Explore And Analyze The Reason Of The First Booming Of Domestic Newspaper

After first Sino-Japan war (August.1894-August.1895), also known as Jiawu War, the decaying Qing Dynasty which was affected by western culture, embarked a slow yet twisted journey to modernization. The colossal centralized empire was crisis-ridden. The long preserved traditional culture saw a gradual dissolution and restructure.The reformists took power and staged a far-reaching "Hundred Days' Reform" movement to make a radical change to society, under the volatile and complex social environment. The first booming of domestic newspaper was underway amid such historic time of period.Related works on Chinese journalism have made a meticulous review and contemplation, concerning this historic period, which gave considerable detailed research on its process and ideas held by journalists then. Connecting social context, this article tries to review the history through perspective of sociology, analyzing underlying causes which leads to the first booming of domestic newspaper.Guided by media sociology theory, the article tries to integrate with explanatory research method as to make conclusions as below.Politically, reformists deemed press as an effective weapon in service of shaping the society, as to communicate reformative ideas and educate the mass. The decree released by Emperor Guangxu to remove bans on press further provided a sound guarantee for future newspaper booms; Economically, national capitalism emerged and interwoven inter-dependently with reformists. The marginalized traditional intellectuals were urgently in need of a means to engage in politics and voice their political opinions, who became readers of the press then; In the meantime, with the introduction of western culture and rising of new education, more and more people were mentally-accepted to reformist ideas, which fostered new cluster of readers for the newspaper.