The Origins of the Modern Chinese Press: The Influence of the Protestant Missionary Press in Late Qing China

by Zhang; Tao

• ISBN13: 9780415380669
• ISBN10: 0415380669
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781134179305
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-10-30
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This book traces the emergence of the modern Chinese press from its origins in the western Christian missionary press in the late nineteenth century. It shows how the western missionaries and their evangelical/educational newspapers changed the long-standing traditional practices, styles, content, print culture and printing technology of Chinese newspapers and, in the process, introduced some of the key ideas of western modernity which were to have a profound effect on Chinese society. Xiantao Zhang demonstrates how missionary publications reshaped print journalism, rather indirectly, from a centuries-long monopoly by the state - the Imperial press - into a pluralized, modernizing and frequently radical public journalism. She focuses in particular on the relationship between the missionaries and the class of ?gentry scholars? - literati and civil servants, educated via the traditional state examination system in the Confucian classics, who were the prime target readers of the missionarypublications. This key group and the independent press they established at the end of the nineteenth century played a crucial role in shaping the ongoing struggle for a modern democratic media culture in China.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Press in Imperial China

The Emergence of the Modern Press in China

Wanguo Gongbao: High Point of the Missionary Press

The Rise of the Chinese Elite Press

The New Press and the Transition to Cultural Modernity

Missionaries' Impact on Printing Technology

Modern Chinese Journalism and Confucian Dynamism

The Missionary Press and the Issue of Cultural Imperialism Conclusion

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