Private Newspaper Research In 1927-1937

The private newspaper industry played an important role in the history of Chinese modern news development. Emerged in the late Qing Dynasty, and just flourished in Beiyang government era, the private newspaper reached its zenith in "the Golden Ten Years" of1927-1937. Focusing on the Shen Pao and SinWen Pao in the period, this essay is attempting to give an overall perspective of the characteristics of the private newspaper industry in such era from the aspects of management system, organizational administration, advertisement and circulation, mainly emphasizing on the description and exploration of the system transformation and organizational reform and its impetus of the concurrent private newspaper industry, with the purpose to support the practice of China’s current newspaper industry transformation with practical views and historical resources.As is regarded by media ecology, the growing status of the media is determined by all sorts of resource conditions provided by the environment, among which the aspect of institutional environment plays an especially important part in which the State acts as the holder of public power. On one hand, from1927to1937, objectively, the situation of the Weak Autocratic Party and "the Gap of Power" that was caused by the special Leased Territory system provided the private newspaper industry with a relatively loose and free environment for development, propelling it to its climax of development. On the other hand, the evolution of the institutional environment was the fundamental factor which influenced the historic destiny of the private newspaper industry to gradually fall into decay before the time of the Anti-Japan War, which reflected the inevitable logic of the evolution of its institutional environment in the course of history.During this period, the popularization of company system and the tendency of collectivizing development reflected the true realization of the transformation of the private newspaper industry from "individual times" to "joint-stock times", which was the inherent logic of the development of newspaper economy and the inevitable consequence of the alteration of the factor that influenced the institutional demand. With the direct influence of the management system transformation, plus the spread of Taylorism management system from west to east and the pressure of fierce competition in newspaper industry, private-owned newspaper industry confronted the renovation requirement of organizational management, thus presented the characteristics of gradual reform and attempted to combine the management modernization with the ethnical traditional culture to create unique views of organizational management.Based on the analysis of the transformation of the management system and organizational change of the private newspaper industry, the essay further its study from the angle of marketing science on the operational views and practice of the advertisement and circulation during the ten years, especially on the views and practice of "Advertisement First" and some beneficial exploration based on Self-Circulation. We should pay more attention to the fact that unique and local operational views and strategies were created through the method of consciously combining the reality of local society and culture with selectively introducing the Western operational views of newspaper industry for our own purpose.To sum up,Chinese private newspaper industry entered a high-tide period in the1930s over about20-year accumulation of marketization, and Presented unique pathway and characteristics of transformation. Even though its transformation failed to be accomplished, the management logos and strategies of private newspapers during the stage were enough to become precious "historical heritage" in the course of the reform of comtemperary newspaper industry.