On November 26th，Dr.Yao Jianhua gave a special lecture in room A620 successfully with the theme of “From Blind Spot to Concentration: The Political Economy of Knowledge Workers in the Media Industries”. Yu Xiaofeng, lecturer of LJS (Literature and Journalism School) presided at the lecture.

At first, Yu Xiaofeng welcomed the arrival of Yao Jianhua and introduced the academic experience and research field of Yao briefly. Yao Jianhua, who gained a PhD in Sociology from Queen’s University (Canada) and taught by Professor Vincent Mosco, the founder of political economy. Yao is also one talent of the Shanghai “Pujiang talent plan”, now he works at China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong(CELAP) and teaches political economy of FIST project at Graduate School of Fudan University. His main research directions are political economy and knowledge workers.

At the beginning of the lecture, Dr Yao Jianhua introduced the topic——political economy need to study personal troubles of milieu under the macroscopical and wider public issues of social structure, by a short movie presenting the development history of world media of 20th century. Then he introduced that the meaning of political economy is the interpretation of various kinds of social relations, and its core focus is the operation of power. The research fields of political economy involved capitalism and democracy, the commercialization process of media, social justice and citizen participation, and they correspond to four features respectively——the totality of society holistic, historical, moral philosophy and social practice. After explaining the relationship between political economy and knowledge workers in the media industries, Yao Jianhua pointed out that despite knowledge workers in the media industries are very important, they are facing with crises like increasing pressure and job instability. Along with the declining of the concept of “class” in today's world, they are being socially marginalized. At the same time they are becoming the “blind spot” of both theory and practice research.Yao Jianhua thought that there are three reasons leading to this situation. Firstly, media commercialization is growing with the development of the market economy. Secondly, the unfair phenomenon show up, such as the treatment of knowledge workers in the media industries are becoming structure hierarchical with social transformation and the reform of the publishing industry. Thirdly, with the development of economic globalizationthe, the world’s division of labor is bringing Chinese media industry challenge along with opportunities. On the problem which needs deeper study “how to bring knowledge workers in the media industries out of troubles of milieu”, Yao Jianhua thought we can rely on technological development, guilds or international trade organizations to find out solutions.

In the interactive session, Yao Jianhua exchanged ideas with the students and teachers on the scene about “media globalization” and “studying knowledge workers from the perspective of cultural studies”. At last, Yu Xiaofeng summarized the contents of this lecture, she regarded political economy as a branch which cannot be ignored in communication research. She spoke highly of Yao’s study in this field, saying it was comprehensive, rigorous and creative. Yu hoped he could bring latest achievement in this field to the teachers and students of Shandong University continuously.