We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
From Pictorial Weekly to Linloon Magazine: The Periodicals Production and Publishing Strategies of San Ho Company, 1920s-1930s.
- Authors
Li-ying Sun
- Abstract
Scholars have begun to examine how print publishers with extensive capital operated their businesses during the Republican era; however, studies of how publishers with reduced capital survived in the same market are relatively rare. Taking Linloon Magazine and Movie Radio News as examples, two of the periodicals collected in the database of “Early Chinese Periodicals Online,” this article investigates San Ho Company and its founder, Lin Zecang, the background of the publishing house, and the most important figures on its editorial boards. This study further outlines the publishing history and marketing strategies of the San Ho Company by comparing these two periodicals with other periodicals of the day and archival materials. Lin Zecang, manager of San Ho Company, received an excellent bilingual education at a church school and church university in Shanghai, and was familiar with the cultural trends of modern society. With outstanding instincts and the innovative spirit of the print market, he published a series of popular periodicals: Pictorial Weekly (Sheying huabao) (a cheaper version of the previous periodical entitled Juantongzhi huabao), Common Knowledge (Changshi), Linloon Magazine (Linglong), and Movie Radio News (Diansheng ribao), among others. His publishing enterprise exhibited what Appadurai conceptualized as “mediascapes” and “technoscapes” in the global cultural flow. Furthermore, Lin Zecang consciously promoted not only the role of “female editors,” but also the themes of gender relations in general. In this context, “Ms. Chen Zhenling,” most likely a pseudonym, was performed as an expert on “women’s questions”; in contrast, the gender of Liang Xinxi, the actual female editor of Movie Radio News as well as editor of Linloon for a few issues, was deliberately disguised. While San Ho Company gradually shaped Linloon Magazine to be a journal for modern urban women, the magazine title “Linglong” was commoditized as a brand. Under this brand, various San Ho products were sold, including a series of books related to the content of Linloon Magazine, as well as products related to the lifestyle intensively promoted by the journal.
- Subjects
CHINA; CHINESE periodicals; WOMEN'S magazines; SAN Ho Co.; LIN Zecang; POPULAR culture; PUBLISHING; CHINESE Republic, 1912-1949; TWENTIETH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Research on Women in Modern Chinese History / Jindai Zhongguo Funu Shi Yanjiu, 2014, Vol 23, p127
- ISSN
1029-4759
- Publication type
Article