Western Elements In The Development Of The Shanghai Newspaper Study (1850-1937)

Through unscrambling the evolution of Shanghai press industry, the dissertation analyzes and studies the impact of western influence on Shanghai press industry. Shanghai press industry had developed in a typical pattern of "being shocked by-and-reacting to western culture." Expatriates in Shanghai left an impressive volume of press activities. Modern press industry in Shanghai, just like the capitalist economy in Shanghai, started late, but experienced a rapid growth. It underwent a journey of a couple of decades that was travelled by western countries in two or three hundred years.Due to Shanghai port's high level openness, Shanghai press format and technology had been synchronously transplanted from western countries. The publicity effect and industrial modals of which were deeply influenced by western concepts of public media and media capital operation. But, the west and the east were still two sharply different social formats. The press industry in Shanghai gradually formed its unique shape in the social transition of modern China. From this perspective, the dissertation studies the multi influence of the west on Shanghai press industry. The abstract of each of the chapters of the paper is as follows:Chapter one analyzes the historical background of the origin of Shanghai press. States inside the state---Shanghai's autonomous Concession borrowed the administrative and judiciary regime from the west providing institutional guarantee for the development of press industry. People inside the Concession enjoyed a certain degree of freedom of speech. Speech censorship and press censorship were gradually relieved. Newspaper and magazines only needed to register with the authority before starting their public operation. All those factors constituted the favorable environment for the development of Shanghai press industry.Chapter two is about the early stage of development of Shanghai press under the western influence. Newspaper and magazines in western languages became the leader of the industry, initiating the special "startup period of foreign newspaper and magazines" in Shanghai. The formation of the expatriate community and advance of foreign investment in Shanghai provided the readers' market and advertisement resources essential for the development of press industry. Press by foreign capital penetrated from the expatriate community to the press in Chinese language, becoming foundation and model for the formation and development of local press.In Chapter three, the historical evolution of the press in foreign languages in Shanghai gave birth to the local mandarin newspaper and magazines. The local press, operated in the form of enterprises, had made impressive achievements in promoting local press economy, maintaining economic independence and innovating on the management and organization models for local press industry. Chapter three researches on the direct influence of foreign newspaper and magazines on modern Shanghai local press, recognizing the eminent achievements of Shanghai local press, especially the two representative newspapers Shen Newspaper and Shanghai News.Chapter four: Following the trend in the west press industry, Shanghai local press entered a boom period. Shanghai press functioned both as newspaper of information and newspaper of opinions, that is to say, there was the phenomenon of coexistence of both political newspapers and commercial newspapers. But various political newspapers emerged in Shanghai, but all of them were just a flash in the pan. Due to the constraint of political newspapers and the opinion censorship of Bei Yang government, the ups and downs in Chinese political arena inevitably impacted the press. Political newspapers were replaced by the public-oriented newspapers. Shanghai local press entered a new era featuring commercial newspapers of no much significance or influence.Chapter five is a comprehensive analysis on the dissemination and influence of western press concepts. Shanghai local press at its early stage was regarded by the public as foreign business. The formation of the journalist ideas and capabilities at the early period was based upon the introduction of western science and the fusion of heterogeneous cultures. The conceptual exchange of the western and eastern cultures brought the foreign journalist theories to China, providing guidance to the practice of the press. But the press censorship restrained Shanghai local press from consolidation. After the breakout of Anti-Japanese war, the press censorship regime by the Japanese arm devastated the local press. The evolution of Shanghai local press was disrupted. After a short period of boom and glory, Shanghai local press took its downward turn.