The Chinese Mass Media
10 The Chinese Mass Media XU XINYI HISTORICAL SURVEY Mass media develop with printing and telecommunication technologies. China, the homeland of papermaking and printing, possessed its version of newspapers several hundred years before any other country. Those early newspapers, how ever, did not constitute the origin of mass media in the modem sense, since they served exclusively for the royal court to transmit imperial edicts and memorials. Modem newspapers and journals came to China with Western religious missions and imperialist advances in the early nineteenth century. About 100 years later, radio was introduced into the country in the same manner by foreigners. Tele vision made its debut to the Chinese media in 1958, twenty-two years after the first television broadcasting in the world. Initiated by the Chinese themselves, it has become the most rapidly growing form of mass media in China. Newspapers The most ancient Chinese newspaper was Dibao (Court Gazette) which could be traced back as early as the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 c.E). Dibao, com piled by imperial scholars, was distributed within the feudal court as an official medium. The early Dibaos were handwritten on nonpaper materials. Beginning in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), paper was used. Censorship appeared in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) when unofficial newspapers, called Xiaobao, became popular among the civil society. Printing was put into application in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). It was not widely used, however, until the mid sixteenth century when the official Jingbao and folk newspapers formed a rec ognizable enterprise. 170 xUXInyl The Western version of newspapers and periodicals began with the publica tion by foreigners of the first Portug\lese'Dewspaper, A Abelha da Chine (Mifeng Huabao), in 1822, and the first Chinese journal, East Western Monthly Magazine (Dongxiyangkao Meiyue Tongjizbuan), in 1833, within the country.
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