Page 86 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

CHEN Geng & HU Yachun / The attribution analysis of low participation in public reading 085
among rural residents: A survey from 77 administrative villages and rural libraries in Hubei Province

there is still much room for improvement in circumstance and stimulus, we must pay more
attention to the influence of rural residents themselves.

External cause: circumstance External cause: stimulus Internal cause: person

Readingability
Cultural values Readingresources and
activities
Readingcognition
Communicationand
Cultural life
stimulation Readingefforts

Primaryfactors Secondaryfactors Ultimatefactors

Figure 1. Internal and external causes and hierarchical progressive structure of
rural residents’ public reading behavior

4.2 Suggestions

4.2.1 Stimulate and enhance the endogenous demand, improve the construction of subjectivity of
person in rural public reading.
Endogenous demand is the demand caused by the individual person. Rural residents’ internal
demand for public reading comes from themselves instead of being stimulated by the circumstance
or stimulus. According to the survey data and interviews, the main endogenous needs of rural
residents in public reading were: 4.09 points for acquiring information and current affairs, 4.02
points for improving cultural knowledge, 3.81 points for leisure, 3.71 points for killing time, 3.56
points for solving difficulties and problems encountered in production and life, all higher than
external needs, which were 3.38 points for social communication, 3.22 points for accompanying
others, 3.48 points for encouraged by others, and 3.49 points for the publicity of the village
committee. Combined with the previous conclusions on reading ability, cognition and efforts of
residents who do not participate in public reading, we believe that these endogenous needs of
participants in public reading should be strengthened, and the endogenous needs of non participants
should be stimulated and awakened to enhance the construction of subjectivity in rural residents’
public reading.
The primary condition to improve the endogenous demand of rural residents is to strengthen the
accumulation of cultural capital, especially to promote the literacy and education level. Literacy
and illiteracy elimination are not only a set of decoding and coding skills, but also social practice
embedded in power relations with different purposes and functions in different contexts (Street,
1984). In the 1950s, China carried out nationwide literacy education, and began to implement