"fly Line" Bitter Chi "miles Days": The Late Qing Dynasty Telegraph Spread The Concept Of (1860-1911)

In this dissertation, I took the angle : 'communication/communication technology' as 'relation' and 'culture', to view the import and application of telegram in late imperial China, examine related institutional changes, and changing and fixed parts of different groups' communication ideas reacting to it. From these get some knowledge about social and cultural changes in late imperial China.My study focused on telegram's institutional changes in late imperial China. From 'government supervises and businessmen manage', 'businessmen finance through stocks and government deals' to 'take back to the state', the institutional changes' dominant power: the Qing Court always regarded telegram as a tool to control the flow of martial and governmental information. They utilized various discourse forces and political power to enforce this characteristic of telegram, made it to occupy a monopolizing position in telegram's application. Their communication ideas took some changes according to varied social conditions, for example, businessmen had participated, and western knowledge had been introduced etc. However, the objective remained stable: to reinforce the government's controlling ability.I also took a look at different groups' communication ideas towards telegram at that time. Businessmen viewed telegram as means to gain interests; gentry took it as a tool to 'realize globalization' and 'search for wealth and power'. Newspapermen used it to transfer news which would interest most people. The appearance of 'publicized telegram (Tong Dian)' meant that different political factions regarded telegram as their expressing organs (Hou She) which could help them to form public opinions. As diverse communication ideas and practices interacted with each other, social communication conditions changed a lot in late imperial China. However, government's idea about controlling political information kept the leading position, communication system and policies restrained social information communication from further development.This dissertation gave main communication ideas in late imperial China a critical review. Especially on government's idea to maintain old social relations through controlling martial and governmental information, this had greatly restricted people's common life formed through communication activities. In the last part, I pointed out that only through persistent deep reflections and criticisms, and renewal of communication ideas based on these, can we create, sustain and guarantee a healthy common life in society.