Research On The "Letters From Readers" Column Of The People’s Daily (1977-1992)

Letters From Readers is a column specially designed by news organizations for readers sending letters to report situation and problems, to criticize, to offer suggestions and to make requests. It is not only a connection between the news organizations and the public, but also an essential channel for the public to spot the facts as well as to obtain news sources. Letters From Readers in People’s Daily relies on the important media resources of the party newspaper and in long term takes the role of making what is going on at higher levels promptly and accurately known to lower levels and vice versa. It does not only serves to realize its fundamental function of political communication and promotion, but also propels to realize the public’s function of public opinion supervision and participation in political affairs as the masters of their country, within the background of important political, economic and social reformation.The period of time between 1977 to 1992 was an age in which China was growing substantially and changing drastically. The policy makers, in political perspective, put forward the political restructuring as well as to correct the errors of Left opportunism while economically, they focused on implementing reform and opening policy as well as the modernization construction. Under such circumstances, exchange of opinion between mass media and the public was largely enhanced. Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, in order to deal with the increasingly complex domestic situation and the complicating reforming tasks, had great desire to know the true appeals of the public in this new era, to acknowledge the public’s attitude and suggestions towards policies, and to request the public’s supervision as well as participation. On the other hand, while the civil society was growing along with the development in economy, people are more conscious of expressing and they have growing demand for making their own voice be heard. However, in this period of time, the public only had limited methods to express their own opinion. Among these several methods, Letter From Readers in People’s Daily, as the representative of mass media, was the most essential and effective one. It took advantage of the party newspaper, made itself the incarnation of its political nature, public faith and large scale influence, became an effective way of acknowledging the lower levels of what is going on at higher levels promptly and accurately and vice versa, and finally helped to have more interactions between the government and the public.This essay will introduce the public, Letters From Readers in People’s Daily and official organs (both leading group and staff) as var parameters of their interactions and effects, taking the themes, nature and the changes in column of Letters From Readers as clues, analyzing petition of interests and focus of the public. In this essay, the author reads between the lines to understand the criticism, suggestions, narrations and approvals existing in the readers’ letters as well as their political attitude, political affection, political socialization and the multi-dimensional tension that hide in the letters. Besides, this essay contains the study on the texts that hide behind the public’s action of sending letters, interpretation the public’s attitude, affection and feelings towards how the administrative system functions, how the leading group behave and the changes in social heating problems under the circumstance of social reform, when they are the masters of the country and given great power.