Research On The Modern Shanghai Tabloid And Civic Culture (1897-1937)

Previous studies on modern Shanghai journalism have often started from the angle of journalistic history, focusing on big newspapers and journals, seldom paying attention to the social historical aspect of modern Shanghai tabloids. This paper emphasizes the exploration in this field, and studies the social historical significance of the tabloids and interprets them as the public space of civic culture. While research on public domains of modern Shanghai often explores from the perspective of civic physical space or elite cultural space, lacking studies on popular non-mainstream tabloid cultural space. This paper tries to do some preliminary investigation from this perspective.The modern Shanghai tabloid was born against the background of prosperous economy, commerce and culture of Shanghai. It was also the product of a special transition period of history. The emergence of foreign protectorate, formation of high population concentration and development of the entertainment industry created a tolerant political environment and a big potential cultural consumer market for the prosperous development of Shanghai tabloids. The establishment of Shanghai as the national cultural center and the implementation of the modern author's commission system also provided a new avenue for a large number of traditional intellectuals who had been searching ways of making a living after the abolishment of the imperial examination system. Writing articles to sell and working as editors became a new way of surviving. The similar cultural backgrounds, living experiences and tastes among tabloid-related intellectuals helped to shape social networks among them. The plight and cultural position of tabloids determined their value orientation in the civic society. In the survival practices in civil society, the tabloid writers gradually settled down from the arrogant attitude of traditional intellectuals to a practical life pursuing financial interest. Eventually, the tabloid writer's cultural activities were also entirely commercialized. Tabloids gradually became an important cultural consumption goods in the plebeian's life by using a funny entertaining style that met the reading taste of the commoners, and by following the cultural market trend of plebeians.Based on the everyday life of plebeians, the tabloids established a novel domain in the civic daily life. Written with a humorous style and from the viewpoint of the commoner, tabloids recognized the living state of the plebeian's practical daily life. The tabloids also endowed independent cultural meaning and social value to the commoner's entertainment and commodity consumptions, as well as to their everyday life. By representing the value system and personalities of commoners, tabloids displayed plebeian's characteristics.At the same time, the tabloid writers also created a civic culture public domain with its special humorous and cynical style that is different from the mainstream culture. The formation of the above style is the choice of tabloids when they were marginalized under the pressure of political authorities. By poking fun at social authorities, tabloids were thus almost able to create a tradition of free speech. The establishment of the cultural domain stimulated the civic cultural imagination of commoners. In the mean time, the tabloids also subtly promoted the modernization of the civic culture.Although on the surface tabloid is a non-mainstream narrative, which tries to meet the shallow taste of commoners, from the deeper social meaning point of view, tabloids reflect the rebellion of the civic culture against the political authority and mainstream culture.