A New Theoretical Interpretation of the Construction of Ideological Discourse Right from the Perspective of Information Philosophy ^†

Abstract

Information philosophy is an information society governance viewpoint and methodology provided by China’s philosophy to cope with the wave of information civilization. Due to the rapid development of information technology, the “liberalism” of network information is rampant, which affects the construction of ideological discourse power. Discourse is information, and the information power derived from the information society will evolve into ideological discourse right from another angle. By expounding the ubiquity of information power, this paper puts forward a more targeted practical path for the construction of ideological discourse right in the new era by following the thinking of information philosophy in order to help the recognition and influence of leading ideological discourse.

1. Introduction

Since the 1980s, the wave of information civilization based on information technology has had a far-reaching impact on the real lives of human beings, and information philosophy came into being. In the 21st century, industrial civilization is changing to information civilization, and the dominance of global information society governance is playing a fierce game. Information philosophy is an information society governance viewpoint and methodology provided by China’s philosophy to cope with the wave of information civilization. Due to the rapid development of information technology, the “liberalism” of network information is rampant, which affects the construction of ideological discourse right. Based on the perspective of information philosophy, ideological discourse right has some new interpretations of theoretical construction. Ideological discourse right itself is a kind of discourse power, and discourse is information. Having information power means mastering diversified information supply resources sensitively in the ideological field, and the blessing of information power is helpful in further strengthening ideological discourse right.

2. The Reality of Ubiquitous Information Power

(1)

Popularization of information power subjects

The sharing and exchange of Internet resources make information itself attached to discourse power, that is, information power. However, due to the remarkable characteristics of the Internet itself, such as being fast, convenient and infinitely open, the subject of information power is gradually developing towards diversification and popularization, and the threshold of mass communication has been lowered again and again. In traditional real society, power is often in the hands of a few elites, who seize a huge amount of information resources by virtue of their superior social status, so as to serve their own interests. Compared with it, the information society has broken the traditional monopoly of information resources. Information resources are distributed to various network subjects through the special medium of the Internet. The network has smoothed out the status differences of netizens in real life and blurred their social status and other special identity labels, so netizens have gotten rid of the discourse monopoly in real society, and because they have certain information resources, netizens have certain discourse power in the information society, and the subject of information power has achieved a hierarchical leap. This shows that the main body of power in the information society is the public, and the essence of this power is the right to speak.

(2)

Divergence of information-power objects

When the subject of information power is transformed from elite to mass, the number of the corresponding audience also has a divergent and explosive growth, which is due to the agglomeration of the network itself. With the continuous popularization and development of the Internet, the network communication modes are developing in a diversified direction, including BBS, forums, Weibo, WeChat, etc., and resources are effectively shared through different communication channels. In the process of obtaining and exchanging information, people often make subjective screening according to their own interests and values, which makes the object of information power not only divergent growth, but also form a certain discourse group. The network itself is a virtual information society, and the gathering of discourse groups means the emergence of public opinion fields. In the same public opinion field, the density of groups, the frequency of communication and the openness of topics will affect the formation of the public opinion, and the infinite spread of public opinion field will affect more audiences, thus generating the guiding force of public opinion in the whole society, that is, the right to speak.

(3)

Publicizing the exercise of information power

The operation of information power indicates that the traditional discourse authority is being deconstructed and that all classes can transcend the gap in wealth, power and prestige and realize resource replacement and sharing. The subject of information power broke away from the traditional identity mark and freely exercised information power within the legal and moral boundaries. As an important discourse power, netizens began to intervene in social public practice. Various emerging modes of network communication provide netizens with multiple stages to show themselves, and everyone can freely express their ideas and exchange information resources. Issues in the online world can instantly form huge potential energy, causing strong public concern, which invisibly enhances the activity of the subject of information power. Within the bottom line of law and morality, any member of society can express themselves freely, and the operation of information power is more public and liberal than that of traditional society.

(4)

Real-time transmission of information power

In the information age, the new social media is real-time. The Internet is far more interactive than traditional media. In traditional societies, information is repeatedly reviewed and processed by the traditional media before dissemination, which greatly lags behind the transmission of information and the capacity of information resources is obviously limited. However, the new media has incomparable advantages in instant information processing and fission communication. Through the new media network, speech can be freely transmitted back and forth in virtual space, and the advantages of short content, instant updating and instant sharing have formed a powerful public opinion communication force in the network. Information power originated from the massive information resources exchanged at high speed, so its power transmission is gradually real-time.

3. The Challenges Faced by the Construction of Ideological Discourse Power in the Information Age

(1)

Decentralized fission communication impacts the vertical communication of dominant ideologies.

China’s philosophy of information puts forward a new way to divide the field of existence, that is, existence is composed of matter and information, while spirit is only defined as an advanced form of information activities. This division clearly points out the important role that information plays in social activities. As the main component of new media communication, the prominent feature of network communication is virtuality. The trump card combination of the network platform and the mobile terminal makes the traditional branch-and-branch communication become the nuclear fission diffusion, and its large-scale communication effect is realized in the fission of geometric series. This communication mode is similar to an outbreak of the plague virus, while the communication mode of the dominant ideology still relies on the political media to spread from top to bottom, which is less effective and faster than the emerging media. Therefore, the advent of the information age has intensified the game of discourse rights between various nondominant ideologies and state-led ideologies.

(2)

Clustered network interaction squeezes the living space of dominant ideological discourse.

The combination of network and mobile terminal makes everyone a communicator, and the right to speak is subverted and deconstructed. Thus, the new media opens an era of denying discourse centers and discourse authority. At the same time, with the decentralization of communication content, it also ushered in an era of anarchism in communication activities. The free writing and free communication of the audience are actually endowed with some kind of discourse power. Relying on the open network, interactive technology and the special interpersonal relationship of the mobile phone network, the audience participates in the process of information production and information dissemination, and the information receiver becomes the information producer and information publisher at the same time. Using the power of the public, the information carried by the interpersonal circle spread rapidly, and the group communication and instant interaction formed in the process of spreading made the public’s opinion continue to ferment. Discourse exists in public opinion, and public opinion is driven by public opinion. In particular, discourse discussions involving people’s interests and needs are more likely to form clustered network interactions, which will squeeze the living space of leading ideological discourse to some extent. It can be seen that the media is not a neutral, common-sense or rational coordinator of social events in essence, but helps to reconstruct pre-established ideologies [1]. The information transformation of media technology has weakened the discourse power of the dominant ideology to some extent.

(3)

Illegal technical means restrict the innovation of dominant ideological discourse.

In the information age, the ideological security situation is complex and changeable, all kinds of information are rooted in objectively changing social existence, and diversified social thoughts constantly impact the dominant position of mainstream ideology. On this basis, the iterative development of information media technology is embedded in all aspects of the media, and some foreign lawless elements make inappropriate remarks in the online world by means of technological advantages, actively promote ideological remarks with western political colors and interfere with the spread of dominant ideological discourse. In addition, foreign countries also monopolize the right to develop and use software through technological advantages and language advantages. Western academic circles and news media have an overwhelming advantage on the Internet because of western discourse hegemony, and they use this advantage to infiltrate culture into other countries. “Using the tools of the computer age to promote American ideals may be the most peaceful and powerful way to promote American interests [2]”. Through these channels, people who gain information power use the network control right and information release right mastered by the audience to limit the production and dissemination of dominant ideological discourse, so as to achieve the goal that violence and money cannot be conquered.

4. Information Philosophy Thinking Promotes the Construction of Ideological Discourse Right in the New Era

(1)

Discourse communication: establishing an ideological reward and punishment mechanism based on IP identity.

Whether it is the current information hegemony struggle or the possible information war in the future, the ideology and values of the other country are the primary targets of attack, so as to achieve the purpose of damaging national interests, national spirit and people’s ideals and beliefs. Therefore, in order to maintain the security of socialist ideology, it is necessary to fully combine the background of the information age and use information technology to supervise the ideological information on the Internet in order to achieve safety, standardization and order in the process of discourse communication. The Internet is borderless and virtual. In the process of ideological information supervision, we can make full use of network IP identity to identify groups and implement ideological reward and punishment mechanisms. Incentive measures refer to giving material rewards and honors to representative individuals who innovate their work ideas and actively practice socialist core values and to representative groups that have good social benefits and healthy social impacts in ideological construction. Punishment measures refer to the pressure of punishment to make Internet criminals restrain their arrogance and regulate their behavior. With the help of information technology, the effective integration of ideological rewards and punishments will help the dominant ideology master information sovereignty. In addition, with the help of more advanced information technology, the functions of IP address blocking of national gateways, content monitoring of backbone routers, domain name filtering and monitoring software can be realized in a multichannel, multilevel and distributed manner, so that the information that most netizens can access can be controlled at a level acceptable to the government. Of course, for the technology of network security, it is impossible once and for all. We should be ready at all times, strengthen the innovation and control of network technology, filter the junk information in the network, and take the initiative to master information sovereignty.

(2)

Discourse environment: unite network opinion leaders to guide the positive development of public opinion.

In the process of competing for information sovereignty, some scientists increasingly play the role of public communicators and educators, and directly enter other fields that challenge professional knowledge, such as social interaction, media and politics, that is, the mediation of science [3]. They have won the recognition and follow-up of most people with their scientific knowledge and superb speech skills in the field of information dissemination, so online opinion leaders play a vital role in the process of information dissemination. United Network opinion leaders are helpful in guiding the positive development of public opinion and creating a good discourse environment for the spread of leading ideologies. The Internet has contributed to the formation of risk dispersion and power sharing mechanisms. However, this kind of spreading democracy is disorderly, and there are often cases where some populists take the lead in inciting netizens’ emotions and exercising media violence. The emergence of this kind of network populism has greatly disturbed the communication environment of the dominant ideological discourse and dispelled its internal persuasiveness and appeal. It is beneficial to guide the virtuous circle of online public opinion to a certain extent, to master information sovereignty and to safeguard the security of China’s socialist ideology by making positive comments on current affairs hotspots by joint network opinion leaders.

(3)

Discourse production: Strengthen the development of Chinese software and break discourse hegemony. Today, with the rapid development of information technology, discourse hegemony has become a problem that cannot be ignored. Language information is the shell of ideology, and a national language is bound to bear its own values and traditions, deeply engraved with its own national brand, so ideology is hidden in network information in various language forms. At present, English is still the main software language in most advanced software on the Internet. Most of the formed thematic discussions are initiated by Americans. It can be said that entering the Internet is similar to entering a kaleidoscope of American culture. The moral concepts, values and ways of life communication contained in these messages will subtly affect people’s world outlook, outlook on life and values, making them distorted and misplaced. Therefore, we should strengthen the development of Chinese software to break the hegemony of discourse, start with the root of discourse production, create a good discourse environment belonging to socialist ideology, and innovate the way of discourse production. At present, the urgent task is to create a batch of Chinese information software that is ideological, valuable, scientific and entertaining, and to strive to expand the proportion of Chinese information in network information. At the same time, develop relevant translation software, promote the sinicization of the Internet, and achieve both offensive and defensive goals in the competition for information sovereignty with the West.

5. Conclusions

Marx once said: “Any real philosophy is the spiritual essence of its own time [4]”. In today’s information society, information philosophy has been deeply embedded in people’s ways of thinking, behavior and production, which is of great significance to human life. The ideological discourse right from the perspective of information philosophy is the competition and contention of information powers. Only by mastering cutting-edge information technology can we truly realize the dominant ideological identity at the source of discourse production and supply. It can be seen that looking at the new changes brought by information philosophy from many different angles will make us know the world again.