The Young Companion, The Visual Annals Of The Times

The Young Companion is a typical commercial medium growing out of China's modernity process from 1920s to 1930s. With society's financial support, commercial media competition's advocacy and the consistent efforts of its successive editors-in-chief, it became the most influential comprehensive news pictorial of China in those days. As intellectuals with high sense of responsibility, its successive editors-in-chief carried on its consistent editing ideas, advancing with the times in all kinds of fields such as editing approaches, editing strategies, media activities and sales activities. All these make it the pictorial model of those days and leave invaluable experience to today's visual media.As a product out of China's modernity process, the pictorial also helps improve the growth of China's modernity. Built on its enlightenment significance on people, Young Companion's reflection and pursue of China's modernity process make it worthy the name of the Visual Annals of the Times. Its understanding of China's modernity expresses itself as construction of industrial and commercial spirit and the construction of modern culture environment. The pictorial's open and broad international vision indicates its concern with modernity from"other perspectives". Its nation choosing tendency and its contrast between Chinese and western vision express its particular concern with western countries based on its domestic development, and they also embody media's transmission of"mobile modernity".As the most concentrated field of modernity, urban areas provide The Young Companion with an excellent growing environment. They are also sufficiently accepted by the pictorial. It expresses its understanding of urban modernity from the perspectives of urban environment, mass culture and human's modernization. Firstly, it accepts and develops a modern urban atmosphere; it also intentionally weakens its description of the dark side of urban areas. Secondly, it includes its understanding of mass culture represented by films; its knowledge on films'"industrialized productivity"and reporting strategies of consumerism display mass culture's modernity. Thirdly, the pictorial reflects human's seeking for modernization; taking the female image as an example, Young Companion recognizes modern urban females as independent (equipped with knowledge and a profession), fashionable (holding certain consuming capacity) and beautiful (healthy and liberal).The Young Companion demonstrates a highly responsible media attitude when China's modernity process met with difficulties. It keeps close concern with our nation's unsteady political and military situation. It shows great sympathy for people's sufferings and gives serious criticism and reflection on them. During the period of Japan invading China, its Japan-related reports displays a dramatic change and expresses its sense of national responsibility hold by some commercial media which are always ignored by us, which is of universal significance among other commercial media.