Shang Hai's Consumer Culture In The Advertising Vision Of The Republic Of China Daily(1916-1923)

Consuming culture refers to that consumption shows all the contents in cultural aspect as an essential economic action and behavior.It includes the material consumption aspect that gradually constructed in commodity consuming,as well as the mental consumption aspect which has a symbol of commodity consumption culture.Shang Hai was a prosperous city that riched in commodity and developed in business,filling with various foreign goods and indigenous products in 1920 s.newspaper ads was a considerable means for trader,as well as a considerable channel to propagate commodity information.We could not only find the material consumption of that time but also explore the meaning of ads' symbolization constructed on the material goods.While making contributions to modern commerce,advertising is also the main guide and important witness of Shanghai's consumer culture.The commodity and symbolization,the signal and significance,consisting of Shang Hai's consuming culture in latter-day.In modern times,many newspapers appeared in Shanghai,among which the republic of China Daily was the communist party newspaper of the Chinese Revolutionary Party.The background of Revolutionary Party,the standpoint of opposing to Yuan and the advocation of the May 4th Movement and Marxism took satisfactory quantity of sale and remarkable influence to Republic Daily.It published2850 issue of newspaper in total,among which advertising space occupied 50 percent spaces of the layout of newspapers and periodicals from 1916 to 1923.As a medium image,Republic Daily presented treatment medicines,health care products,cigarettes,skin care products,clothing,food of Shang Hai hundred years ago.It also participated in constructing the mental consuming culture above material consumption.It entrusted healthy consuming with the significance of “National strength” and constructed contemporary imagination for purchasing hygiene,forming a health consumption culture with the characteristics of the time.It set up the standard of beauty and fashion by examining the objectification of body,making goods become the ideal symbol of beauty.While commodity consumption was a reasonable aesthetic pursuit.Republic Daily ads used the thoughts and slogans of saving the nation,shaping commodity production as patriotic behavior inspired by national pride.It shaped the consumption of domestic goods as the patriotic act to recover profits,realizing the connection between consumption and patriotism.From the participation of advertisements in the daily newspaper of the Republic of China in the construction of modern Shang Hai consuming culture and the role of media image and looking back on today's consuming culture with the participation of media,the discourse path of advertising participation in the construction of consuming culture could be concluded as follows.Firstly,deconstructing the body and shaping a wide range of aesthetics pursuits.Whether it's the beauty of health,the beauty of fashion or the aestheticization of daily lives,advertising promoted beauty and goods,services and all aspects of life.Secondly,borrowing identity and giving the meaning of realizing identity to consumption,the most important thing is to have gender identity,status identity and national identity.The ideal gender image,the status with taste and the feelings of home and country created in the advertisement,the way to return to identify is consumption.