A Research On Contemporary China's Mooks

In recent years, mooks have become popular with mixed features of both books and magazines, the juvenile mooks are especially hot in the market of books. Juvenile freelancers publish their mooks one after another, headed by Guo Jingming, and his Very Novel has always been on the top bestsellers of literature and the juvenile's favorite. Meanwhile, some other famous authors of juvenile literature have also published their own mooks, such as Rao Xueman, Zhang Yueran, Guo Ni, HanHan, etc.The first publicly recognized mook by both the academic and industry in China was Old Photos with excellent pictures and texts, which was first published in 1996 and continued to publish its 69th volume till March 2010.It has become a famous mook with excellent brand, well known in the book market and widely accepted by the readers, possessing a fixed group of readers. At the same time, with the development of internet, the electronic books and journals have struck the traditional book industry. So this thesis paper aims to study the current situation of this new form and concepts, analyze the theoretical proof and realistic reasons for the existence of mooks, helps to broaden the vision of book development study and enlarge the channel of book development.The introductory part analyzes the background, train of thought and study methods of the paper and make a summary of the relevant references.This thesis paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter one analyzes the newly appeared concept of mooks, displays its major features, and discusses the original birthplace of this mode of publication and its developing thread, with an emphasis on the reasons. It also assort the mooks according to the developing stages of mooks.Chapter Two analyzes the current mook market. It defines the connotative meaning of book market, regarding it as a practical paying ability of books by the consumers. In other words, it refers to the classified market:literary magazines, catch-all magazines and academic journals. Chapter three studies the target readers of mooks, among which the juvenile literary mooks are the major subject. The relevant theories are fragmented communication and social classification. It also assorts the current juvenile literary mooks in China. And then, types of readers are classified on the bases of various features, with an outstanding display of melancholy, loneliness and perplexity, which appeals to readers most.Chapter four analyzes the texts of mooks from both angles of form and content, of which include the literary magazines, catch-all magazines and academic journals. For the forms, the cover, back cover, format, prices, contents, versions, periods and issuing way are all analyzed; and the author also makes a detailed sorting of the content based on the various features.Chapter five analyzes the major problems in the development of China's mooks and tries to offer some solutions. In this era characterized by the ripening digital publishing technology, the author make some suggestions as to how the traditional book industry and electric publication will complement each other and how to publish excellent mooks. The conclusion part sums up the basic view points of this thesis paper and look into the future of China's mooks.