本文追索報紙和雜誌二種概念的起源、傳播和定型。鴉片戰爭期間來華西人新造仿譯詞「新聞紙」、「新報」來籠統指稱中土所無的、西方式例的報刊。洋務運動時期，上海民間開始以俗語「報紙」來指稱《申報》。然而，此時報刊未在主流社會中產生影響，人們對報與刊的認識還處於含混不清的狀態。到了維新運動時期，「報紙」一詞開始普及使用，「新聞紙」、「新報」逐漸淡出社交舞臺。而期刊名詞「雜誌」隨著梁啟超等提倡的日本書刊的翻譯熱潮密集輸入中土，還與「新聞紙」、「新報」、「書籍」並列使用。「雜誌」和「報紙」原本都有不入流、非「正經」的涵義，為正統社會所輕視。康有為、梁啟超等士大夫以報刊提倡社會，扭轉了輕視「報紙」「雜誌」的社會風氣，使「雜誌」和「報紙」的地位提升到與書籍平等並立。到了新文化運動時期，本土俗語「報紙」和日源詞「雜誌」成為分別指稱報紙和期刊的固定術語，意味著外來的現代報刊的概念在中國人的頭腦中歸化沉澱為自己的意識形態。

This thesis traces the origin, transmission and settlement of four new words used to express the concept of newspaper and periodical in the late Qing Dynasty, namely, ＂xinwenzhi＂ (newsprint), ＂xinbao＂ (new paper), ＂baozhi＂ (newspaper) and ＂zazhi＂ (magazine). It is pointed out that ＂xinwenzhi＂, ＂xinbao＂ and ＂baozhi＂ refer to publication of foreign style which cannot be found in China, all of which vaguely contain the concept of newspaper and periodicals and they are used together or interchangeably. ＂Zazhi＂, as a name for publication, was introduced to China when translating Japanese books during the first Sino-Japanese War for the sake of saving China. ＂Zazhi＂, in the Japanese origin, is a homograph of the Chinese word that means notes, random talk and sketch, then whether the zazhi appeared in the literature in late Qing Dynasty used as a proper noun should be probed into. With the combined usage of zazhi, xinbao and shuji(book), zazhi has been separated as an individual book category, which gives rise to the three main branches of book, newspaper and periodical.