The War News Production And Dissemination Of "Shun Pao" In The Early Days Of The First World War

As a reflection of changes in social thought,the changing means by which China’s press has been disseminating international news has always been an important aspect of studying the history of the newspaper business in modern China.While the First World War reshaped the modern world,Chinese newspapers media were also deeply involved.As a newspaper with long-standing influence in modern China,Shun Pao has been seriously impacted by the First World War too.From the Sarajevo assassination until the end of the Siege of Qingdao,international news from Shun Pao have experienced three stages of changes:The first staged began with the Sarajevo assassination and ended with the official outbreak of the First World War.After the incident in Sarajevo,Europe was embroiled in a diplomatic crisis,which has drawn worldwide attention.However,despite paying some attention to this issue,Shun Pao stuck to their previous way of reporting the situation in Europe by simply translating foreign telegraphs and newspapers from the very beginning.Although these reports are numerous,they rarely arouse the interest of journalists and the public to the international situation.In the eyes of the contemporary Chinese people,they were more likely to be foreign tales,or material used for conveying propaganda messages.It was not until the Austrian Hungarian issued the ultimatum and the First World War broke out that Shun Pao finally realized the close connection between China and the international situation and take the initiative to modify their outdated approach to international news coverage in order to meet the new demands of the First World War news in China.The second stage is the period between the onset of World War I to the official outbreak of the Siege of Qingdao.During this era,Shun Pao has experienced substantial adjustments in two dimensions to suit the new demands of collecting and disseminating war news: First,in terms of news collection and production,in order to satisfy the demands of the public for war news,Shun Pao subscribed to international news agencies for the latest wartime information and tried to reform its original page layout to stress the importance of international news.With these adjustments,Shun Pao’s foreign news now had its own column,and were no longer a vassal of other news.Although Shun Pao’s reform was of a great success,it was still difficult for Shun Pao to get access to the war news and disseminated them in China independently without the global news distribution system,since most of the global news was monopolized by the world news agencies cartel.Secondly,by publishing numerous of comments on the war,Shun Pao had played an important role in leading public opinion on the First World War.It’s proactive and unremitting efforts in disseminating World War I news motivated its readers to actively participate in discussions on the conflict,allowing it to fulfill its vital role as a media in monitoring public opinion and propaganda on subject such as China’s neutrality.The deterioration of Japan-Germany relations marked the start of the third stage,which followed the Siege of Qingdao.In this period,Shun Pao began sending their own reporters to Shandong,which was one of the battlefields to gather war news firsthand,seeking more autonomy and authority in its news dissemination of the First World War.Through the previous reforms,Shun Pao had figured out a more effective way for the war news reporting.However,due to a dearth of independent war information resources and strict domestic press censorship,most of the war news published in Shun Pao was merely Chinese translations of articles provided by foreign international news agencies,and Shun Pao was still unable to report war news independently without the assistance of the world news cartel system.Furthermore,Shun Pao may be deceived by rumors and become a weapon of foreign propaganda tool because of this situation.Since the Siege of Qingdao took place in China,Shun Pao was able to collect and edit news related to this campaign in China by sending their own journalists to the battlefields,allowing it to bypass the influence of international news monopolies and play a significant role in disseminating war news,monitoring public opinion,and shaping national memory of the Shandong issue.The above facts suggests that between the Sarajevo assassination and the end of the Siege of Qingdao,due to the impact brought by the First World War,Shun Pao began to change its original foreign news reporting methods and pay more attention on reporting European issues.On the one hand,these changes reflect Shun Pao’s arouse interest on international news and the strong ties between Chinese newspaper business and the international news distribution system of the world.On the other hand,it might also reflect that,some Chinese were becoming aware of the strong ties that exist between China and the rest of the world due to the First World War.