Anti-Japanese War Memory On Media Commemoration

As an important mechanism for constructing public historical memory, under the influence of political ideology, from 1950 to 2010, People’s Daily tried a variety of reporting tools like reviews, news and supplements and let the war commemorate extended to the whole of society. On the one hand it maintained the political legitimacy of the party and the country; on the other hand it achieved the heritage and continuation of war historical memory. Over the past sixty years, People’s Daily’s commemoration of the war has evolved four historical periods under the the multiple effects of political authority and social environment. The scale and themes of the war memorial have undergone great changes. And historical status in the war of the Soviet Union, the United States and Chinese Kuomintang are constantly re-understanding, and the historical relationship with Japan also experienced a process of constant adjustment..Overall, People’s Daily to commemorate the victory of the war showed those features:the mix of victory discourse and trauma discourse, the tension of national discourse and civil discourse. With the opening social consciousness, People’s Daily presenting historical memory of the war has become even more diverse and rich, and the reflection and the recognition of the basic facts have been formed. Meanwhile, the personal history of the war has been particularly concerned, and committed to save the nation history from the personal history. The war experiences and reflections of each individual shock the long macro-historical memory of People’s Daily and let the war memory become more specific.Through the research, we can find that in the commemoration of the war,on the one hand People’s Daily follows the pace of politics and make "selective commemorate "of the war resulting in the "selective memory" of the audience. On the other hand, People’s Daily maintains a certain gap with politics and plays the role of independence media in some way, through mining personal history, showing traumatic memories, introducing academic thinking to show a greater level of historical features and reflect the rethink of history. The tension of national discourse and civil discourse has become the most important feature of the war memorial. Even in the highly politicized historical event like Sino-Japanese War, People’s Daily is still able to carry out a certain degree of autonomy commemorative issue beyond state ideology.