ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the courtesan election held in Shanghai in 1917 to explore the politicization of this attention-grabbing event and its coverage in the tabloid press (xiaobao). In December 1917, the New World, an entertainment center in Shanghai, hosted a contest for high-ranking courtesans under the rubric of the “Flower-state Election” (huaguo xuanju). By juxtaposing politicians and denizens of the city’s pleasure quarters in xiaobao newspapers and mainstream dailies in their reporting of this event, newspapermen advanced an agenda to both criticize the Republican government and instill in Shanghai citizens notions of republicanism and electoral democracy. The case study of the 1917 election thus allows for an examination of the transformation of an apolitical institution—the xiaobao press—into a public sphere where serious political issues and topics were discussed and disseminated, if in a humorous way.
