The study of Chinese journalism history began almost at the same time as the birth of modern journalism in China. The earliest article should be "Analysis of Jinghua Daily" written by British missionary Ma Lixun in 1838. The early articles about China news include: Wang Tao's China Daily News and The Difference between China Beijing Newspaper and Foreign Newspapers in Shen Bao (1873). Only some related words in these articles relate to the history of Chinese journalism, which is neither comprehensive nor systematic. China's modern journalism is systematically discussed in Timothy Richard of 1895, Liang Qichao of 190 1, and Yao Gonghe of 19 17. These articles have noticed the essential differences between China's ancient newspapers and modern newspapers, inspired people to think about the origin and changes of China's ancient journalism, and paid attention to the development of modern journalism, which is still very young, thus resulting in the study of Chinese journalism history. However, as a primary stage, the study of Chinese news history is very rough, with vague clues and thin historical materials. It is called A Brief History of Shanghai Newspapers, which is the earliest monograph on the history of journalism in China. It is difficult to find out the exact date of publication and the number of newspapers and periodicals in the whole article, and a lot of specious and ambiguous language is used. Timothy Richard and Liang Qichao's articles are concise and mainly provide some clues. Generally speaking, the research on the history of Chinese journalism before 1927 was still in a fragmented and unsystematic state.
After 1920, China's higher education set up a journalism major, formerly known as "journalism department". With the development of teaching activities, as an indispensable part of journalism research, the study of Chinese journalism history naturally attracts people's attention. Although there were no monographs and representative articles in this period, the teaching activities of news history objectively promoted the systematic development of news history research, which made it go out of the early stage of news history research and embarked on a new step of accumulating information and summarizing laws. Ge's History of China Newspapers can be said to be the result of historical accumulation at this stage. It is recorded in Ge Nianpu: "(1925) Shanghai University for Nationalities set up a journalism department, and Ge taught the history of Chinese journalism ... Based on the information accumulated in the teaching process for many years, Ge began to write the history of Chinese journalism, which pushed the study of Chinese journalism history to a new stage. In the process of writing this book, Ge Gongzhen made great and arduous efforts. In order to prove the reliability of historical materials, he wrote many times to ask for advice modestly. In order to find the first-hand newspaper materials, I spent a lot of time in Shanghai Xujiahui Library besides advertising "Visiting Old Newspapers" in The Times. 10 For many years, he has been collecting historical materials extensively, resulting in four tall bookshelves in his study and bedroom, which are full of relevant news books and various rare newspapers and newspaper clippings. His infatuated academic spirit amazed colleagues and friends. " 〔 1〕
1The History of China Newspaper completed at the end of 926, published in June 1927+0 1. This is the first systematic monograph on the history of journalism in China, which "systematically and comprehensively introduces and discusses the development history of journalism in China". [2] The History of Chinese Journalism has collected a large number of first-hand materials, basically outlined the general context of the emergence and development of journalism in China, and determined the content of the research on the history of Chinese journalism. Its publication marks the beginning of systematic research on the history of Chinese journalism, which is of milestone significance in the history of China journalism. Since then, the research on the history of Chinese journalism has shown a comprehensive trend at least in form, and monographs on general history, regional history, dynastic history, character history and special history have come out one after another. According to statistics, before liberation, there were more than 50 monographs on the history of journalism published in China, most of which were works after 1927. "The study of news history in this period has been explored in all fields of news history, and many achievements have been made, which initially laid the foundation for the study of news history in China." 〔3〕
Second, the wandering period of Chinese news history research
From 1927 to 1949 years ago, the research on the history of journalism in China made some progress, but there was no substantive breakthrough. Among these more than 50 works, ten to seven are "directed and performed by themselves, plagiarized and lacking originality". Many authors don't do research at all, just behind closed doors, without even the most basic historical spirit of seeking truth from facts. For example, Cai Jiuou's History of Wuhan Journalism is the first monograph on the development of Wuhan journalism in the history of China. The author described his personal experiences that he heard and witnessed. Although there is some credibility, they are all emotional things. There is no empirical investigation and overall grasp of the development of Wuhan journalism. The language is vague, the structure is loose, and there is no rigorous attitude that history books should have. After liberation, these monographs no longer have the value of reprinting. Mr. Fang Hanqi once commented: "Most works on the history of journalism are of low level and a little thin." Among them, Ge's History of Chinese Journalism has the greatest influence and the deepest influence ... It is the only book in old China's journalistic works that has a foreign translation ... and it is also the only book in old China's journalistic history that was reprinted after the founding of the People's Republic of China. "[4] It can be seen that Ge's History of Chinese Journalism is not only the pioneering work of China's systematic research on the history of journalism, but also the pinnacle of the research on the history of Chinese journalism before liberation, representing the highest level of the research on the history of Chinese journalism before liberation. As a result, "The History of Chinese Journalism written by the Japanese, The History of Newspapers and Public Opinion in China written by Lin Yutang in English, The China Newspaper written by Roswell Sessoms Britton, a professor of American journalism in yenching university, and other books are all based on the materials provided by the History of Chinese Journalism [5]".
However, Ge's "History of China" also has obvious shortcomings: the historical materials are rich and inaccurate, and there are more than 200 mistakes in textual research; Explain the system without going deep, and the narrative is inevitably biased. For example, the introduction of Shanghai newspaper industry is more detailed, while other regions are more brief "; Moreover, "Ge's works system is not complete, and any academic special history works should take the time as the classics and its development as the latitude. Gorbachev's strong division of China's journalism into the exclusive period of official newspapers, the founding period of foreign newspapers, the prosperous period of people's newspapers, the founding of the Republic of China and the current situation of the press is arbitrary and inconsistent with historical development. " [6] It is not difficult to see that The History of China Newspapers is still an immature work, which needs to be developed and improved.
After liberation, until 1978, the research on the history of journalism on both sides of the Taiwan Strait continued, but the achievements were not great. The focus of mainland studies is the history of revolutionary newspapers and progressive newspapers led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) since the May 4th Movement. No one studied this part of history before liberation, which made up a big gap in the study of journalism history in China to some extent. However, under the influence of "Left", the historical research on ancient and modern newspapers and other news types in the same period has been insufficient since modern times. It is far from a comprehensive study of the history of Chinese journalism. During this period, Taiwan Province Province published more than 30 monographs on news history, but they also lacked depth and strength. Taiwan Province still uses Ge's History of Chinese Journalism for a long time in journalism teaching. Zhu Chuanyu, an expert on news history in Taiwan Province Province, said helplessly in 1966: "Although Ge's works have many shortcomings and are out of date, there has never been a second systematic news history book in China after him." The History of Chinese Journalism, edited by Ceng Xubai, published that year, should be the representative of the general history of Taiwan Province Province. Looking through this book, it is not difficult to find that it basically follows the old theory of ancient and modern times, does not make due amendments, and lacks modern and contemporary materials; In terms of style, it is no different from special history by theme, which violates the basic practice of comprehensively expounding general history in chronological order. Due to the congenital deficiency of "there are not many newspapers published in Chinese mainland" and the obvious hostility towards Chinese mainland, the overall level of journalism history research in Taiwan Province Province is actually limited. Generally speaking, the research on the history of Chinese journalism in this period is more standardized and solid than before liberation, and many achievements have been made, but there is a lack of comprehensive and objective investigation on the development of journalism in China. The study of Chinese journalism history is in a state of wandering.
Third, the mature and prosperous period of Chinese journalism history research.
After more than 30 years of accumulation, in the summer of 1978, Fang Hanqi began to write the history of modern newspapers and periodicals in China. 198 1 published the history of modern newspapers and periodicals in China. In this 500,000-word book, the author first gives a necessary brief description of journalism in China since the Tang Dynasty, and then gives an overall description of the development of journalism in China from 18 15 to19 to 100. As soon as this book was published, it "once caused some influence in the journalism circles on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and attracted the attention of foreign journalism circles", and [7] it was recognized as "the first influential monograph on journalism history in the past 50 years". 〔8〕
Judging from the content span covered by The History of Modern Newspapers in China, it is basically consistent with Ge's History of Chinese Journalism. But comparing the two works, it is not difficult to find a qualitative difference between them. First of all, in the possession of historical materials, an important reason why Ge's works can be circulated for half a century lies in the richness of its materials, which was really rare in the monographs on news history at that time. 1In May, 928, Tianjin Ta Kung Pao Literature Weekly published an article entitled "Historical Review of Ge China Daily" ... This book has been searched very frequently and is full of traps, which is really rare in recent works. [9] But as a pioneering work, it needs further textual research. Therefore, the conclusion drawn from factual errors cannot be established. Fang's works absorbed a lot of achievements in the study of news history in the past 50 years, made a comprehensive textual research on modern newspapers and corrected a lot of mistakes in the study of news history in the past. It can be said that the book was written on the basis of comprehensively correcting past mistakes, which not only corrected more than 200 mistakes in Ge Shu, but also corrected all kinds of mistakes in the study of journalism history in the past 50 years. In addition, a large number of new historical materials have been added to the book. From the notes alone, we can see that when describing the development of news photography in China during the ten years from 1902 to1910, the author said, "The Qing government originally restricted news photography activities in many aspects." In the annotation of this sentence, Mr. Fang explained that Duan Fang, the governor of Zhili, was impeached "disrespectful" and dismissed for taking pictures along the way when he bid farewell to Cixi and Guangxu hearses on 1909, indicating that cloth was always to blame for photography at that time. Secondly, since Ge, there has been no substantial breakthrough in China's modern news. Among these more than 50 works, ten to seven are "directed and performed by themselves, plagiarized and lacking originality". Many authors don't do research at all, just behind closed doors, without even the most basic historical spirit of seeking truth from facts. For example, Cai Jiuou's History of Wuhan Journalism is the first monograph on the development of Wuhan journalism in the history of China. The author described his personal experiences that he heard and witnessed. Although there is some credibility, they are all emotional things. There is no empirical investigation and overall grasp of the development of Wuhan journalism. The language is vague, the structure is loose, and there is no rigorous attitude that history books should have. After liberation, these monographs no longer have the value of reprinting. Mr. Fang Hanqi once commented: "Most works on the history of journalism are of low level and a little thin." Among them, Ge's History of Chinese Journalism has the greatest influence and the deepest influence ... It is the only book in old China's journalistic works that has a foreign translation ... and it is also the only book in old China's journalistic history that was reprinted after the founding of the People's Republic of China. "[4] It can be seen that Ge's History of Chinese Journalism is not only the pioneering work of China's systematic research on the history of journalism, but also the pinnacle of the research on the history of Chinese journalism before liberation, representing the highest level of the research on the history of Chinese journalism before liberation. As a result, "The History of Chinese Journalism written by the Japanese, The History of Newspapers and Public Opinion in China written by Lin Yutang in English, The China Newspaper written by Roswell Sessoms Britton, a professor of American journalism in yenching university, and other books are all based on the materials provided by the History of Chinese Journalism [5]".
However, Ge's "History of China" also has obvious shortcomings: the historical materials are rich and inaccurate, and there are more than 200 mistakes in textual research; Explain the system without going deep, and the narrative is inevitably biased. For example, the introduction of Shanghai newspaper industry is more detailed, while other regions are more brief "; Moreover, "Ge's works system is not complete, and any academic special history works should take the time as the classics and its development as the latitude. Gorbachev's strong division of China's journalism into the exclusive period of official newspapers, the founding period of foreign newspapers, the prosperous period of people's newspapers, the founding of the Republic of China and the current situation of the press is arbitrary and inconsistent with historical development. " [6] It is not difficult to see that The History of China Newspapers is still an immature work, which needs to be developed and improved.
After liberation, until 1978, the research on the history of journalism on both sides of the Taiwan Strait continued, but the achievements were not great. The focus of mainland studies is the history of revolutionary newspapers and progressive newspapers led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) since the May 4th Movement. No one studied this part of history before liberation, which made up a big gap in the study of journalism history in China to some extent. However, under the influence of "Left", the historical research on ancient and modern newspapers and other news types in the same period has been insufficient since modern times. It is far from a comprehensive study of the history of Chinese journalism. During this period, Taiwan Province Province published more than 30 monographs on news history, but they also lacked depth and strength. Taiwan Province still uses Ge's History of Chinese Journalism for a long time in journalism teaching. Zhu Chuanyu, an expert on news history in Taiwan Province Province, said helplessly in 1966: "Although Ge's works have many shortcomings and are out of date, there has never been a second systematic news history book in China after him." The History of Chinese Journalism, edited by Ceng Xubai, published that year, should be the representative of the general history of Taiwan Province Province. Looking through this book, it is not difficult to find that it basically follows the old theory of ancient and modern times, does not make due amendments, and lacks modern and contemporary materials; In terms of style, it is no different from special history by theme, which violates the basic practice of comprehensively expounding general history in chronological order. Due to the congenital deficiency of "there are not many newspapers published in Chinese mainland" and the obvious hostility towards Chinese mainland, the overall level of journalism history research in Taiwan Province Province is actually limited. Generally speaking, the research on the history of Chinese journalism in this period is more standardized and solid than before liberation, and many achievements have been made, but there is a lack of comprehensive and objective investigation on the development of journalism in China. The study of Chinese journalism history is in a state of wandering.
Third, the mature and prosperous period of Chinese journalism history research.
After more than 30 years of accumulation, in the summer of 1978, Fang Hanqi began to write the history of modern newspapers and periodicals in China. 198 1 published the history of modern newspapers and periodicals in China. In this 500,000-word book, the author first gives a necessary brief description of journalism in China since the Tang Dynasty, and then gives an overall description of the development of journalism in China from 18 15 to19 to 100. As soon as this book was published, it "once caused some influence in the journalism circles on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and attracted the attention of foreign journalism circles", and [7] it was recognized as "the first influential monograph on journalism history in the past 50 years". 〔8〕
Judging from the content span covered by The History of Modern Newspapers in China, it is basically consistent with Ge's History of Chinese Journalism. But comparing the two works, it is not difficult to find a qualitative difference between them. First of all, in the possession of historical materials, an important reason why Ge's works can be circulated for half a century lies in the richness of its materials, which was really rare in the monographs on news history at that time. 1In May, 928, Tianjin Ta Kung Pao Literature Weekly published an article entitled "Historical Review of Ge China Daily" ... This book has been searched very frequently and is full of traps, which is really rare in recent works. [9] But as a pioneering work, it needs further textual research. Therefore, the conclusion drawn from factual errors cannot be established. Fang's works absorbed a lot of achievements in the study of news history in the past 50 years, made a comprehensive textual research on modern newspapers and corrected a lot of mistakes in the study of news history in the past. It can be said that the book was written on the basis of comprehensively correcting past mistakes, which not only corrected more than 200 mistakes in Ge Shu, but also corrected all kinds of mistakes in the study of journalism history in the past 50 years. In addition, a large number of new historical materials have been added to the book. As can be seen from the notes alone, when describing the development of news photography in China during the ten years from 1902 to1910, the author said, "The Qing government originally restricted news photography activities in many aspects." In the annotation of this sentence, Mr. Fang explained that Duan Fang, the governor of Zhili, was impeached "disrespectful" and dismissed for taking pictures along the way when he bid farewell to Cixi and Guangxu hearses on 1909, indicating that cloth was always to blame for photography at that time. Second, since Ge, people's description of China's modern journalism has been sketchy, lacking materials and overall grasp. Zhu Fang has made a breakthrough in these two aspects. Fang Hanqi's description of modern journalism in China is delicate and comprehensive. There is a detailed description of major events and figures, as well as the development of journalism, which not only shows the general trend of the development of modern journalism in China, but also gives people a profound grasp of the characteristics and important details of each development stage. Based on a comprehensive understanding of the development of modern journalism in China, this book makes a normative and scientific analysis according to the overall content and characteristics of the development of journalism in China in various periods, so that people have a clear understanding of the development of journalism at this stage. Thus, the basic method of journalism history research is established in style: according to time and different themes in the development of journalism itself, each period is listed separately and stated in a strict historical stage. This is not true in Ge's works and other previous monographs on news history. Third, we should fully respect the facts and not praise or criticize people or things easily. To truly realize the theory, it must be based on "theory comes from history", and there is no empty talk. The analysis and demonstration of news history in Fang's works are generally based on facts, which are fair, objective and convincing, and can make people understand the true face of history. Based on this, we can say that this is a history that can stand the test. It can be seen that Zhu Fang is a mature work in the study of news history, no matter from the academic norms with sufficient materials and complete styles, or from the scientific degree of the study of news history, such as the clarity and scientificity of the guiding ideology, and the fairness and objectivity of the arguments held. He not only provided a complete and systematic history of modern newspapers and periodicals for the society, but also established the scientific spirit of journalism history. Fully grasp the real materials and explore the special laws of the development of news history with the principle of dialectical materialism seeking truth from facts.
Since then, the research on the history of Chinese journalism has embarked on the scientific road initiated by the history of modern newspapers and periodicals in China, and has begun to bear fruitful results. China Contemporary Journalism History as the representative, China News General History as the representative, China Modern Broadcasting Brief History and Xinhua Daily as the representative, Deng Tuo Biography as the representative, China News Chronicle as the representative, and so on. The study of Chinese journalism history has really reached a new milestone of comprehensive and in-depth development. The research on the history of journalism in the past 20 years of reform and opening up not only far exceeds the sum of the monographs on the history of journalism published before 1978 in quantity, but also completely differs from the previous research on the history of journalism in quality, with the following outstanding characteristics: strict historical management and emphasis on textual research; Discuss systematically and carefully; Reflect the objectivity and faithfulness of history. On the whole, it shows a mature and scientific new style of historical management.