办报与读报:晚清报刊大众化的探索与困惑

Launching Newspaper and Reading Newspaper: exploring Newspaper's Popularization in Late Qing Dynasty

近代报刊传媒产生之后,如何吸引读者阅读便成为一个核心问题。报刊大众化的前提是吸引下层社会的关注,从这个角度看,"劝民读报"是晚清报人共同秉持的理想与追求,早期的宗教报刊就曾向下层社会免费赠阅,而商业性报刊更是关注发行量的增长,争取"四民"阅读是办报者的企图。但是,维新时期政论性报刊却难以吸引下层社会的目光,维新之后,白话报刊促进了下层社会的阅读。但由于晚清下层民众消费意愿与文字能力的局限,对于许多白话报刊而言,想象的读者与实际的读者之间存在着明显的差距,报刊的大众化仍然进展缓慢。

To attract more readers is the eternal purpose of modern newspaper. The premise of newspaper's popularization is to invade into lower-class society, so persuading the public to read newspaper was the consensus of newspapermen in Late Qing period. Religious magazines were provided to the public for free in the early stage, while commercial newspaper focused on circulation, their main purpose was to get more readers from all four social strata. However, political newspaper had a hard time attracting readers from lower class during Wu Xu Reform. It was after the Reform, vernacular newspaper helped the public form newspaper-reading habit. Even so, vernacular newspaper's circulations were far from newspapermen's estimates because of the consumption and literacy limitation of lower class. As a result, the progress of newspaper population still went slowly.