When Culture Becomes Data: Alienation in Rural Digital Culture and Its Governance

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jmsd.202612420

Author(s)

Haodong Liu*

Affiliation(s)

Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

The pace of digital change is altering rural China, spreading the radius of rural culture, but also producing the risk of new psychological problems. This paper studies the physical reality in psychological sense of alienation in rural digital culture and gains some intuition of governance response. Three forces are important: traffic data measurement, recommendation algorithm and data control of regulation. Together, they weaken the cultural identity of rural cultural practitioners, cultural creativity and psychological subjects. This analysis is based on the practice of rural digital cultural life in China, pointing straightforwardly to both instrumental and value rationality, connecting folk culture identity, cultural psychological ownership and autonomy with psychological ideas. We can see three kinds of dynamic relations: traffic data measures the value of culture; algorithm disciplines cultural creativity; data control on regulation reverses the relation of subject and object. These dynamic relations bring some tendency of psychology: under the traffic data measurement, the intrinsic value of culture goes astray and the cultural identity goes lose. Algorithmic control reduces creators' autonomy and intrinsic motivation and homogenises cultural expression. As data objects become cultural subject, psychological ownership also decreases, dependence on algorithms increases. This deepens the imbalance between instrumental rationality and value rationality and intensifies the alienation of rural cultural subjectivity. Our article argues that governance needs to shift away from technical and economic efficiency to human development and psychological empowerment. Evaluation system needs to be rebuilt such that traffic does not become "singularity"; practitioners need autonomy and ability to grow; and governance needs to become more collaborative in participation, capital, technology and rural community together. Only a proper balance between instrumental rationality and value rationality can enable digital transformation to serve rather than counter, cultural identity, creative autonomy and psychological well-being of rural society.

Keywords

Rural Digital Culture; Instrumental Rationality; Psychological Mechanisms; Cultural Identity; Algorithmic Dependence

References

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