases their life skills, but also further maintains the relationship between parents and children, husband and wife, and mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the family.
The "differential order pattern" is demonstrated in the Douyin practice of middle-aged women in Shangfu Village, who usually like Douyin according to the distance of their social networks.
For example, when they are friends or neighbors, they will not hesitate to like them, but when they brush strangers, they will make relevant decisions based on the quality of the work and their preferences.
Create a new principal
Douyin short** has facilitated the historic appearance of the "nameless", and the once "silent majority" now has the right to record themselves and others, which is an epoch-making change.
As an "information pool" and "traffic bank", Douyin brings a wealth of knowledge and mainstream social views to rural women, prompting them to change their thinking patterns.
The middle-aged women in Shangfu Village only have a new identity of self-identity in the virtual space, and the interpersonal relationships that used to be centered on blood and geography have also been extended.
Aunt Min, who is keen on opera, said: "Douyin has made me meet opera fans from all over the world, and we have formed our own Douyin group, and we will share our singing ** in the group on weekdays, and everyone likes and comments on each other." (45 years old, housewife).
There are many women in the village who invite their husbands, children, and parents to take Douyin together, even if their ** presentation is not as beautiful and smooth as that taken by professionals, but these unpretentious daily records will win the praise of villagers and netizens.
I just like the kind of family on camera and Douyin together**, after all, plain is true, such a family must be very happy. (42 years old, junior high school dormitory manager).
The practice of Douyin by middle-aged women in Shangfu Village plays a non-negligible role in the construction of rural media memory.
In their Douyin works, there are often iconic buildings such as village gatehouses, stadiums, Chengtang Temple, and Fulong Park, which to a certain extent hook up the cognitive symbols and emotional resonance of villagers from other places to recall their hometowns, and construct the memory representation of rural culture by the memory subject and the social life history of ordinary people.
Some active TikTok practitioners have extended their own values outside of the home.
Ms. Yu is the owner of the Outer Ring Road Hotel, and since she opened the restaurant for a year, her daily turnover has reached more than 300 yuan. "This is thanks to Douyin, my cooking skills are all learned in Douyin, and now I not only have to post some self-cooking ** every day, but also when I am not busy in the afternoon or evening, I will also start a live broadcast, many people will give me gifts, and I will earn a lot of money a day. (41 years old, restaurant owner).
Most middle-aged women in rural areas have become aware of "traffic" and have begun to reflect on the algorithmic logic adopted by Douyin, a commercial platform, and actively adjust their domestication strategy for Douyin.
Now Douyin can post up to two times a day, and you can't let others give you continuous likes, otherwise your ** will click down. (53 years old, waiter).
The transformation of space
In the field, the wall of the living room of every house is basically placed with a TV. Before the advent of mobile media, television played a role in the daily life of farmers to maintain family feelings, obtain information from the outside world, and provide leisure and entertainment. The living room, a shared space, has often become a place for collective activities of villagers' families in the past, and has an irreplaceable status.
In the age of the Internet, the family culture of watching TV and chatting about programs together after dinner is gradually declining. As a new medium that people are inseparable, Douyin is embedded in a variety of physical space scenes along with other physical entities. For example, people play by the pillow before going to bed, put it in the cupboard when cooking, and take time to shoot when they go out.
The mobility of Douyin provides the possibility for the construction of multiple physical space scenes.
The gender division of labor in traditional society determines the power of men to dominate family television.
However, the fieldwork found that in the new ** era, rural middle-aged women have not only become the main force in media practice, but they have also created a new "bedroom culture".
First of all, in terms of shooting short **, the number of middle-aged women in Shangfu Village is much more than that of men.
The reason is that in the context of the dual structure of urban and rural areas and the gender division of labor of "male dominance and female dominance", men in Shangfu Village either became temporary workers in the village or chose to go underground in the surrounding coal mines, and rarely had the opportunity to contact Douyin.
For middle-aged women, they are mostly responsible for raising children, taking care of the family, and supporting the elderly in the family, and they are more motivated to contact and learn Douyin when they are free. Therefore, in Shangfu Village, middle-aged women have gradually become the dominant players in media practice.
Secondly, practical factors such as the husband's migrant work, the generation gap with the children, the short-term and heavy life pressure of the neighbors' parents day after day, to a certain extent, make the middle-aged women in Shangfu Village escape from real interpersonal relationships and build their own exclusive bedroom culture.
My husband is often not at home, and the children go out to play after eating every day, and the neighbors often come to visit the door, talking about how this house is, how is that family, after a long time, I feel very bored, it is better to go back to my bedroom and quietly brush Douyin. (47 years old, aluminum plant employee).