A Study On The Readers' Reading Of The Life Weekly Magazine

Focused on The Mailbox Column of The Life Weekly magazine,this paper gathered reading feedbacks from the readers and combined with relevant historical materials to study the readers of The Life Weekly magazine and their reading activities under the perspective of historical studies of newspaper reading.By taking readers' benefit as the core consideration,The Life Weekly magazine had become the most popular publication with the largest circulation during the Republic of China era.With the expansion and development of its distribution network,the readers of The Life Weekly had distributed from villages to overseas.Through reader sample analysis,as a popular civilian publication,the majority readers of The Life Weekly magazine are young clerks in Jiangsu province,Zhejiang province and Shanghai city.They are between 20 and 40 years old and most of them received elementary education and above.The readers are mostly males while females have also been detected participating in reading activities.Under the circumstance that the country weakened and the people impoverished,the reader's reading interest mainly focused on vital problems of the society and their personal life.Through reading,the readers tried to weave the “web of meaning” of their very own life.They were also keen on participating in the society and discussing social issues through newspapers.During reading,they were not only paying close attention to the serious issues of defeating the old extended family,freedom to choose one's spouses and gender equality,meaning of life and personal development,and national salvation,but also attracted to recreational reading materials like literature,folk customs,etc.Their reading activities showed significant initiative,continuity,openness and sociality.Through the consumption of reading,texts become their pleasure in life,communicative topics,spiritual guidance and intellectual materials.In the process of reading,the readers applied their own “Interpretive Strategies” to process the texts and were willing to share their reading feedbacks in the public sphere of The Mailbox Column.Gradually,a reading community was formed and had participated in the mass reading revolution.Through reading,the readers had acquired modern knowledge,gained ideological enlightenments,reached a group consensus,and cognized the nation-state.