本文以文献分析和口述史访谈为研究方法,以文化研究理论为分析工具,旨在探讨20世纪80年代的中国媒体如何将电视呈现为富裕的现代生活和较高社会地位的象征,以及在谁拥有电视这一问题上媒体所赋予电视的理想化涵义。具体而言,本文分析其他媒介形态,主要是印刷媒介,如何让电视传播一种与人们的经济和政治现实相去较远的“新”文化价值——迈入现代化和变得富裕。实际上,电视所象征的内容源自各种因素的复杂性。在20世纪80年代早期,电视在本质上类似于其它现代技术产品,因为它对中国人的现代化未来作出了同其它现代技术产品一样的承诺。经济因素和文化因素的紧密结合激发了中国人拥有电视,然后通过他们观看的节目为其提供现代化的信息。尽管拥有电视不能证明人们生活富裕或现代化,但是它为人们学习或模仿现代化的生活方式创造了一条路径。这种学习或模仿会自觉和不自觉地发生,并同政府的意识形态宣传一道,在多个维度上影响了中国人。电视的普及首先由政府政策发起,电视对中国社会和文化的影响逐渐演变成为一种复杂而有趣的现象。这种现象展示了技术和意识形态的大环境如何使电视观看活动成为可能,电视如何与人的能动性相互作用,以及普通民众的生活如何成为由西方技术和文化塑造的现代化的合法部分。 This article takes literature analysis and interview history as research methods and cultural studies as analysis tools to explore how the Chinese media in the 1980s represented television as a symbol of modern life and higher social status, The idealized meaning given to television by the media on the issue of possession of television. Specifically, the article analyzes other forms of media, mainly print media, and how to make television a “new” cultural value far removed from people’s economic and political realities - into the modern era and into the affluent. In fact, what is symbolized by the television comes from the complexity of various factors. In the early 1980s, television was essentially similar to other modern technology products because it offered the same promise as the other modern technology products to the Chinese’s modern future. The combination of economic and cultural factors inspired the Chinese to own television and then provide them with modern information through the shows they watched. Although television does not prove that people are rich or modern, it creates a path for people to learn or imitate modern lifestyles. Such learning or imitation would occur consciously and unconsciously, and together with the propaganda of the government’s ideology, influenced the Chinese in many dimensions. The popularization of television was first initiated by government policy. The influence of television on Chinese society and culture gradually evolved into a complex and interesting phenomenon. This phenomenon shows how the technological and ideological environment can make television viewing possible, how television interacts with human mobility, and how ordinary people’s lives become legitimate parts of modernization shaped by Western technology and culture.