Modern Newspapers from the Perspective of Information ^†

Abstract

Modern newspapers refer to those published and distributed in modern times. From the perspective of information, the modern newspaper is not only a horizontal transmission of social information but also a carrier of historical information. The advent of the Information Age has also shifted the carrier of modern newspapers to an electronic data carrier. Modern newspapers not only meet the needs of people to understand the current social reality by acquiring information but also can decipher and restore historical facts from the historical information contained in them according to the information retention characteristics of modern newspapers. The electronic newspaper database also expands the information carriers and dissemination channels for newspaper retention, presenting a new form of historiography.

1. Introduction

The modern Chinese press was originally founded by foreigners in China, but in the 1850s, some Western-educated nationals began to establish their own newspapers, and in 1858, the first Chinese newspaper, Chinese and Foreign Newsline, was established. The newspaper industry gradually developed and became an important source of social information and understanding for the Chinese people, and later generations could decipher and restore historical facts from the historical information contained in modern newspapers.

From the perspective of information, the content carried by modern newspapers is textual and pictorial information about the state of society at that time, providing people with information elements to meet their information needs. However, the information published in the modern press does not necessarily reflect the true picture of events, either at that time or in the present.

This is because the owners of the press, who have the right to speak about information, represent different interests and have different narratives on the same issue, and thus each press shows its own bias according to its own ecological position. However, newspaper information does not only appear in one newspaper; newspapers also quote or reproduce the content of different newspapers. The facts reflected by many newspapers together can make up for the incomplete information of a single newspaper. Then, the extraction and comparison of information from different newspapers is particularly important. The existence of multiple carriers of information allows newspapers to retain information that can reflect historical information of the time in a more objective way. The establishment of the electronic newspaper as an information database transformed the physical text of newspapers as a historical information carrier into a digital platform of visual information supported by digital information symbols, broadening the way modern newspapers act as information carriers.

2. Information Needs and Modern Newspapers

Information demand is one of the four basic stages of information consumption, and the process of information consumption includes four stages: information demand, information acquisition and possession, information absorption and processing, and information creation. Information consumption starts from information demand, which is the driving force of information consumption and is a necessary element for information consumers.

From the perspective of modern newspaper development, with rapid changes in the modern social situation, especially before and after the Opium War, people’s demand for social information prompted various newspapers to emerge and publish all kinds of information to meet people’s information needs at that time with their great information storage inclusion characteristics.

Since 1840, when China was repeatedly invaded by foreign powers, the demand of the people, especially the intellectuals, for information about the turbulent situation grew dramatically. Sensing the people’s eagerness to learn about social information, Chinese intellectuals with capitalist tendencies founded a series of newspapers, such as The New Record of Yangcheng, Zhaowen New Daily, Circulation Daily, Hui Daily, Shu Daily, etc. Among them, Shu Daily was founded during the Sino-French War. It produced detailed reports on the strikes and market strikes carried out by Liu Yongfu’s Black Flag Army against France and the people of Hong Kong to resist the war of aggression launched by the French colonialists, meeting the domestic people’s demand for information about the war situation between France and China. It is clear that the initial development of the modern press was inextricably linked to the public’s need to be informed about the social situation.

For example, as the longest-running Chinese newspaper in China, the status of Shun Pao in modern China naturally speaks for itself, which led to the influence of the advertisements published in it in modern society. On 8 March 1920, an advertisement for the book Travels in America Observation Record was published in Shun Pao, which reads, “Travels in America Observation Record is one of Mr. Wang’s books, which has been loved by readers since it was published in the free talk section of this newspaper. Therefore, now the travel to the United States observation record is updated and deleted, bound into a book, a total of more than 100,000 words, a total of 286 pages, divided into two volumes, is a book. Inside the book there are forty-eight American landscape paintings, lead-printed foreword, twenty-one copper-printed photos, the cover is five colors of lush woods and clear rippled pool pictures, the book is beautifully printed, clean paper. Each book is priced at 80 cents in silver dollars, and 20% off, another 10 cents for postage in the other areas, each bookstore needs to buy at least five books if they want to wholesale, but also need to use cash, hereby announced” [1]. Shun Pao’s detailed descriptions of the book’s author, word count, page count, illustrations, printing, price, and wholesale requirements meet the many information needs of readers purchasing this book.

The primary function of many newspapers was to publish news, such as Ta Kung Pao, Central Daily News, Xinhua Daily News, and Jiefang Daily News, all of which reported on the closing of the political consultative conference on 31 January 1946 and delivered immediate information about China’s hopes for peace and democracy to the newspapers’ audiences. Free Talk, a supplement of the newspaper Shun Pao, was also called the History of Modern Literature. Free Talk published essays, travelogues, sketches, etc., providing readers with a wide variety of literary and artistic works to satisfy people’s need for information to promote their spiritual enrichment.

3. Information Retention and Modern Newspapers

As a carrier of social information, the modern press has stored a large amount of historical information. In contemporary times, we can find historical facts in modern newspapers. At the same time, compared with ancient documents, the information stored in modern newspapers is huge, and information about city life, war, literature, and art can be searched directly or indirectly in modern times.

However, the textual and graphic information stored in modern newspapers is published by different publishers, thus representing the interests of different classes or groups and reflecting different information, so there is a question of whether the information published is credible and whether there are artificial distortions and misinterpretations, thus distorting the information. Historical facts are not “real”; facts drift through history and can be combined with any idea, while historical “reality” can only emerge from the discursive interpretation and conceptual construction of the pursuit of truth.

However, history itself is a continuous pursuit of recovery. Therefore, by using the information preserved in modern newspapers for comparison and verification, we can restore historical information and pursue historical truth as much as possible.

The comparison of information first takes place in newspapers of the same period. Newspapers of the same period all report the same event, which from the information point of view, is to store information on the same topic, but due to the different perspectives and editorial thinking, newspapers will reflect different information. For example, after the 10 February 1946 incident at Jiaochangkou, both Xinhua Daily and Central Daily reported on it, but the two sides defined the nature and source of the incident in diametrically opposed ways. Xinhua Daily published an editorial titled “The Atrocities at the Jiaochangkou”, pointing out that this was a serious incident that violated the people’s right to freedom [2].

According to Central Daily News, the riot at the venue of the Jiaochangkou was caused by people beating each other, and people were responsible for each other, which is a fact that no one is allowed to misinterpret [3]. Such contradictory information not only leaves the people at that time unable to recognize the truth or falsity of the information but also makes us in the contemporary era doubtful.

But third-party reports can enhance the credibility of the restored historical information, and on 12 February, Ta Kung Pao reported that forty-two journalists from various newspapers in Chongqing exchanged views at yesterday’s meeting of the Sino-Soviet Association, sympathized with their beaten counterparts, and said that they would issue a joint statement on the same day to press charges. They also expressed their opinions on the Central News Agency’s news accounts of the events at Bichangkou and wrote an open letter, which the journalists present signed together to express their wishes [4]. From the reports of Ta Kung Pao, we can see that the information retained by most people in that era was compatible with the information reported by Xinhua Daily News, and thus the information retained by Xinhua Daily News is closer to historical facts.

“Things are related by differences, and information is presented in the relations of differences, and people recognize information through the relations of differences” [5]. Therefore, although some of the information retained in modern newspapers does not match the historical facts, a large part of it can be identified through the mutual corroboration between newspapers and other archival materials and other categories of textual information. Therefore, although some of the information in the modern press is inconsistent with historical facts, a large part of it can be identified and restored to its original form through cross-correction between newspapers and other archival materials.

4. Informatization Database and Modern Newspapers

The value of modern newspapers in exploring modern society is recognized by the world, and the Information Age has provided electronic information carriers for modern newspapers, so the establishment of electronic information databases for modern newspapers has come into being. This kind of database can organize and collect a huge number of modern newspapers and set keywords, titles, dates, and full text for searching and can spread the history of modern newspapers all over the world through the transmission of the network.

With the advent of information databases and the electronic age, the modern newspaper, as a carrier of information about modern society, has been transformed from a material carrier to a digital information carrier. The traditional concept of modern newspapers as historical materials is that they should be physical carriers, and the transmission of history is based on physical texts as the source of history, ignoring oral and audio–visual images and informational network materials. The physical text carrier has been used in the traditional system for thousands of years, but the essence of history is information, and the correct and effective transformation of the material carrier does not hinder the essential content of history as information but also broadens the speed and means of dissemination of history as information, and moves the textual information of modern newspapers as historical materials into computer information, forming a new form of historiographical materials in the information digital age.

To sum up, modern newspapers not only meet the information needs of people at the time in which information is published but also have great historical value as information retention carriers for studying the development of modern society. Without changing the essence of history as information, a new form of visual historiographic material is established at the information level, with modern newspaper databases serving as typical information databases.