The Substitution of Father’s Power and Contextual Power: Intergenerational Relationship in the Digital Age

Based on Fei Xiaotong’s power theory, and focusing on the father’s power and contextual power, this paper explores the impact of digital technology on intergenerational relationships. It finds that “filial piety” based on the blood and “respect” based on the usefulness of fathers constitute the basic support of father’s power in agriculture society. Conversely, digital technology have promoted the development of contextual power as a counterweight to father’s power, changing the traditional modes of knowledge production, existence, and the direction of dissemination from parents to children. It has also changed the control of discourse, disenchanting parental power, empowering the offspring, and thus changing intergenerational power relationships. Although the process of intergenerational power succession implies struggle and conflict, compared with traditional societies, a harmonious and coexisting power relationship between generations in the information age is more likely to be achieved. This might be so because a complete individual development of children still requires the life experience accumulated through age of fathers, while fathers need to learn new technology from their children, which promotes the exchange and complementation of old and new knowledge between generations. The improvement of fathers’ capital endowment and intergenerational reciprocity of resources help facilitate the harmonious co-existence of father’s power and contextual power.