晚清．民國的文化傳播與中國的現代性

2012 年10 月9 日，葉月瑜在浸會大學傳理學院組織了一場小範圍的研討會，探討「晚清．民國的文化政治」。我有幸參加了這一會議。與會者來自不同領域，但顯然都看中了這一主題的兩個特色：一是着眼於一個大動盪和大變革的歷史時代，二是關注新聞以外的傳播手段如小說、戲劇、電影等。會後，鑒於聽眾的熱烈反應，葉月瑜和我覺得這個主題仍有進一步探討之必要，於是提議在《傳播與社會學刊》上發行一個專輯，集中討論白話文、小說、戲劇、電影等通俗媒介的現代傳播功能，專輯的主題因此定焦為「晚清．民國的文化傳播與中國的現代性」。「中國的現代性」，作為這時期文化傳播的一個主要目標，泛指一整套以科學、民主、自由、進步、個性、時尚等現代原則為核心的價值理念。學刊編委會同意了我們的提議。我授命撰寫徵稿啟事，並於去年2 月在中華傳媒網上公開徵集稿件。

Late Qing and Republican China represent two important, yet largely overlooked, periods in the Chinese history of communication. These periods witnessed a large number of communication events, at various scales, that emerged to propagate the idea of modernity. Mainstream scholarship has tended to study these two periods from an elitist perspective by focusing on great political and cultural events such as the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s–1890s, the Reform Movement of the 1890s–1900s, and the New Culture Movement of 1915–1925 and by concentrating on leading figures such as Zhang Zhidong, Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong, Yan Fu, Chen Duxiu, and Hu Shi. Consequently, such studies have been blinded to the other side of modernist practice exemplified by popular journalists, fiction writers, movie makers, and many others. In contrast to the elitist approach, the mass and popular side of practice is explored in this special issue. Six studies are included, each providing a detailed analysis of a unique aspect of this mass and popular practice of the modernist campaign in the Late Qing and Republican China periods.