An Interpretation Of The Fourth New Literature Context

Recently, it has become a hot issue to view the originality and development ofContemporary Literature from the perspective of journals and media. There haveappeared many remarkable achievements on the research of Morning PostSupplements---one of the four major supplementary editions in New Literatureduring the Wu-Si Period. However, what is pity is that the available researchesregarding the Morning Post Supplements shows rather big restrictions: they tend to betoo simple in their understanding of the essence of journals and media, arranging andevaluating newspaper contents instead of exploring the aspects of media, andunderestimating the exceptional meanings of modern media in changing the social lifeof human beings.As a matter of fact, while we start the research on the Morning PostSupplements, we are obliged to have a general grasp of the features of journals andmedia.Once it came into being, the modern public media has had two main operationmodels: political model and economical model. The political model is to regard mediaas a component of a country or a party;the media automatically serve as a propagandatool for the government or the party. The economical model is to regard media as aprofitable industry. What the media transfers is a kind of merchandise whose ultimateobjective is to obtain commercial benefits. Apparently, these two models can not beseparated from each other. Culture power may, at certain occasions, seek for mutualbenefits with the market drive, while commercial operation may sometimes dependson the resources, reputations and protections of the culture power. Or, through skilfulrunning, certain power-guided concepts might integrate totally with the marketoperation. With the master of knowledge and the power of informationmonopolization, the elite intellectuals, in the process of society enlightenment,practically regard the public as objects that need renovating and improving. Whilethey cast themselves asides. Hence, the public become "them" to the intellectuals. Infact, in the commercial operation, the enlightener executes the conception of freedomand democracy.As far as the researches on the Morning Post Supplements areconcerned, we must clarify the structure, and characteristic of the two models, as wellas their relations. The investigation of the interactions between enlightenment andtyranny should still be our important viewpoint in understanding Morning PostSupplements It is the important base of exploring the context of the history andculture of the New Literature in the Wu-Si Period through the examination of theMorning Post Supplements.The essay is based on the above understanding which is also the contact point. Itstands on the rich literature review and the case study of the Morning PostSupplements, exploring thoroughly and deeply the history and culture context of theNew Literature in Wu-Si Period. It is to enrich and adjust our connaissance andevaluation of this historical period in the Contemporary Chinese Literature.1. We think that, from the late Qing Dynasty to Wu-si Period, the culturalatmosphere that referred to journals and legal items had a relatively free tendency.The restriction from the journals/legal items towards free-press was more on politicalcontents. It enabled the newspaper supplements a large development space. Whenvarious journals devoted themselves in culture democracy under the political model,the old-typed newspaper supplements elaborated their entertainment function in theeconomical model, and tended to be in a popular style. The trend fostered authors andconsumer groups of newspaper supplements literature and it built up the popularliterature. The reform of the old-typed newspaper supplements becoming thecommunication tool of new notions and new culture showed the liaison of thesupplements literature and the political model of media ---a start of transformation toculture democracy. It had tremendous contribution for society enlightenment. Thus, itsreturn to the entertainment function as a new literature later on represented morerevolutionary meanings that symbolized the attempt between culture democracy andpopularity.2. Although it was equipped with general conditions of being an economicentity, Morning Post Supplements did not have a distinctive commercial feature as aproduct of culture industry. It was at a time when the concept of culture industry andmerchandise was rather weak. In addition, Morning Post Supplements had itsuniqueness as a party newspaper. We think that the uniqueness of the Morning Post asa party newspaper made it much less affected by commercial benefits. Morning PostSupplements' total support to Ms. Bing Xin should have had created commercialeffects that could lead to huge commercial values. However, Bing Xin's personalrelationship with Morning Post as well as her particularity on her writing restrictedthe emergence of these commercial effects. The editing methods used by the MorningPost Supplements also had outstanding strengthen in commercialization. Apparently,this kind of editing method combined the enlightenment pursuit and commercialeffects, which meant that political and economical model, may be in strong chorus. Itillustrated the unanimity of culture power in guiding public opinions through mediaand the market system.3. The initiative of the Morning Post Supplement towards the New Literaturewas, in fact, a practice of research intellectuals in realizing their hypothesis of countryconstructions. Acting as a party newspaper, it signified the standard political model ofmedia operation. What it insisted and maintained was mainly the perception ofresearchers and intellectuals on society, politics, country and culture. During theWu-Si period, out of the four famous supplements, there were two ("Learning Light"of the "Actuality News" and the Morning Post Supplements) that were of researchbackground. As a party newspaper, the foundation and development of the MorningPost followed the practice of the country construction perceptions of those researchintellectuals cored by Liang Qichao. It had gradually become the culture power of thegroup of intellectuals, which in return provided deep political and cultural resourcesby the group. It was also on this platform that the Morning Post Supplements madeimportant contribution to the prosperity of the New Literature development. From theFifth Page of Morning Bell to the Seventh Page of Morning Post, and with theextension to the Morning Post Supplements, from the acute thinking of LI Dazhaotimes to the literature essence of Sun Fuyuan era, the change of Morning Post hadalways been taking place in the communication system of these research intellectuals.4. Morning Post Supplements provided presentation space for the NewLiterature, fostered authors and articles, transferred information and enlarged itsinfluence. At mean time, it encouraged the booming of some new literature formssuch as drama and essay. Its contribution to the development of the New Literaturecould not be ignored. Nevertheless, all of these were based on the power and resourceplatform provided by the research intellectuals. Furthermore, the Morning PostSupplements emphasized the thinking model of opposing the New against the Old inthe spreading of the New Literature in the field of literature. Although the thinkingwas enlightening, its rough elimination of the old values inevitably showed itslimitations.