Abstract: Modern Chinese popular literature was influenced by the market, which thus differed from the New-vernacular literature in its standard of evaluation. By studying its production and consumption mechanism, it was evident that marketing operation connected all aspects for modern popular literature to become canonized. To study all issues of popular literature's evaluation from this perspective, we could return to the original historical context and systematically organize and understand all kinds of related issues (such as problems, ideas and incidents, etc.) of popular literature, which could be seen as a new methodology. A reflection of the role media played in the canonization of modern Chinese popular literature reveals that newspapers and periodicals were the literary fields where popular literature became "popular", that the form of books established the prototype for canonization of popular literature, and finally that recreation established the canonical status of these texts and thus prolonged their life.

Key words: popular literature, market operation, evaluation by media, production of literature, consumption of literature, popular, classic