A Study On The Content Of Telegram In Shun Pao In The Early 1880s

In the 1840s,the telegraph was officially invented and applied.As the earliest,reliable and advanced way of instant and long-distance communication to transmit information by electricity in modern times,it has been popular all over the world since it came into being.In less than 30 years,it has set up a telegraph network connecting major countries in the world.However,due to the conservative style of the Qing government,China and its vassal states Vietnam and North Korea began to lay telegrams at home ten years later than the world.However,in the 1870 s,people of insight experienced the transmission of information by telegraph,and they were keen to promote the construction of China's own telegraph.This is because the traditional way of transmitting information through the post system is too slow,and often limited by the weather,terrain and many other factors.Compared with post,telegraph is fast and less affected by terrain and weather.As long as the telegraph line is continuous,it can transmit information in time and quickly.Before that,Hong Kong and Shanghai concession were connected to the world telegraph network by sea line,just like China's two tentacles,receiving messages from all over the world by telegraph.Shun pao,which is sponsored by the British and written by the Chinese,advertises the information tide it has gained in Shanghai with a gesture of following the general trend of the world,supporting westernization,laying telegrams and being willing to use telegrams,making itself develop rapidly.In the early 1880s,with the opening of China's Tianjin-Shanghai telegraph line and the completion of the laying of the telegraph line from Shanghai to Longzhou and along the Yangtze River,China's own telegraph business was rapidly used to send the information along the line to the Shanghai declaration office.This enables the rapid circulation and collision of Chinese and foreign information in Shun pao.In terms of political information,Shun pao published important edicts in the newspapers early by means of telegrams.With the great change of the Qing government's attitude towards telegrams from being wary to accepting,a lot of information about the appointment and removal of Chinese officials,scheduling and their itinerary were also published in the newspapers.Telegraph,a real-time and fast means of communication,is naturally conducive to centralization.However,from the perspective of economic information,with the completion of the laying of China's telegraph,the economic and information exchanges between the raw material markets along the Yangtze River and the southeast coast,which were originally involved in the world market,and the western capitalist market led by Britain,became closer.With the close communication,these important agricultural production places of China,such as tea and silk,have increasingly become the end raw material production places of the world economic system.In this process,Chinese products lost their bargaining power.In the process of competing with other silk and tea producing areas such as Japan and India,they are also declining.Only the best part of them can make a profit,while the other medium and inferior parts can only make small profits but quick sales or even lose money.From the perspective of military cables,with the completion of the construction of telegraph network in this period,the report on China's local military in Shun pao has changed from the previous reprint of other media reports to sending local reporters,changing the mode of only accepting western information in both remote wars and surrounding wars.It can be seen from this that,in addition to the economic reports on bulk export commodities,the reports in Shun pao are bound to be subject to western capital.However,the political,military and social local reports Shun pao can not be controlled by others,and can guarantee the authenticity of the reports.This situation was related to the large number of foreigners living in Hong Kong and Shanghai at that time.Before the completion of the construction of the China telegraph network,information outside China was rapidly exchanged through the telegraph network,Hong Kong and Shanghai were also connected with the world telegraph network through the construction of sea line telegraph because of various foreign organizations stationed here.At this time,China's domestic information transmission is slow,and it is at the end of the world's information communication.It only constantly receives international information,and rarely transmits information to the outside world.Therefore,before this period,most of the telegrams in Shun pao were reprinted,rather than the news reports produced and disseminated by itself through interviews.In this process,the information collection method of "reporting everything what they hears" ensures the timeliness of the information,but ignores the verification of the information to a large extent.In other words,due to excessive information,it loses the ability to identify the information,and eventually leads to the loss of authenticity of the report.However,as the most influential newspaper in modern China,Shun pao's success is due to the fact that it did not keep pace with itself,but tried to innovate by imitating other successful newspapers.In this process,Shun pao established its own press corps in major cities in China,and developed different forms and contents of message information in the process of transmitting news by telegraph.By sending reporters to conduct on-the-spot interviews,the authenticity of the domestic news reported by Shun pao was ensured,and the timeliness and comprehensiveness of the domestic news were also ensured by the telegrams sent by the telegraph network that China had just completed.It was the combination of journalists and telegrams that attracted a large number of readers in the process of reporting the Sino-French war.It can be said that it was the spirit of pragmatism and innovation that boosted the reputation of Shun pao in the early 1880s through detailed reports,increased distribution and advertising,and became a model of the newspaper industry at that time.