Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2014

The Media Environment and the Modern Transformation of Chinese Prose

(Abstract)

Ding Xiaoyuan

Writing for the press was the most significant and important feature of prose writing from the late Qing to the May 4th Movement. The new written style and mode of dissemination, for which the press functioned as medium or vehicle, influenced the form, language and style of prose from the outside. At the same time, the value orientation of the media defined or partially defined the themes of prose. There was a certain inherent association between the media in the imagining of the nation-state on the one hand and the modernity of prose on the other; newspapers and magazines constructed the community of the imagined nation-state. This constituted the mainstream media’s special contribution to the construction of Chinese modernity from the late Qing to the May 4th Movement. Prose in the media was a key phrase linking the ambitions of journalists, the functions of the press and the construction of the nation-state. The media, including Chinese Progress (Shiwu Bao), produced arguments and exposition that aimed at “reform” and the “renewal of the people,” and were highly political. During the New Culture period of the May 4th Movement, the leitmotiv of prose changed from the “renewal of the people” to the “cultivation of the people”; its language changed from being a combination of the written and spoken language to modern vernacular Chinese; and its form changed from the flowering of the argumentative style on its own to the twin achievements of expository and lyrical essays. Many prose writers during the May 4th Movement were consciously engaged in both the theory and creators of modern prose. The organic interaction between theory and creation achieved the modern transformation of Chinese prose.