Abstract

Since its birth in 1958，China’s television（TV）industry has gone through a history of more than 60 years.Chinese television has gradually established itself as a mainstream mass media from scratch，constructing the cultural memories of the public at different historical eras and shaping a unique“TV generation”.As a cultural mechanism penetrating into the everyday lives of Chinese people，television viewing has long shaped their perceptions of social life and the outside world，playing a crucial role in integrating contemporary society.

Thus，we need to understand Chinese television not only as a mainstream communication tool，but also as a medium that bonds Chinese society，and therefore we need to consider how television affects the structure and culture of Chinese society.For more than half a century，and especially in the last forty years，there is hardly a better way to understand the universal values and spiritual cores imprinted on the public than analyze the television culture that the Chinese people have commonly embraced.Television culture，born in a unique historical context and remaining in contemporary socio-cultural space for a long time，obviously has important values that deserve to be interpreted.

The influence of Chinese television in everyday life provides important clues to understanding the social and cultural functions of television.The analysis of“everyday life”which interacts closely with television，is also an important clue of television studies that cannot be ignored.When we rethink the narrative of Chinese television history from this perspective，or in other words，after we examine the changing roles of television in everyday life，we can respond to the following questions：How did television accompany the growth of the generations？How can television shape people’s consensus and collective memory？How can television systematically intervene in social life and integrate it into a stable mediated social structure，or how can television bring about its gradual disintegration？

Therefore，this book adopts a New Cultural History framework to explain the development of Chinese television over the past forty years since China’s reform and opening up，focusing on how“watching television”has constructed the lifestyles of the Chinese public.In contrast to traditional television history studies that focus on the media function of television or the political economy of television，this book attempts to examine the interaction between television and everyday life，focusing on the history of Chinese people’s“television watching”，that is，the history of television culture.

Compared with the traditional“top-down”research paradigm of television history，this book has two specific innovations.First，the book is characterized by a combination of history and theory，with a focus on interpreting history rather than describing it，not being restricted by the chronicle style.The book examines the forty-year history of watching television as a lifestyle，exploring the significance of television in Chinese socio-cultural life and its changes.Apart from objective historical records，subjective historical materials，such as the people’s comments on television，are also used in the book，which will not only expand the television history corpus but will also be valuable in developing the methodology of television history research.Second，from the perspective of the new cultural history，the rise and fall of TV as the most influential mass media can be explained from the changes in the common social life.The establishment and development of television as a mainstream media is largely due to its pervasive influence on the public as a lifestyle，which provides a complementary“bottom-up”perspective to explain the development of television.In general，the interpretation of history is meant to inspire the present.This book provides inspiration for real life by discussing possible paths for the transformation of Chinese television from the perspective of how television reconstructs lifestyles.

Key Words ：Chinese Television，Cultural History，Lifestyle