From “Freely Talking” To “Talk About Liberty”

The first newspaper supplement turned up over 100 years ago in Chinese journalism history.Shen Bao·Free Talk has the longest issue date and the biggest influence among Chinese modern newspapers. At the same time, Free Talk is an integral part of Shen Bao ‘s brand name.The transition of Free Talk has significant historical value.In the beginning, its role definition was freely and entertaining words based on leisure,especially when the informative supplements came about,made it welcomed by the public class. In 1932, the Shen Bao’s owner ShiLiangcai selected returned student--Li Liewen to take the charge of Free Talk, a series of reform made it have new style and features, became the supplement standing at the front of the age.During the time of LiLiewen and ZhangZisheng,they asked progressive writers for writing the articles,fought against the government’s policy of Anti-Japanese War,revealed the assumption of “liberty of Speech”,criticized the cultural despotism and the “hack writer”of the ruling class.This period became part of grand sweep of Free Talk’s history after revision.The prominent changing of Free Talk is the “freely talking about everything”in the early days turned into bravely and profoundly “talking about freedom”.Full text is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter,I will standing on the point of “entertainment”and “sensation”to introduce the Free Talk holding by the early literati,such as WangDungen, ChenDiexian, WuJuemi,ZhouShoujuan,who gave the Free Talk not only the leisure character of “elegant”and“indecent”,but also the salvation feelings covered by humorous words.The second chapter will give a brief introduction of intellectuals’ Free Talk.In this period,the supplement went far more into the reality,“freely talk” turned into“talk about liberty”.Emphatically introduce how the intellectuals bump up against this dark world、how they deconstruct the status of “literati”and variety issue they talked about.How they save,as well as enrich the connotation of “FREEDOM”.Approaching from the opposite angle "change" and "constant",from two dimensions "connotation" and "way of speaking",I will show you the evolution and insistent of Free Talk.In the third part,it will put the supplement’s role into the gambling relations of “journals”,“readers”,“journalists”and“politic”.Explain how this four elements affect supplements with narrations and comments.The last part will summarize Free Talk’s development history, hope we can reap some benefit from the experiences and lessons, which is helpful for contemporary supplement editing work.