Myth created by mass media

Author: Liu Shaowen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This book attempts to study Zhang Henshu and his novel texts from a new perspective—the influence of the journalist's profession on the life and creative consciousness of a writer. In Zhang Henshu's life and creative awareness, the core impact of the journalist's profession is distinct: it not only changed his way of life but also corrected his traditional scholar's (negative withdrawal from the world), and determined his active engagement with the world and his creative consciousness of intervening in life. The journalist's profession influenced his novel texts in multiple ways: its material was largely derived from the news deposits accumulated through journalistic life; its focus on urban life and depiction of distorted society and deformed lives were both determined by the network layout of the newspaper medium and the critical consciousness of a journalist; the pure characters in Zhang Henshu's works, though untainted by the mire, all met tragic fates. The tragedy of these pure characters contained both a condemnation of the distorted society and an attempt to enhance communication effectiveness. One of the factors that made Zhang Henshu's novel texts appealing to a wide readership was their language, and the core influence on their language was the writing style of newspaper news—creating short sentences, emphasizing verbs, and using clichéd vocabulary. The degree of narrative freedom is crucial for the creation of extroverted realist novels, yet Zhang Henshu's narrative strategy was inseparable from journalistic elements—such as the journalist's perspective and the news persona. The "sub-genre" made the text's discourse "heterogeneous" and "socialized," while the "paratext" helped shape the text through the flexible use of media techniques. Even the limitations of the text—such as roughness and premature ending—were deeply marked by the negative imprint of mass media: this was both a common flaw of journalist-writers and an inherent problem of newspaper serials.