| From 1945 to 1946,"Square Weekly of Shanghai Faction"(SWS) constituted one of the most important part in Chinese tabloid history with its special figure leading the current of that time. SWS published once a week with twelve pages, focusing on present politics, social anecdote, entertainment, essays and fiction. The figure of every page is square and they were bind up at the right side. But they didn't involve coverage as the magazines. SWS aroused a wide popularity among the common citizens for its earthly and temporal orientation. It always reported some margined, interesting, private and funny stories. At that time, SWS formed a driving tendency with more than a hundred publications. However this tide quickly faded at the end of 1946, making the prosperity a special phenomenon in newspapering.Till now the research of SWS has been relatively scarce. Therefore this thesis mainly draws the characteristics of SWS based on the twenty-five tabloid collected by the library of Jilin University. This paper would present the development, content features, authors, readers and publication of the SWS from the perspective of mass media aiming at giving a real present of the first hand material to the readers. At the same time it is hope that this research on SWS can provide a new scope of tabloid research and give some information of newspapering and social conditions after the anti-Japanese war. This paper is composed of the following four parts:The first part describes the development of SWS with time as the axis and the content as the abscissa. It can be divided into four periods, namely, the generation period since the November of 1945, the developing period from the February of 1946 to the July of 1946, the turning period from the September of 1946 to the end of that year which then turns to the declining period. In this part several typical SWS will be bring forth to show the major features of every period with the analysis of the generation, development, turning and the degradation due to the social and the newspaper matters.SWS came into being after the anti-Japanese war when the Kuomintang government was strengthening the control of journalism. The practitioners of tabloid took advantage of the demerits of the management of the reign party and published the SWS which didn't look like newspapers from the shape. But the content of SWS is actually newspaper-like. At this beginning time"Hebdomad Comment"and the"Sea Star"were pioneers. From then on SWS came into existence with its trivial content and disarray design. With the wide influence of these SWS, a large amount of this type of newspapers emerged like mushrooms. Thus SWS came to its developing period. During the developing period appeared the"Shine","Scene","Flowing"and"Xin Weekly"with their unique features. Meanwhile the"Shanghai Feature"and"Zhilan Pictorial"with erotic orientation came forth. Then because of the prohibition of SWS proposed by the government SWS entered the turning period. During this period some of the SWS were forced to stop publication while others restart to publish after the checkup. The newly-published SWS such as"Food of Literature","Hebdomad Comment"and"Shanghai Feature"were almost the same as before. Nevertheless, some of the SWS descended in both content and form which are more erotic such as the"Star","Scene"and etc. The demerits of SWS and this dramatic change together with the pressure from other prevailing gazettes t resulted in the coming of declining period of the SWS. In addition,"Salangane"and"Sea Crystal"gave up their square figure and continued to exist in the newspapering. What's more in Changchun there is still the aftereffect of SWS such as"Northeastern Wind". Hence with one year of development the SWS came through the generation period, the developing period, the turning period and the declining period bringing great influence on the tabloid and Shanghai society.The second part analyzed the characteristics of SWS and finds that in SWS the politics are marginal, the social news are bizarre, the comments are private and literature are causal. It inherited the tradition of tabloid and catered the taste of the gigmanity. In the SWS there are rumors and stories to the normal citizens'taste. SWS refused to make further explanation of any affairs and do any serious thinking. They chose the content according to the survival needs and intuition of the mass. As the prolocutor of the mass they focused on the daily issues of the mass citizen building a complanate world at the same time. SWS explained the serious current news in the so called"marginal words". They are much more interested in the novelty and gusto of the news. Unlike the prevailing gazettes which had serious political comments, the SWS were vigorous and lively. The comment and sentiment in SWS were rather individual, expressing their relaxing feelings as a spectator. The essays on SWS centered on the author and talked about the daily affairs of themselves like all the essays on other newspapers. They don't want to be profound and only searched for comfortable ease and catered for the popularity which are the typical features of individuals. The literatures on SWS are usually the representative of frivolity. Instead of meaning they cared more about the pleasant feeling in the process of reading. Hence the fractionized disposal also used to add the dramatic effect.The third part probed the authors and readers of SWS. Through the reading of these SWS and the reference of other document we find that the source of manuscript is diversified but the major authors are the special journalist and reporter of every newspaper together with professional author for the tabloid as well as other social contributors. What's more SWS had a wide variety of readers. Besides the massive lower citizens the upper class citizens had formed the major readers with a mixture feeling of love and disgust toward the SWS. The fourth part points out the publishing mode of SWS. They mainly adopted two ways of publication with the help of professional publishing company. One is retail and another is subscription. They sold very well, for example, the"Star"can sell 30 thousand to 50 thousand every week. This is quite a large amount of sale at that time. They usually covered the whole Shanghai city. Even it can reach the around area of from Shanghai to Beijing as well as from Shanghai to Hangzhou. Some of the SWS even advertised on"Shen Newspaper"which is quite popular at that time. Furthermore, some other SWS would print their advertisements on other SWS so that they can enlarge their sales quantity and impress more readers in the form of interdependent.Last but not least the great influence and social effect of the SWS will be present. That is they had leaded a new current among the newspapering. What's more, they had provided us a much more comprehensive way of knowing the social condition and historical event in Shanghai after the anti-Japanese war. |
