Page 68 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

CHEN Geng & HU Yachun / The attribution analysis of low participation in public reading 067
among rural residents: A survey from 77 administrative villages and rural libraries in Hubei Province

of many scholars, the attribution theory has gradually developed and been widely used to explain
the problems in psychology, management, sociology and other disciplines. In recent years, the
academia community has also applied the attribution theory to analyze problems in rural reading in
China. Under the macro background of the construction of China’s public cultural service system,
there were mainly three opinions: resource determinism, management determinism and farmers’
information demand determinism.
Scholars who advocated “resource determinism” believed that the main reason for the low
reading participation of rural residents was the lack of resources. They considered that due to the
lack of public cultural resources and inequitable distribution, it was difficult for farmers to obtain
the same cultural knowledge as urban residents, which made farmers vulnerable (Z.Z. WANG,
2006). The construction of rural reading rooms of books and newspapers was not well established,
and the reading resources of farmers were limited (GUO, Z. XIAO, & HAN, 2009). Therefore,
the serious shortage of resources became the biggest obstacle for farmers to read (CHEN &
HUANG, 2012). The lack of corresponding supporting facilities, funds, human resources, and the
applicability of resources resulted in farmers’ difficulty in reading (ZHANG & Y. L. YANG, 2012).
Scholars who insisted on “management determinism” mainly attributed the low participation to
the influence of rural reading service management. They thought that one of the critical reasons
why farmers were unwilling to approach reading and why achievement was modest was the lack of
library service spirit (GAO & LIU, 2011). What was implied in the library was the consciousness
of serving the elite (C.M. WANG, 2018). The traditional rural library mostly drew upon the mode
and service habit of the urban library, which largely overlooked the reading obstacles of rural
residents (Y.Q. WANG, 2013). After rural reading rooms were built, some scholars pointed out the
problem in management which focused only on quantity rather than quality, and on construction
rather than management. It led to the phenomenon of “reading rooms without books” and “books
without readers” in rural areas (X. D. WANG & ZHU, 2009). At the same time, efforts in publicity
were slim (WEI & LEI, 2015).
Scholars who advocated “farmers’ information demand determinism” explored the influence
of physiological factors, intrinsic motivation and needs from the perspective of farmers. Many
farmers’ lack in reading intention, reading ability and reading will (C.M. WANG, 2019) brought
about the phenomenon of feint demand, fake demand and no demand (H. WANG, YUE, & H. Y.
YANG, 2015; WU, BI, & DONG, 2016a). Accordingly, scholars put forward the idea of “demand
poverty”. Some scholars believed that the main reason for the poverty of farmers’ reading demand
lied in the fact that the rural production and life basically did not necessitate reading (H. WANG,
2015). Other scholars focused on the influence of rural residents’ cultural concepts and reading
habits, believing that farmers’ subjective inertia in reading was the root cause of reading poverty
(WU, BI, & DONG, 2016b). Some scholars also held that it was the lack of reading ability,
willpower, necessary conditions and goals that led to farmers’ reading difficulties (H. WANG,
YUE, & H. Y. YANG, 2015).