On City Pictorial's Meaning Construction Of The "New Life"

With the booming development of domestic economic and the media communication,the process of urbanization is accelerated.At the same time,the growing proportion of the middle class and the general promotion of the urban consumption capacity improve the deep penetration of consumer culture.Thus,under this background,journals of urban lifestyle,which provide information of city life,presenting urban cultural landscape and boosting new urban cultural forces,emerge in response to the time and the circumstances.Thereinto,City Pictorial,established by Nan Fang Newspaper Group in 1999,is a most representative and typical example.Urban youths who gradually become the city backbone,especially the petty-bourgeoisie of higher educational level and consumption ability,are the target audience of City Pictorial.Having gone through three times,revision,City Pictorial transformed from a magazine which initially provides entertainment and consumption information of city life to one that explores new lifestyle and spreads new life conception,changing its slogan "Communicator of New Lifestyle" to" Leader of New Lifestyle".Hence we can see that,City Pictorial takes the material and cultural needs of its target audience into consideration,and finally realizing a diversified development.From the beginning of its establishment,City Pictorial devotes itself to the construction of the conception and meaning of "new lifestyle".This "new lifestyle",on one hand,depicts the new life of the urban youths,and on the other hand,expressing the value pursuit of its main audience-the petty-bourgeoisie.In 2011,after a series of special feature on "new lifestyle",City Pictorial plotted the new series "life aesthetics".The conception of the magazine turns to emphasize on the aesthetic lifestyle.During this process,the connotation of "life aesthetics" is added into the meaning of "new life" and later becomes the core of it.The "life aesthetics" conception proposed by City Pictorial is not original.It is in fact an echo and a presentation of the existing life aesthetics conception,which results from the reproducibility of art in the mechanical age,the prosperity of mass culture,and the development of cultural industrialization,reflecting the aesthetic appeal and resistance of the petty-bourgeoisie.Meanwhile,under the background of consumer culture,the life aesthetics advocated by City Pictorial shows the characteristics of the consumer culture inevitably.The magazine describes kinds of new aesthetic lifestyles,which are finally converted into practical by commodities and inducing the consumption concept and behavior of its audiences in significant measure.As a mass medium,City Pictorial links life aesthetics with consumption,which to a certain extent,accelerates the multiplex fusion of aesthetic life concept,aesthetic culture and consumer culture,impelling the development of the urban culture.But in essence,this "life aesthetics" is nothing more than a beautiful appearance of consumerism culture.It has great limitations,and the "new lifestyle" advocated by City Pictorial on its basis is only a Utopian aesthetic ideal in the present.