如何理解与阐释英雄?不同领域、不同层面的研究会得出不同结论。从媒介生态学视角看,英雄可以被看作是可写可读的一种文本,可发送可接收的一种信息,可建构也可纪念的一种文化形式,即英雄就是人类传播的一种产物。真实的人仅仅是英雄的原始材料,是通过叙述、文本性、信息传输、人类符号传播和意义生成等方法进行加工的原始材料。在这层意义上,现实中没有英雄,有的只是关于英雄的传播。而且,研究英雄的唯一真实方法,就是研究关于英雄的传播。因为英雄的生成形式在很大程度上受到塑造英雄之传播形式的影响,不同的传播模式产生不同类型的英雄。从神话英雄向历史英雄的转变,从历史英雄向名人的转变,都具有戏剧性,而这两次转变都与主要传播模式的变化关系密切:第一次涉及文字革命,第二次则涉及图像革命。从媒介生态学角度的研究证实,正是由于传播媒介和传播方法的改变,导致了传播内容的变化、由传播者形成的关系的变化以及通过传播所创立的文化的变化。因此,诸如书写、印刷和电子传播之类的技术创新,改变了我们谈论英雄、讲述关于英雄的故事和体验英雄的方式,由此也改变了英雄在我们心中的观念。总之,英雄最重要的特征,皆与传播技术具有亲缘关系,而且,英雄概念中最具有戏剧性的转变,是与传播中的创新,诸如书写和印刷的发明、电子媒介的开发等密切相关。 How to understand and explain the hero? Different fields, different levels of research will come to different conclusions. From the perspective of media ecology, a hero can be seen as a writable and readable text that can send a message that can be received and can be constructed or memorialized as a form of culture, that is, a hero is a kind of human communication product. The real person is only the hero’s original material, which is the original material processed through narration, textuality, transmission of information, transmission of human symbols and meaning generation. In this sense, there are no heroes in reality and some are about the spread of heroes. Moreover, the only real way to study heroes is to study the spread of heroes. Because the formation of heroes is largely influenced by the forms of transmission that shape heroes, different modes of transmission produce different types of heroes. The transformation from mythological heroes to historical heroes and the transition from historical heroes to celebrities is dramatic, and both changes are closely related to the changes in the main mode of transmission: the first involves the literary revolution and the second involves the image revolution . Studies from the point of view of media ecology confirm that changes in media and methods of communication have led to changes in the content of communications, changes in the relationships formed by communicators, and cultural changes created through communications. As a result, technological innovations such as writing, printing, and electronic communication have changed the way we talk about heroes, tell stories about heroes, and experience heroes, thus changing the mindset of heroes in our hearts. In short, the most important characteristics of heroes are all related to communication technologies. Moreover, the most dramatic change in the concept of heroes is related to the dissemination of innovations, such as the invention of writing and printing, and the development of electronic media.