An Examination Of Fashionable Remarks In The Late Qing Dynasty’s Shenbao:Content Features And Communication Methods (1872-1911)

Modern fashion communication began in the late Qing Dynasty.Under the stirring of old and new ideas,the fashion communication practice in the late Qing Dynasty was an important product of the change in the development of fashion culture.However,the current research on the history of fashion diffusion has paid little attention to the fashion of the late Qing Dynasty,and the diffusion of fashion in the late Qing Dynasty needs further investigation and discussion.Based on this,this paper uses the textual analysis method to historically examine the fashion discourse of the newspaper Shen Bao(1872-1911)and explore the content characteristics and dissemination strategies of the fashion discourse of Shen Bao in the late Qing Dynasty.Specifically,it covers the fashion symbols,fashion agendas,fashion concepts,stylistic features of the discourse,and dissemination strategies constructed by the discourse of the newspaper,and further explores the attitudes and opinions of the media toward fashion during this period of social change.The study found that,In terms of fashion symbols,the discourses of the newspaper included dress,body image,entertainment,and daily consumption in the lives of citizens.In terms of fashion agenda,the late Qing Dynasty’s "Shen Bao" focused on the change of fashion and traditional order,explored the connection between fashion and luxury consumption,and discussed the departure of fashion from tradition,the alienation of consumption,and the proliferation of luxury in the context of moral evaluation,and further linked the transformation of social fashion with the revitalization of the nation,giving fashion a more far-reaching connotation.As for the concept of fashion,in the fashion trend of the late Qing Dynasty,the media marked the label of naturalization,civilization,nationalization and localization for fashion.In the late Qing Dynasty,"Shen Bao" began to shift from the resistance and criticism of fashion to the regulation and utilization of fashion,constantly shaping and guiding the fashion concept of the people,and the fashion culture of the late Qing Dynasty flourished in continuous enrichment.In terms of the stylistic characteristics of the discourses,the fashion discourses of the Shen Bao,with their multiple genres,were a blend of sentiment and reason,and presented a distinctive sense of country in their edification of the people’s fashion concepts and the orientation of saving the country and promoting the industry,but it was difficult to break away from the shackles of the cultural ecology of the late Qing Dynasty.In terms of communication strategy,the newspaper "Shen Bao" shaped the fashion culture of the time with a multidimensional perspective by assigning fashion values,combining social hotspots,and constructing fashion templates.It is noteworthy that the audience of fashion statements in the newspaper was male,but the target audience of fashion concepts was female,due to the overall literacy and reading level of women in the late Qing Dynasty.It is evident that the fashion culture constructed by the media at that time was more for the purpose of maintaining the traditional masculine discourse system and enforcing and strengthening the discipline of women by reconstructing the concept of male fashion.