Virtual heterotopias: Creating and contesting identities through the remediation of content tourism on the mobile screens of Bilibili
Zhen Troy Chen and Melissa Shani Brown
This article explores the ways in which Otaku subculture, and in particular the creation, consumption and critical engagement with fan-made tourism videos on a popular Chinese social media platform Bilibili, functions both to create and juxtapose various ‘spaces of otherness’. Drawing the term ‘spaces of otherness’ from Foucault’s ‘heterotopias’, we argue that such sites create spaces which are on one hand ‘other’ to the ‘real world’ – spaces of escape and pleasure – spaces which sustain fan communities/subcultures, but also spaces which reveal underlying political and ideological tensions around the consumption of Japanese culture in China. Using digital ethnography, we explore a variety of discourses captured from the user generated contents, including tourism vlogs/videos, conventional reviews and novel danmaku comments overlaid on the video frame. Using qualitative methods, we identify and analyse the agents/subjects, processes, and meanings produced during the construction of these various heterotopias. We argue despite a post-globalisation context where populism, nationalism and protectionism is on the rise, the virtual sphere within the fandom and Otaku subculture highlights the various tensions between the global and the local. Paradoxically, the competing ideologies are channelled through the construction of these heterotopias. Situating Japan as the other, the Chinese audiences creatively manipulate a rich array of textual and visual materials for their own purposes. Based on our analysis, we unpack the way the Sino-Japanese relationship takes shape in post-globalisation, in the geopolitical sphere, but also in the cultural sphere through the consumption of tourism induced by Japanese animated films, and the remediation of Japanese culture and tourism videos hosted therein. We further argue that such spaces need to be understood in terms of complexity – simultaneously spaces of commodified culture, of imagined ‘otherness’, of leisure, and sites in which various types of identities (fandom, nation, hometown) are created and contested.
The Filming Locations Tourism: Filming Base Tourism in China
Jinuo Diao
Film-induced tourism is defined by Sue Beeton (2005: 11) as “visitation to sites where movies and television programmes and series have been filmed as well as tours to production studios, including film related theme parks” and “visitation of a site or a location, that is or has been used for or is associated with filming”( Buchmann,2010: 233). This paper would mainly focus on the filming base tourism that means the filming base as the visitation destination. The filming base created its tourism function, which expands the chain development of the film and television industries and the tourism industry. The filming base tourism shows a win-win effect for both industries. Also, the attempting would be expected to provide the adding value and core competencies to the ‘dual genetic’ Filming Base Tourism. This paper will analyse the development of Filming Base Tourism in China from three aspects, including the historical development overview, the characteristics, and the existing issues and future trends.
Changing Ecosystem of Documentary Industry
Yu Ming
Abstract TBC