The Transitional Development Of Reportage

Reportage is an emergent genre of non-fictional literature originating from the advance of printing techniques and the rise of modern industry of newspapers and magazines. It is a marginal interdisciplinary genre of news and literature. The overall object for the study in this article is the transitional reportage literature from the New Stage (1978-2000) to the first decade of the New Century (2000-2010), which are generally known as the Transitional Period. This study aims at arranging the directions of the transitional reportage literature, establishing the cultural identity of reportage in this period, revealing its textual connotation, differentiating its writing style, and researching its developing orientation. On the basis of this aims, we hope that the transitional view of the reportage research is sharpened, the theoretical color of reportage literature construction is highlighted, and the imbalanced pattern of literary study is improved. What's more, the sustainable development of new-century reportage will be borne out by the effective experience and necessary theory mentioned in this article.Reportage, as a kind of non-fiction literature, is characterized by such homogeneous factors as the objectivity of real contents, the criticalness of subject's ideas, the transparency of the textual passage, as well as such heterogeneous elements as the abundance of the reflected objects, the disparity of the writers, and the variety of expressions. The combination of the homogeneity and heterogeneity generates the general features of reportage. After the entry into the transitional period, reportage literature, under the influence of the context of modern reform and spurred by the modern transmission, gives special attention to such striking features of the modern times as the problematic, the prominent, the wide-range and the Internet media. All this demonstrates that as an emergent genre, reportage literature can make some of its properties keep up with the times. Just because of this, the study of the reportage literature at the transitional period finds its practical necessity and theoretical urgency.From the New Stage to the New Century, there are three successive lines for the transitional development of the reportage literature:the first line is the removal of ban represented by Goldbach Conjecture at the end of 1970s; the second is the soaring development and adjustment; the third one is the entry-driving study in the first decade of the New Century. The large-scale discussion on "the criteria of truth", the convention of the Third Plenary Session of Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC, and the debut of Goldbach Conjecture announces the beginning of new historical period and the arrival of artistic spring. Thanks to this, the skyrocketing development of reportage in 1980s shows its lofty ideals, great enthusiasm, and sharp criticism so that 1980s is generally known as the symbol or by-word of prosperous development of the transitional reportage literature. From the late 1980s to 1990s, owing to the ideological restriction, the ardor of all the writers of reportage literature have been daunted. During this period, except only a small group of writers continuing to stick to the designated function of reportage, quite a few writers restrained themselves from their ideals, enthusiasm and critical impulses, which led to the expansion of advertisement literature, commendatory literature, stardom literature and historical record literature. Of course, in 1990s, in its seeming decline, there was still an implied intention for reportage literature to adjust itself, which is called "the entry into quiet self-possession" by some writers. This shows again that reportage is exactly the literature of the times and corresponds well to the pulsation of the times. After the entry into new century, reportage literature is well treated in a more rational way. The social criticism of reportage is neither denied, nor is over-heavy burden forced on it, because reportage is a kind of literature with prominent social function. In such a case, more efforts are made to drive reportage into "Self-improvement" and "Thorough-going Reform" so that stylistic norms can be reconstructed by means of cultural turn and literary criticism and reportage can be turned back to its self-adjustment. Also on this basis, we think that although reportage has been in its decrease, it has been well developed on the whole in the transitional period.The cultural identity of transitional reportage is extremely important. This, in fact, includes two aspects such as the generation of culture and the displacement of identity. On the basis of social life, real settings precipitate the beginning of reportage; By the use of ideology for reference, "the third reality" between living reality and artistic reality generates the reportage, which is an aesthetic idea with striking sociality; Basing itself on literary background, reportage is an open and compound marginal genre. The transitional reportage, with writer-centered tendency in 1980s and with reader worshipping in 1990s, pushes itself into the plural times with different voices. Relatively speaking, in the modern times when literature is marginalized, there is a tendency for reportage to move from its marginal position to the central position because of the economic and ideological roles, because of the promotion by the author's own will and because of the challenge from modern communications. Now in front of us lie three tasks such as right treatment of the value of marginal thinking, careful orientation of the willingness to the central position, and great efforts to pursue the literariness of reportage.With deeper study on the internal reportage, it is easily found that reform is the core will of reportage writers and redemption is always the realization of its basic value. Under the overall guidance, the reportage from the New Stage to the first decade of the New Century forms its own model with multiple themes such as historical reflection, news express, scientific and technological lead, moral and legal examination, and ecological sufferings and hardships. In order to meet the demands of the above themes, the representative patterns of subject materials are formed such as ecological appeals, educational concerns, anti-corrupt will, and Sannong Utterance(utterance for the problems facing agriculture, rural areas and farmers)etc.The cultural identity and textual connotation of the transitional reportage determines its textual style, which can be borne out by the modern quality and artistic dimension. The macro features of the reportage of this period are pioneering living warnings, the author's mentality of common people, textual time and space of epic, transcendent value orientation, and lofty and elegant styles. In its micro perspective, the excellent transitional reportage ensures its literariness in the following six ways: the reportage image with vivid expressions to show spirit, profound and spontaneous affection, vivid and lively language, easy and flexible narration, creative and harmonious structure, and colorful mental pictures with the co-occurrence of emotion and scenery. On this basis, we can find that the transitional reportage literature is not well-received and to make matters worse, is repeatedly denounced, but, on the whole, its aesthetic quality is evolving from an extensive style into an intensive one.And then, what is its guiding logical thinking for the realization of the modern transitional development? For the sake of the adjustment to the textual properties of the modern times, the transitional reportage gradually takes four kinds of modern awareness in its long-term development and self-adjustment, such as the examinational awareness of the humanity, the on-the-spot awareness of the subjects, the awareness of wide-range narration, and the awareness of information exchange. And thus it can be found that there are four kinds of necessary and prominent logical thinking, which are generally acknowledged in the field of reportage, namely, the movement of critical logical thinking from "the examination of father" to self-examination, the participatory one from "the marginal" to the center, the narrative one from "the focus" to the diffusive, the publicizing one from monism to the multi-dimension.But we do not mean that the transitional reportage is perfect.In fact, in the course of its growth, every genre of literature goes thorough different degrees of bouncing above and below the right way, and some times it moves far away from it. There is no exception to the reportage. Such disadvantages as the fussy literary definition, neglected investigation and interview, weakened critical spirit, the imperfect creative form, etc. have ever existed in the reportage and there is the possibility for the disadvantages to appear again in the coming reportage. For all the disadvantages, we believe that there is good reason for the new century reportage to have a more prosperous development in the future. This is because the real life is the social foundation for the sustainable development of reportage; the receptors hold powerful expectations for their reading needs; the smooth information contributes to its wide and quick spreading; marketing mechanism spurs its open-style writing; and the conscious genre is a self-regulating power for its positive development.