A Study On The Cover Characters' Image Of China Pictorial In The Past 40 Years Of Reform And Opening-up

China Pictorial,which was officially launched in July 1950,is the first comprehensive photographic pictorial published in China for the world.It is also the first Chinese periodical that use a large amount of color film and color printing.For more than 60 years,the China Pictorial has been aiming at "the Facebook of a Great Power and the People's Memory".On the one hand,it reflects the development of China,the growth of the nation,the progress of society and the people's lives,and composes the memory of the Chinese people.On the other hand,it has been based on the domestic and overseas situation,demonstrating the country's brilliant achievements,disseminating Chinese culture and building a good international image of China.It is still an important window for the people of the world to know and understand China.It is universally known that 2018 is the fortieth anniversary of the reform and opening up.This paper takes the cover characters of China Pictorial from January 1978 to June 2018 as the research object,and selects 210 cover characters and that meet the screening criteria as the research samples.It combines quantitative content analysis with qualitative text analysis method to study the cover characters physiological image,professional image,social image,body image and presentation image,thus analysing the cover characters constructed by China Pictorial and their changes.Moreover,it analyzes the cultural connotation and social significance that is carried through these characters in combination with relevant theories like visual culture.And it also aims to deeply discover the changes of Chinese social culture and the national image that has been shaped.This paper is mainly divided into four chapters.The first chapter combs the general situation of the development of China Pictorial,and codes the selected cover figure pictures,and describes their basic characteristics.On the basis of data collation in the previous chapter,the second chapter analyses and explains the image characteristics of cover characters from three aspects: gender image,professional image and socialimage.The third chapter is mainly from the perspective of external communication,analyzing the social and national symbolic meanings of the cover characters as cultural symbols.The fourth chapter finds out the changes and developments of China in the past 40 years of reform and opening up reflected by the figures.In the past 40 years of reform and opening up,the main characters portrayed by China Pictorial are national leaders and industry elites,who have obvious professional characteristics and high social honor,having certain influence in society or in the world.Therefore they have multiple roles,and play important social roles in the political,cultural and international fields while breaking through their professional fields gradually.Among them,as the main body of the cover,Chinese characters are symbolic visual symbols,representing the national identity of the Chinese people in the international arena.Their personal image and national spirit shape a national image of development,progress,peace,friendship and self-confidence.In addition,as a social mirror,these cover figures reflect to some extent the changes of Chinese society since the reform and opening up,including changes in social structure,ideological values,Chinese culture and national confidence.Among them,the changes of social structure are mainly manifested in the trend of higher vocational structure;the gradual transformation of ideological values from pluralism to the unification of core values of socialism;the spread of Chinese culture appears an open and inclusive scene;and the gradual enhancement of Chinese national confidence,which is manifested from containing without revealing to expressing calmly.