China News Service, Beijing, March 11 (Reporter Shangguan Yun) The 2024 National Two Sessions are being held in Beijing, and "deepening national reading activities" has been included in the government work report.

  "This is the 11th time that reading for all has been included in the government work report, which shows that the party and the government attach great importance to the significance of reading for all." Liu Ning, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the Classical Literature Office of the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told a reporter from China News Service .

  Reading is an important issue in building a scholarly society.

Issues such as how to cultivate young people's interest in reading and how to transform physical bookstores are the focus of some members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference this year.

Encounter with reading: How far are we from a "bookish society"?

  In recent years, reading promotion activities have been carried out extensively in China, and the social atmosphere of book-loving society has become increasingly strong.

  Data map: Citizens in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province walk into Xinhua Bookstore.

Photo by China News Service reporter Xiao Jian

  The main results of the 20th National National Reading Survey show that in 2022, the comprehensive reading rate of all media among Chinese adults will continue to grow steadily, and the increase in the exposure rate to digital reading methods is slightly higher than the reading rate of paper books.

  Wang Huiren, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chief editor of Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, told China News Network that the in-depth implementation of national reading activities is of great significance to the improvement of citizen literacy and is conducive to the formation of an overall atmosphere for reading.

  In Wang Huiren's view, a reading-oriented society cultivates a thinking society, and a thinking society is of great benefit to cultivating a creative society.

  Li Yun, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Shanghai Publishing Group, told the media frankly that with the progress of the times and the growing spiritual and cultural needs of the people, we are still far from the vision of building a "bookish society".

  As for the reasons, she believes that there are many aspects. For example, high-quality supply needs to be strengthened, and the effect of making full use of the Internet and digital technology to promote the full bloom of national reading online and offline is not significant enough, etc.

National reading under the impact of short videos: Are physical bookstores the way out?

  Through years of teaching and research work, Liu Ning has discovered that national reading is now facing many new challenges. "For example, videos are very popular, but true in-depth reading often needs to be carried out on the basis of text reading."

  Data map: Citizens purchase books at the Wangfujing Book Market in Beijing.

Photo by China News Service reporter Zhao Jun

  "If teenagers are addicted to videos for a long time, their text reading ability is likely to not be effectively cultivated and trained." Liu Ning said, especially the impact of the proliferation of short videos on teenagers should be given full attention.

  Bookstores are an important place where people meet reading.

Exhibitions are held, bookstores are opened in parks... In recent years, many physical bookstores are based on books, integrate innovation, and bring together various cultural elements to make the "bookstore +" format more and more abundant to attract readers, but they have also been criticized by " Please maintain the true nature of the bookstore" and other criticisms.

  In addition, Wang Huiren believes that a major challenge in national reading activities is that it is “difficult to go deep.”

In recent years, although the country has vigorously advocated and governments at all levels have provided policies and improved related hardware construction, for the activities to be truly carried out in depth, it is not enough to rely solely on the power of the government.

The solution: Provide high-quality content and create new scenarios for cultural consumption

  From content to form, to promote the continuous deepening of national reading, we must not only pay attention to the continuous supply of high-quality reading content and create an atmosphere of love for reading in the whole society, but also pay attention to improving the national reading promotion service system.

  Data map: On World Book Day, citizens of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province read books in Taiyuan Wenying City Study Room and savored the "scent of books".

Photo by China News Service reporter Wei Liang

  Liu Ning believes that Chinese class is an important occasion for learning reading and writing. Do not overuse PPT and video teaching methods in Chinese teaching. Taking appropriate notes is an important way to form reading training and writing training.

  She also mentioned that parents should infect their children with the good habit of loving reading, and encourage their children to join some reading interest groups where members discuss and communicate with each other to stimulate their interest in reading.

  Li Yun suggested that we should guide physical bookstores to transform, upgrade, integrate and innovate, and explore the construction of urban cultural parlors, so that bookstores can become a new platform for cultural consumption that integrates functions such as mass reading, cultural exhibitions, academic research, and theme education.

  In addition, Qiu Huadong, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, vice chairman and secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Writers' Association, suggested improving the urban management system, extending the newspaper and magazine cultural industry chain, promoting newsstands to play a better role, cultivating the city's cultural atmosphere and humanistic background, and further improving modern public culture service system, further promote reading for all, and build a scholarly society.

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