A newspaper for China? : power, identity, and change in Shanghai's news media, 1872-1912 / Barbara Mittler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mittler, Barbara, 1968-

Series:

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 226.

Harvard East Asian Monographs ; 226

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shen bao.

Chinese newspapers--China--Shanghai--History--19th century.

Chinese newspapers.

Chinese newspapers--China--Shanghai--History--20th century.

Press--China--Shanghai--History--19th century.

Press.

Press--China--Shanghai--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

Leiden; Boston : BRILL, 2004.

Other Title:

Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai's News Media, 1872-1912

Place of Publication:

Boston : Harvard University Asia Center, 2004.

Summary:

In 1872 in the treaty port of Shanghai, British merchant Ernest Major founded one of the longest-lived and most successful of modern Chinese-language newspapers, the Shenbao. His publication quickly became a leading newspaper in China and won praise as a "department store of news," a "forum for intellectual discussion and moral challenge," and an "independent mouthpiece of the public voice." Located in the International Settlement of Shanghai, it was free of government regulation. Paradoxically, in a country where the government monopolized the public sphere, it became one of the world's most independent newspapers. As a private venture, the Shenbao was free of the ideologies that constrained missionary papers published in China during the nineteenth century. But it also lacked the subsidies that allowed these papers to survive without a large readership. As a purely commercial venture, the foreign-managed Shenbao depended on the acceptance of educated Chinese, who would write for it, read it, and buy it. This book sets out to analyze how the managers of the Shenbao made their alien product acceptable to Chinese readers and how foreign-style newspapers became alternative modes of communication acknowledged as a powerful part of the Chinese public sphere within a few years. In short, it describes how the foreign Shenbao became a "newspaper for China.".

Contents:

Preliminary Material

The Chinese Public Sphere and the Power of the Press

An Alien Medium Domesticated

In the Words of the Sages

Making the Chinese State Go Public?

Fair-Sexing It

'Multiple Personalities'

The Nature of Chinese Nationalism

The Power of the Press-Revisited

Chapter I Texts

Chapter 2 Text

Chapter 6 Texts

Works Cited

Finding List of Shenbao Articles

Index

Harvard East Asian Monographs.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [435]-483) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781684173884

1684173884

OCLC:

607271011

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9781684173884 DOI