American pragmatism and Chinese
modernization: importing the Missouri model of
journalism education to modern China
Yong Z. Volz
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, USA
Chin-Chuan Lee
CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
Journalism education was an American invention, oriented from the beginning
toward the training of vocational skills. Older European and elite US universities had rejected journalism education for a perceived lack of a specialized
body of expert knowledge. Harvard, for example, turned down an endowment
from Joseph Pulitzer for establishing a journalism school; the money was
accepted reluctantly by Columbia to launch the now-renowned Journalism
School in 1912. Boorstin (1978) argues that applied vocational fields (notably,
agricultural colleges) gained their academic legitimacy mostly in Midwestern
land-grant state universities, where one of the proclaimed missions was community service, which was regarded as being as important as teaching abstract
knowledge. The development of journalism education might have paralleled
the legitimization process of applied fields in American universities. Missouri
founded the world’s first journalism school in 1908, and by the 1930s journalism education was firmly established in major Midwestern land-grant universities. Part of the impetus came from strong lobbying efforts of state press
associations and publishers who saw a university journalism curriculum as a
way to enhance the occupational prestige of the trade (Carey, 2000).
Even though many countries came to adopt American journalism education, it has continued to be met with suspicion. None of the Ivy League institutions in the United States has joined Columbia to offer a degree in practical
journalism. What’s most intriguing is that US-style journalism education
Media, Culture & Society © 2009 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New
Delhi and Singapore), Vol. 31(5): 711–730
[ISSN: 0163-4437 DOI: 10.1177/0163443709339455]
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found little resistance in China, and the premier Peking University was the
first to introduce a journalism curriculum with enthusiasm as early as 1918.
Two Christian universities (St John’s in Shanghai and Yenching in Beijing)
soon established journalism departments in 1921 and 1924, both following
the University of Missouri model. By 1937, of the 32 public and private universities, 26 had established journalism departments, with the most influential ones either founded by Americans or led by US-educated Chinese
scholars (Fang, 1996: 355; Liang, 1937; Liu, 1940: 8–9). This article examines the social context in which US journalism education (especially the
Missouri model) was transplanted to Republican China in the early 20th century, a period when the nation was eager to seek Western-style modernization
and to achieve emancipation from its semi-colonial condition, mired in cultural influences from multiple Western imperialist powers.
Specifically we aim to address the following questions: Why did the
American model (not any other foreign models) of journalistic training come
to be adopted in China? What role did American individuals and institutions –
above all, the embedded values of American pragmatism – play in shaping the
approach and practice of journalism education in China? And how did they
justify America’s journalistic mission to China? On the other hand, why did
Chinese intellectuals and newspapermen enthusiastically embrace Americanstyle journalism education, especially the ‘Missouri Method’? How did they
appropriate the Missouri curriculum and install journalism education as part
of their modernization project? In answering these questions, we have drawn
on a previously unexamined and original body of memoirs, letters, newspapers and archival documents that we have sought out in major Chinese collections in US universities, the Shanghai Library and the Capital Library of
China, and the archives at the University of Missouri.
The history of Chinese journalism education has attracted some attention
from Chinese scholars, but the work is mostly descriptive. De Burgh (2003)
provides a useful analysis in English. This article seeks to identify three interrelated social conditions for the emergence of journalism education in China:
China in semi-colonial status and the increasing discursive contestation among
Western powers in China; American expansionism and its increasing political
and economic interest in China; and the intensified nationalism that in part
prompted Chinese intellectuals to pursue modernization through the installation of journalistic professionalization. We maintain that these semi-colonial
conditions were crystallized from the 1910s to the 1930s to provide a larger
backdrop for US journalism education to be imported into China.
Semi-colonialism and journalistic contestation among imperial powers
China was in a semi-colonial condition throughout the late 19th and the early
20th centuries. Of the many approaches to understand the nuanced impact of this
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semi-colonial condition on Chinese cultural and political life (e.g. Goodman,
2000; Osterhammel, 1986; Shih, 2001; Wagner, 1995), we focus on two
aspects. First, the co-presence of colonial powers (Britain, Germany, France,
the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan) implied that China’s journalism took on a mixed and transnational character in terms of news production
and readership (Britton, 1933; Goodman, 2004; Mittler, 2004). However,
alongside the increasing colonial competition, the dominant influence on
Chinese journalism shifted from British to American style. American influence on Chinese journalism education was unequivocal. Second, China’s
semi-colonial condition is what Gallagher and Robinson (1953) would call
‘informal’ imperialism, not striving for military occupation but primarily to
achieve trade gains and cultural influence. Despite their extraterritorial privileges, foreign powers had to acknowledge Chinese sovereignty and exert their
influences through the networks of local elites and compradors (Goodman,
2000). In transplanting American journalism education, US-trained Chinese
intellectuals played a crucial role.
The first modern Chinese-language newspapers were published by Western
missionaries to circulate evangelical messages and spread Western knowledge. Chinese intellectuals keenly read those newspapers to acquire Western
learning and appreciated the press’s power of enlightenment. Given the potential for market growth and trade, Western businessmen joined the missionaries to publish Chinese-language dailies in the late 19th century (Mittler,
2004). By the early 20th century, major Western news services (including
Reuters, the Associated Press, Havas, Wolff and Kokusai) had all established
posts in China. ‘The foreign press in China’, reported Justice Richard Feetham
to the Shanghai Municipal Office, ‘occupy a position of peculiar responsibility, both as purveyors of news and as commentators on questions of current
interest.…The public which they inform, and seek to guide, includes large
numbers of Chinese as well as foreign readers’ (Chao, 1931: i).
As competition among colonial powers intensified, journalism became a
site of contestation over national interest and prestige. Archibald Colquhoun,
a British writer, was particularly concerned about Japanese newspapers’
growing domination in China and urged that the British and American newspapers give China ‘a true perspective’ about ‘what our civilization and religion and philosophy are before he rejects them finally’ (Colquhoun, 1906:
104). Meanwhile, in observing the vast influence of Reuters and the
Associated Press, Genichiro Tatai, a prominent Japanese journalist, proposed
that the Japanese Foreign Office establish a special news agency in order to
‘air Tokyo’s view in China’ (Chao, 1931: 32). In fact, the Japanese government had already subsidized a host of Chinese, Japanese and English language
newspapers in China in the 1920s to carry on intensive anti-US propaganda
and to justify its aggression in China (China Weekly Review, 1927). The
American-led Press Congress of the World drafted a proposal at its 1922 conference similar in spirit to the US official ‘open door policy’, urging that all
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imperial nations be allowed to establish ‘a free and open field in China for all
the news agencies’ on an equal footing. The Press Congress claimed that ‘it
must been seen that the improvement of foreign news service to China is a
matter depending mainly upon foreign initiative’ (Glass, 1922: 7).
The most aggressive journalistic contestation occurred between Britain and
the US. As the world’s foremost imperialist power, Britain had held journalistic monopoly in China since the mid 19th century. According to the China
Year Book (1919–20), of the 44 foreign-language newspapers published, 25
were in Shanghai and mostly British-owned. Reuters, along with Britishowned North China Daily News and Peking & Tientsin Times, was most influential among Western readers and was also a major source of international
news for Chinese newspapers. In addition, British-owned Chinese-language
Shenbao and Xinwenbao enjoyed the biggest circulation. However, with the
notable exception of Wanguo gongbao and a few other missionary newspapers, Americans had exerted little influence on China’s journalism until the
turn of the 20th century. Having undergone several economic crises in the
previous decades, the US now found itself strongly interested in expanding
the China market. This coincided with the Progressive Movement that sought
to restore public confidence and preserve American idealism at home and to
support the US’s imperial rise onto the world stage (Healy, 1970; May, 1968).
The US as a latecomer in China challenged the British monopoly by appealing to such universalist principles as anti-colonialism, national independence
and equality of nations. Upholding these slogans, Americans did not arouse
such intense Chinese resentment as did Europeans.
Journalism figured importantly in the Anglo-American competition.
American journalists made constant references to British newspapers. George
Sokolsky (1919) wrote: ‘What is needed most in Shanghai now is a real
American daily’ to ‘aggressively protect American interests as the North
China Daily News protects British interests.’ Echoed Charles Crane, US
Minister to China: ‘We have a great role to play [in journalism], and the role
that is entirely American and cannot be counterfeited by any other nation’
(cited in Rozanski, 1974: 313). Thomas Millard, a veteran correspondent
from Missouri, launched two English-language weeklies in Shanghai, the
China Press (1911) and the Millard’s Review (1917), hoping to carve a space
for American voices and break the British monopoly. President Theodore
Roosevelt enthusiastically encouraged Millard to use journalism both as a
tool for promoting American expansion in China and for transforming
American indifference into support for a pro-China policy (Rozanski, 1974).
In 1918, John B. Powell and Carl Crow established an American press agency
in Shanghai with funds from various US interests, aiming to compete with
Reuters by distributing translated news to Chinese newspapers. These
American efforts were of course not welcomed by the British. Soon after
Millard’s Review began its circulation, O.M. Green, editor of the North China
Daily News, launched a broadside attack on Millard’s alleged pro-German
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editorials that were in fact reflecting the then US neutral stance on the war.
Green’s attack led British advertisers to boycott both the Review and the
China Press, eventually forcing Millard to sell the China Press in 1918 to a
British merchant (China Weekly Review, 1930: 168–9).
Despite British resistance, American newspapers and news services managed to make inroads in China in the 1920s. The United Press set up offices
in six major Chinese cities; the primary concern was to ‘wrest the news
monopoly from Reuter’s’ (Chao, 1931: 64). The Shanghai Evening Post and
Mercury, which the American Newspaper Company purchased from British
interests in the 1920s, soon became Shanghai’s second largest foreign-language
paper. By the early 1930s, the Editor and Publisher proudly announced that
most leading native Chinese newspapers had been Americanized. These
papers not only began using American printing technology but also adopted
terse American-style news treatment and informative headlines in place of
old-fashioned British ‘label’ headines (i.e. a headline without a verb which
conveys no definite facts) (White, 1935). This transition was advocated by an
American-trained Chinese elite and prominent graduates of US-funded
Chinese journalism programs. Dong Xianguang (Hollington Tong), an early
journalism graduate of Missouri and Columbia, introduced the US inverted
pyramid writing style in his Chinese-language daily, Yongbao, and changed
the traditional Chinese vertical text layout to a horizontal one. Chinese editors watched his moves with interest, and several of them soon followed suit
(Nash, 1931: 450). Sun Ruijin, assistant manager of Reuters in Beijing, also
noted a trend towards American-style journalism as China’s leading press
increasingly recruited American-trained journalism students (Sun, 1935).
Indeed, though Americans competed for influence with British and other
colonial powers in newspaper publishing, American influence on Chinese
journalism education was unrivaled.
Idealism and realism: exporting journalism education to China
Modern Chinese universities were launched by Western Protestant missionaries –
mainly Americans – in the 1880s. These universities taught secular ‘Western
knowledge’ (such as natural sciences and medicine) as a means to advance
Christian influence in China. The curricula were further secularized in the
early 20th century to meet China’s occupational needs (Liu, 1960), thus proving conducive to the institutionalization of journalism education in China.
The American Episcopal Church Mission founded St John’s University in
Shanghai as one of the biggest Christian colleges in China. Its President, F.L.
Hawks Pott, stressed that Chinese higher education: ‘must be a means for
training men for professional life, private enterprise, and industry, as well as
for the government service’ (Pott, 1913: 164). He considered the press to be
‘a most useful organ in the spread of democratic opinions and leavening of
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Chinese thought with new ideas and conceptions’ (1913: 172). In 1921 he
hired Donald Patterson, editor of Millard’s Review, to inaugurate a journalism
department at St John’s (Columbia Missourian, 1921: 2). In Beijing, John
Leighton Stuart, an American Presbyterian missionary and the first president
of Yenching University, proposed a journalism department to the university
trustees in 1919. Having secured a grant from the family of Willard Straight,
a prominent American business figure in China, Stuart recruited Roswell
Britton (a Columbia graduate) and Vernon Nash (a Missouri graduate) to start
the journalism department in 1924 (Nash, 1932). In his memoir, Stuart reiterated: ‘I was keenly interested in stressing vocational courses, with an especial
view to the outlet for expressing the Christian spirit and meeting social needs’
(Stuart, 1954: 69). Identifying journalism as his ‘special pet’, he argued:
‘Newspapers were coming to be increasingly influential in Chinese life, and
the inculcation of high standards of editing and ethics seemed especially
worthwhile at what was almost the inception of a new profession’ (1954: 70).
American involvement in Chinese journalism education deepened in the
early 1930s. In 1933, the Council of Higher Education of the China Christian
Educational Association passed a resolution in favor of expanding journalism
education, under the auspices of Christian institutions, in order to ‘render
practical service to China’s present journalism and contribute to an improvement in the standards and status of the profession’ (Nash, 1934b). During this
period, deans of American journalism schools and members of the Council
on Education for Journalism of the American Association of Schools and
Departments of Journalism, including Willard Bleyer of Wisconsin, Frank
Martin and Walter Williams of Missouri, E.W. Allen of Oregon, and Vernon
McKensie of Washington, had taught or given talks in Chinese universities
(Nash, 1934a). Publishers and editors of the major American press joined the
efforts. Melville Stone of the Associated Press, Karl Bickel of the United
Press, Walter Strong of Chicago Daily News, Joseph Pulitzer Jr of the St Louis
Post-Dispatch, Willis Abbot of Christian Science Monitor, Donald Clark of
Mid-Continent Banker, Heywood Brown of the New York World Telegram,
Van-Lear Black of the Sun, among many others, visited China and gave lectures
to Chinese journalists (Nash, 1934b: 6–8; Yenta Journalism News, 1931a: 3).
As with other experiences of cultural interaction, American involvement in
Chinese journalism education grew out of both idealistic and realistic traditions that characterized the American colonial approach. American ideals of
democracy, liberty and progress were assumed to be universally applicable.
The Progressive Movement in the early 20th century reaffirmed this idealism.
Gans (1979: 204) suggests that the reformist ‘enduring values’ of American
journalism – such as altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, individualism and moderation – originated in the Progressive Movement. Journalism
was considered a key institution to cultivate an informed citizenry for democracy, and to combat the perceived social decay that was thought to have been
caused by the rapid social changes of industrialization, urbanization and
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immigration (Hardt, 1992: 31–76). As an adjunct to promoting progressivism,
journalism education not only gained legitimacy within the US but also was
spread overseas. Transposing this idealism to China, Walter Williams wrote:
China, in changing from an absolute monarchy to a republic, from an ancient civilization to a modern democracy, offers native journalism an unparalleled opportunity for public service and unselfish guidance. The steady hand and the wise
counsel of a patriotic native journalism is badly needed to assist in the stupendous
task of turning the disordered, unsettled, and conservative nation into a prosperous,
peaceful, and democratic republic. (1928: 12–13)
Stuart hoped that Yenching’s journalism education would ‘help to dignify the
profession and to raise the standards for those entering it by the aims and
achievements of our graduates’ (S. Williams, 1936a). St John’s also aimed to
train idealistic Chinese newspapermen to become ‘of invaluable service to
their country and to their community in the spread of public intelligence and
a practical guidance of the mass mind’ (Lamberton, 1955: 117).
As part of the ‘manifest destiny’ ordained by idealism, Americans took on
the self-appointed and altruistic role of educational adviser to China (Hamilton,
1986). Maurice Votaw, before leaving for Shanghai to teach at St John’s, told
an American reporter: ‘Since the Chinese know nothing of the theory of journalism, the introduction of American principles will be a true service to
China’, and ‘it is up to America to make the first step to improve the press of
China’ (Columbia Missourian, 1922). Vernon Nash, who headed Yenching’s
journalism department in the late 1920s, tried to secure funds from American
publishers, arguing such support:
… would have the double value of demonstrating to Chinese journalists and students that American journalists had confidence in the worth-whileness of education
for journalism; such a fund would also stand as a gesture of good-will from the
American ‘Fourth Estate’ to the new and rapidly growing journalism of China.
(Nash, 1932)
American idealism was blended with realism in such a way that a clearly
defined American interest was pursued with a pragmatic calculation of resources
and commitments. American publishers and editors saw journalism education
in China as both benefiting American economic interest and expanding
its political influence. Kansas City Journal-Post thus commented on Walter
Williams’ efforts in sponsoring Yenching’s journalism program:
There is a wealth of sentiment for the undertaking.… Yet sentiment is not the only
impulse in this movement. It is possible to see full practicality; there are business
and political and social ends which will richly be served by the project. Of course
all these benefits will be shared by the outside world as they come to China;
America might especially be expected to profit thereby. (1928: 3)
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Missouri students and faculty considered his undertaking ‘as one of the biggest
opportunities of world significance that has thus far come to Missouri’
(Missouri Alumnus, 1928: 1). Walter Strong, publisher of the Chicago Daily
News and the first donor to the Yenching program, saw his contribution as an
investment in American interests. In a letter to Williams, Strong wrote:
If China is to be redeemed it must have the foundation of a good press. The
increase in literacy and rapidly changing sociological conditions make it extremely
important that the United States have a part of this venture.… [T]here is no greater
opportunity for effective educational work requiring so little money and having
such large possibilities of return. No one can tell how important to the United
States the future development of China will be. (Moy, 1929: 524)
Based on commercial and political values, many American news organizations
(including the New York Times, New York Sun, the E.W. Scripps Co., the
United Press, the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Missouri
Press Association) supported the Yenching project, despite the Great
Depression. By 1930, an initial endowment of $70,000 (gold) was raised
(Columbia Missourian, 1929: 7; Nash, 1932).
Walter Williams, dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, was undoubtedly the most recognized cultural agent in transplanting the ‘American method’
to China (Lau, 1949; Ma, 2005; Powell, 1946). On Williams’ death in 1935,
most leading Chinese newspapers paid tribute to his seminal contribution
(Ellard, 1936: 76–7). Like many of his peers, he held passionate convictions
about political progress and Christianity (Farrar, 1998). In 1909, barely a year
after he founded the Missouri School of Journalism, Williams was already
eager to present his school to China and beyond. He wrote to American
Consular Services in Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai, inquiring if Chinese
institutions taught journalism (American Consular Service, 1909). In 1914,
sponsored by the Kahn Foundation for the Foreign Travel of American
Teachers, Williams visited China for the first time as part of his world study
tour on journalism (Williams, 1914). While in China, he gave speeches to
Chinese professional organizations, urging the Chinese to initiate Missourilike programs ‘in order to systematically train journalists for the ultimate goal
of developing the Chinese economy’ (Shenbao, 1914: 2, cited in Ma, 2005,
translation ours). Generously received, he visited China four more times in
1919, 1921, 1927 and 1928, all with a view to replicating the Missouri model
in the new-found frontier. In a monograph he wrote after these visits, Williams
reaffirmed that journalism education was a key not only to establishing ‘a powerful and enlightened free press’ in China but also for ‘making a new China’.
He concluded: ‘The future of the great nation is largely in the hands of the educated, courageous, and high-minded young journalists of China’ (1928: 17).
Inspired by Williams’ missionary zeal and his wide connections in China,
more than 40 Missouri journalism graduates found their way to China during
the 1920s and 1930s (Rand, 1990: 206). Among those who made their careers
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Volz & Lee, American pragmatism and Chinese modernization
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as China correspondents were John Powell, Irene Fisher, Horace Felton, Don
Patterson, Hayden Nichols, Norman Ulbright, Louise Wilson, Morris James
Harris, Margaret Woods, Victor Keen, Henry Misselwitz, John Morris, Edgar
Snow, James White, Francis Gapp, Karl Espilund and Hugh Crumpler
(Powell, 1946: 52; S. Williams, 1929). Furthermore, the Missouri-China network was institutionalized in 1928, when Missouri helped Yenching University
reorganize its journalism program toward developing ‘a class-A school of
journalism in the capital of China’ (Missouri Alumnus, 1928: 1). Williams
formed an American advisory and promotion committee, and obtained an
endowment fund from American publishers to guarantee the minimal operating budget of the Yenching program for the first five years. An exchange professorship was established, with Frank Martin as the first Missouri professor
to visit Yenching. The Yenching-Missouri Fellowship was put in place with
Lu Qixin as the first Chinese student to study at Missouri and Samuel D.
Groff, a recent graduate from Missouri, to pursue graduate studies at Yenching
(Columbia Missourian, 1930: 4; Yenta Journalism News, 1931b: 1). In addition,
500 books on journalism were given to Yenching by James Melvin Lee, head
of the Department of Journalism at New York University; the collection was
further added to by other American professors and publishers (Moy, 1929:
524; Yenta Journalism News, 1930: 5). Yenching’s journalism library subscribed to more than 10 American journalism journals (including Public
Opinion Quarterly, Journalism Quarterly and Propaganda Analysis) and
major American newspapers (including the New York Times, Christian
Science Monitor and New York Daily News) (Liu, 1940: 32–3).
The well-known ‘Missouri Method’, a hands-on, occupational ‘toolkit’
approach, with the belief that the best way to learn about journalism is to
practice it, was adopted by Chinese universities. Most Yenching faculty
received Missouri training and followed the Missouri curriculum. Courses
were offered in four main areas: news and editorial curriculum, business management curriculum, journalistic specializations, and the profession of journalism (Department of Journalism at Yenching, 1931: 3). Syllabuses, textbooks
and even assignments were copied from Missouri as well. A laboratory newspaper, Yenching News, was modeled after Missouri’s Columbia Missourian.
Borrowing the idea from Missouri’s ‘Journalism Week’, Yenching initiated
the annual ‘Journalism Institute’, inviting scholars and prominent Chinese
newspapermen to give speeches (Wang, 1931: 230).
The ‘Missouri Method’ was widely referred to as the ‘American method’. Its
influence went far beyond Yenching to reach other Chinese universities, primarily through the mediation of Missouri graduates. At St John’s, both founders of
the journalism department, Don Patterson and Maurice Votaw, were Missouri
graduates; lectures were delivered in English with a heavy reliance upon the
Missouri curriculum and textbooks. As at Missouri, students produced the
St John’s Dial, one of the first college newspapers in China (Lamberton, 1955:
117). Other Missouri graduates also planted the Missouri model throughout
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China: Huang Xianzhao (Hin Wong) at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangdong;
Wang Yingbin at Jinan University and Guanghua University in Shanghai; Ma
Xingye at the Central Political Institute in Nanjing in 1935; and Qian Bohan
started the Shenbao Correspondence School of Journalism in 1932 (Shenbao,
1935). The founder of Fudan University’s journalism department, Xie Liuyi,
had obtained his training from Japan’s Waseda University, but he hired two
Missouri graduates and proudly advertised his curriculum in the newspaper to
show how closely it resembled Missouri’s (Xie, 1930). Cheng Shewo set up a
journalism trade school in 1933, three years after his visit to Missouri
(MacKinnon, 1997; Yenda Journalism News, 1931: 3). Cheng (1935) even
made an ambitious proposal that, if it had been carried out, would have
expanded the Missouri model to a seven-year curriculum.
Chinese adoption and adaptation
While the history of Chinese journalism education cannot be understood apart
from the role played by Americans, aspirations for enhancing Chinese journalistic professionalization did not begin with Americans. It was Chinese intellectuals’ attempts to seek modernization through a morally and politically
responsible press that lent legitimacy to American-style journalism education
in China. Early modernizers from Wang Tao, Yan Fu and Liang Qichao to
other late Qing literati-journalists had written about the importance of establishing standards for the Chinese press. They concentrated on the enlightenment
function of the press and emphasized the moral character and expert training
of the editors. Several Western textbooks on journalistic skills were translated
in the 1900s and 1910s. In 1912, the recently founded Chinese Association for
the advancement of National Newspapers, consisting of newspaper owners and
editors, proposed to launch a journalism school to ‘equip professionals with
expert knowledge and elevate journalism as a profession’ (Ge, 1928: 259,
translation ours). For want of an appropriate model and requisite resources, the
proposal did not materialize. China had to wait until Missouri offered a model.
At the same time that America’s elite universities rejected journalism education, China’s premier Peking University was the first to embrace it. In 1918,
ten years after the Missouri journalism school appeared, President Cai Yuanpei
supported a young instructor, Xu Baohuang, who had recently graduated from
the University of Michigan with a training in journalism and economics, to
organize the Journalism Study Society as an extracurricular body. Using two
American textbooks, Harry Harrington and Theodore Frankenberg’s Essentials
in Journalism and John Given’s Making of Newspaper, Xu lectured twice a
week to a group of 55 students on topics ranging from interview techniques to
journalistic ethics (Ge, 1928: 260). A year later, he published the first Chineseauthored journalism textbook, Xinwenxue (Basics of Journalism; Xu, 1919),
closely following US texts in content and chapter arrangement.
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Volz & Lee, American pragmatism and Chinese modernization
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The founding of the Society coincided with the outbreak of the progressive
May Fourth Movement led by Peking University professors and students
(Weston, 2004). The Movement, which was originally launched to oppose
Japanese aggressors and corrupt Chinese officials, spawned a momentous and
radical New Culture Movement, seeking to break from what was seen as
‘feudalistic’ Confucian tradition and to adopt Western science and democracy.
Various Western doctrines were imported, particularly those which echoed
the cultural criticism and nationalist impulse of the movement. John Dewey’s
version of American pragmatism became especially popular among Chinese
intellectuals, owing in no small measure to its vigorous promotion by Dr Hu
Shi, a former student of Dewey at Columbia University who was rapidly
establishing himself as China’s foremost liberal intellectual leader (Yu, 2004).
Chinese intellectuals saw pragmatism as embodying science and democracy,
two essential elements required to save China from backwardness, ignorance,
weakness and foreign domination. Furthermore, insofar as pragmatists
believed that public knowledge was a prerequisite for democracy (Heikkila
and Kunelius, 1996), this created fertile ground for journalism education to be
transplanted into Chinese universities. Chinese intellectuals aspired to use the
press as a powerful instrument of public enlightenment, national consciousness
and mass mobilization.
Based on this political understanding of journalism and their desire to establish new moral authority, Chinese intellectuals felt the need to raise journalistic
standards through formal university-based training. Journalism was seen as a
form of social research, and journalism education was believed to encompass a
strong moral dimension. Speaking at the opening meeting of the Peking
University Reporters’ Society in 1922, Hu Shi and Li Dazhao (one of the early
founders of the Chinese Communist Party) both emphasized newspapers’ duty
to conduct social research, to discuss social problems and to search for solutions to such problems (Chenbao, 1922: 3). The revered President Cai of Peking
University departed from his German training to endorse American-style practical journalism as a legitimate academic discipline (Cai, 1919). In line with the
Deweyan pragmatic approach, he argued for the need to study journalism systematically and to test journalism theories against the practice and apply theories to improve practice (Cai, 1919). Encouraging the Journalism Study Society
to expand into a full university department, he emphasized that journalism
education should aim to improve the moral character of the Chinese press and
ultimately serve Chinese democracy (Cai, 1919). Xie Liuyi, founder of Fudan
University’s journalism department, claimed that newspapers should serve to
diffuse public knowledge and elevate public morality; to that end, journalism
education should offer a curriculum beyond occupational skills and include
knowledge of history, art, politics and economics needed for achieving moral
and economic modernity (Xie, 1930: 277).
Why did the Missouri model conquer China without encountering much
resistance, with leading intellectuals, newspapermen, and officials all looking
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up to it? One reason was the unparalleled charismatic force of its chief
promoter, Walter Williams. He doubled up as empire builder, academic activist
and super-promoter of his program – and, equally important, was someone
with an abiding commitment to China. But most significantly, China was at a
crossroads of political and cultural change, and intellectuals were eager to
upgrade journalistic practice by instituting journalism education. At this juncture, the Missouri model was perceived to meet China’s pressing needs. That
Hu Shi served as the interpreter of Walter Williams’ lectures during his 1921
China visit (Ma, 2005) indicates that China’s intellectual leaders accorded
high value to the gospel of journalism education that Williams brought. A
staunch promoter of Deweyan pragmatism and admirer of New Republic, Hu
Shi called for newspapers to study ‘the real, practical problems of Chinese
society’ instead of participating in the debates raging in China on what he
called ‘the dead materials of isms’ (Chenbao, 1922: 3). Hu’s pragmatic orientation was compatible with the ‘Missouri Method’ in the emphasis on learningby-doing and press ethics.
The Kuhnian sense of a paradigm entailed not only a constellation of abstract
ideas but also a set of feasible exemplars for practice and problem-solving
(Kuhn, 1962). The intellectual climate was ripe for adopting Missouri’s downto-earth, how-to hands-on approach, which was, after all, not difficult for
Chinese institutions to transplant. Moreover, the Missouri curriculum eschewed
abstract or theoretical musings but preferred to instill in students a sense of what
was considered the ‘correct’ way of practicing journalism (Merrill, 2005). This
normative emphasis on ‘social responsibility’ came in handy to fill the moral
vacuum perceived by many leading Chinese intellectuals, who despised the
press for displaying low ethical standards and poor quality. Lin Yutang (1936:
141), among others, accused Shanghai’s leading newspapers of being ‘mosquito
tabloids’ or gossip and trivia mongers. The basic ethical principles Williams
promulgated were widely taught in Chinese journalism programs; these principles even came to form the foundation for a Chinese code of journalistic conduct first drafted by Ma Xingye. In sum, Missouri provided a timely ‘paradigm’
for Chinese journalism, not only bringing a gestalt view of social responsibility
to help cure its common ills, but also offering Chinese emulators an easy and
effective exemplar of how to teach journalism. Notwithstanding a general consensus on the press as a crucial agent of modernization, China had to wait for
returned students (especially those from Missouri) to bring back a ready-made
model of journalism education for implementation. Dong Xianguang was
‘determined to make it my life work to introduce modern American journalistic practice into China’ (Tong, 1950: 3). By the early 1930s, at least 20 Chinese
students had studied at Missouri, many of whom later became deeply involved
in Chinese journalism education.
Peking University may have heralded journalism education in China, but
after the 1920s the center of gravity moved to Yenching University, whose
journalism department established the standard for China in the pattern of the
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Volz & Lee, American pragmatism and Chinese modernization
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Missouri model. In a letter to Williams, Zhang Jiluan, chief editor of the
widely respected Dagongbao, thanked Missouri for investing in Yenching:
‘[N]o nobler cause is served than helping to develop this press into a truly
powerful force not only for the good of China but for the mutual benefit of
our two countries.’ Zhang not only expected journalism education to help
establish journalistic norms, but also hoped it would help to rebuild China
into ‘a thoroughly modern and progressive nation’ and strengthen ‘the bonds
of Sino-American friendship’ (quoted in Chang, 1936). The inspired Chinese
publishers and editors made financial contributions; they also assisted journalism students in their internship and employment (Liang, 1946: 70). The
core staff writers at Dagongbao were mostly from Yenching: Jiang Yin-en,
Zhu Qiping, Xiao Qian, Tang Zhengchang, Liu Kelin and Tan Wenrui, all of
whom later fondly recalled in memoirs the happy days of their Missourimodeled Yenching training.
In addition, Chinese government and officials also lent credence to the
Missouri paradigm. In 1931, Wu Chaochu, China’s minister to the US, traveled to Missouri School of Journalism to present two ancient stone lions on
behalf of the Chinese government as a tribute to the School’s contribution to
Chinese journalism education and gratitude for ‘sending a stream of young
college-bred newspapermen out to interpret the affairs and the people in
China’ (Missouri School of Journalism, 1931: 18). Lurking beneath the official rhetoric was the Chinese government’s growing sensitivity to the sway of
American public opinion and a conscious attempt to solicit support from
American correspondents. Attaching great importance to training journalists
cum propagandists, the Chinese government mandated in 1930 that all
government-funded universities should ‘establish schools of journalism as
soon as possible’ (Nash, 1931: 451). In 1935, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Ma
Xingye, a young Missouri graduate, to organize a department of journalism
at the Central Political Institute in Nanjing. Ma set up a curriculum based on
his alma mater to train government propagandists.
Several significant changes took place to increase Chinese engagement.
First, it was thought necessary to adapt the Missouri model to suit ‘the needs
and environment of Chinese newspapers’ (Liu, 1940: 27). Noting that the
goals and theories of journalism education were universal, Liu argued that the
curriculum should be designed in accordance with China’s ‘specific situation’
and the ‘specific requirements’ of its journalism (1940: 27). Two Chinese
educators – first Huang Xianzhao (a Missouri graduate) and then Liang
Shichun (a DePauw journalism graduate) – succeeded Nash as the department
chair at Yenching when Nash returned to the US in 1931. In addition to hiring more Chinese Missouri graduates (e.g. Wang Yingbin, Zhang Jiying, Tang
Decheng and Lu Qixin), they invited local newspaper editors and publishers
(e.g. J.C. Sun of the Guowen News Agency and Guan Yixian of Shibao) to
join the faculty (Yenta Journalism News, 1931b: 1). ‘I believe in full
cooperation with local journalists in running the department’, Huang Xiaozhao
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explained in a letter to Walter Williams, ‘and facilities is being offered
(by these newspapers and newspapermen) at all times to students to observe
and participate in some of the work there’ (Wong, 1932). While American
textbooks continued to serve as major references, Chinese faculty began to
write their own texts in their native language. The division of teaching responsibilities between Chinese and American instructors was also reconfigured.
Sara Williams, a visiting professor to Yenching in 1936, observed that courses
on journalistic techniques were taught by Chinese with local newspaper experience while American professors were assigned to teach chiefly survey
courses – Comparative Journalism, History of Journalism, Problems of the
Publisher, and Principles of Advertising (S. Williams, 1936b). American journalism theories were held to be of cross-cultural validity, but the local context
of practice was being emphasized.
Second, while continuing to pursue American support, Yenching launched
fundraising campaigns to engage the Chinese journalistic community. Huang
Xianzhao organized the Chinese Journalism Education Society in 1933 to
attract funding from Chinese newspapers. When the Missouri fund for
Yenching was exhausted in 1934, a Chinese advisory committee was formed.
The committee, consisting of publishers and editors from leading Chinese
newspapers, was headed by Zhang Jiluan of Dagong bao, Chen Bosheng of
Chen bao and Xiao Tongzi of the Central News Agency. Soon, three leading
Beijing newspapers each pledged a contribution of $2000 per year, as did
several Shanghai newspapers (Ma, 1937; Nash, 1934c). The department also
sought patronage from the Chinese government, officials and even warlords.
Ye Chucang, secretary-general of the Nationalist Party, was added as honorary chairman of the department’s advisory committee (Yenching News,
1936). The official Central News Agency gave $1000 annually (Nash, 1934c),
as did Marshall Sun Chuanfang of Tianjing (S. Williams, 1936b). The biggest
donation, $50,000, came from the young Marshall Zhang Xueliang (Nash,
1934c), a warlord who had lost Manchuria to Japan in 1931 and was eager to
build popular support to fight against Japanese aggression.
A third change occurred in response to the rising wave of anti-Japanese
sentiments in the early 1930s which prompted many Chinese intellectuals
to support the propaganda role of the press. Yenching sharply reduced the
Missouri-copied business management curriculum and canceled such businessoriented courses as advertising sales and media accounting on grounds that
they were ‘inapplicable to the Chinese press in the underdeveloped market
economy’ (Liu, 1940: 27–8; translation ours). Instead, propaganda techniques
and government public relations were added to the curriculum to train publicists to promote China’s external image in order to win international support
against Japanese aggression. Liang Shichun explained the curriculum change
as necessary to meet the need for international publicity in a period of national
crisis (North China Star, 1936).
His explanation represented a prevailing nationalist sentiment which advocated that journalism education should serve the national interest. Journalism
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Volz & Lee, American pragmatism and Chinese modernization
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educators rallied around the national cause, believing that the press should
mobilize public support to oppose Japanese aggression through control of negative opinion. The propaganda courses ‘proved to be a most popular undertaking on the Yenching campus’ (Liang, 1946: 71). Along with government
publicity courses, editorial courses were given more weight: in 1933 the New
China, an opinion monthly, was added to the news-oriented Yenching Gazette
to ‘enable the students to express themselves in connection with the study of
editorial and feature writings’ (Wong, 1933). The department organized its
1936 annual Journalism Institute around the topic ‘The Press and National
Crisis’ (Yenching News, 1936: 1). Yenching was not alone. Ma Xingye and several other Missouri graduates introduced more political instruction courses at
the Central Political Institute, ranging from the policy of the Nationalist Party,
public opinion and propaganda to press law, international news communication and current affairs (Ma, 1939: 394). During the war, many Missouri-trained
graduates showed no qualms over becoming government publicists and censors. Even the most independent Dagongbao willingly submitted itself to
government censorship under the exigencies of national crisis.
Conclusion and discussions
The first generation of Chinese journalists in the late 19th century, such as
Liang Qichao, looked to The Times of London for inspiration. With America’s
expansion in the Far East in the early 20th century, which challenged Britain’s
news monopoly in China, Chinese newspapermen began to turn toward the
American model of journalism. Journalism education at the university level
emerged first and was most fully developed in the US. American journalism
education finds its philosophical footing in a Deweyan pragmatism, both in
terms of championing the press as a vital instrument of civic engagement and
in terms of encouraging public universities to accept more vocational curricula such as journalism. As a product of the Progressive Movement at the turn
of the 20th century, it symbolized a model of social responsibility to combat
sensationalism and excessive commercialism in the media.
While there have been constant debates as to whether journalism education
should be an academic, liberal one, or a hands-on practical training (Reese,
1999), the relevance of journalism education to improving press performance
has been much less contentious. More and more countries have followed
Americans and included journalism in their university structure. However,
given its peculiar historical origin, the global diffusion of American journalism education and its local adoption is neither self-justified nor universal. The
unusual popularity of American journalism education found in China must be
understood in the larger context, in which Chinese reformist intellectuals
viewed establishing a socially responsible press as an imperative for the goals
of achieving ‘national wealth and strength’ which would emancipate China
from its semi-colonial condition and imperialist control. The New Cultural
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Media, Culture & Society 31(5)
Movement in the 1910s provided strong legitimation for emulating Western
institutions that were thought of as carriers of democratic and modern values.
If journalism was an agent of cultural transformation and nation-building,
journalism education should be viewed as the most effective venue for training
socially conscientious journalists.
The rivalry and precarious balance of power among different colonial powers in China also curiously created a space for adapting to American journalism education. The dominance of American journalism education owed much
to America’s official neocolonial ideology, proclaiming democratic values
and an open-door policy in China. The Chinese accepted this ideology as a
strong antidote to the vices of British military conquest and economic control,
not to mention the much-hated Japanese aggression. During this period of US
expansionism, the Progressivists actively endorsed the overseas duplication of
American institutions and values. By the 1930s, American cultural influence
in China was in full swing, and American universities opened their doors to
Chinese students, who were to serve as American cultural agents or compradors.
Americans and Chinese walked on the same path, albeit with somewhat
different motivations and expectations, to institutionalize journalism education in China. American educators brought to Chinese journalism a sense of
professionalism in the service of public interest and democracy. Chinese
educators certainly aspired to these high goals, but in times of national crisis
were willing to submit the press to government censorship and to train government publicists in order to meet national needs. Journalism education was
further engulfed in the subsequent civil war between the Nationalists and the
Communists, compelling many professionally trained journalists to split
their loyalties. Following the Communist triumph on the mainland,
American-style journalism education was heavily denounced in the 1950s,
totally banned during the Cultural Revolution and partially revived since the
early 1980s in the name of the ‘reform and openness’ policy. Ironically, after
the end of the Cultural Revolution, the first official delegations of Chinese
journalists selected for overseas training were sent to Missouri. More ironically, US journalism education has been slowly making its way back to
China’s universities – initially through journalism educators from Taiwan
and Hong Kong as mediators, but now also increasingly through direct interactions with American institutions. The discussions and related issues on
how best to adapt American journalism education in China, first voiced by
Chinese intellectuals in the early 20th century, are again finding echoes in
the contemporary context.
Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Center for Communication
Research at the City University of Hong Kong in the preparation of this article.
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Yong Z. Volz is Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism at the
University of Missouri. Her research interests lie in transcultural and comparative perspectives of journalism history, especially concerning the history
of Chinese journalism and Western influences in the 19th and 20th centuries.
She has published on journalistic professionalization, the missionary press in
China and Chinese women’s journalism in the early 20th century. Address:
107 Neff Hall, School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
65211. [email: [email protected]]
Chin-Chuan Lee is Chair Professor of Communication and Director of the
Center for Communication Research at City University of Hong Kong. Address:
Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat
Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. [email: [email protected]]
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