Local Culture,Dining Spectacles,and Social Platform in Local Image Circulation: The Case of Wenheyou Restaurant,Guangzhou
Topics: Cultural Geography
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Keywords: dining spectacles, social media, local culture circulation, urban China
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 67
Authors:
Yu Qiao, Durham University
Xiaochen Yu, Durham University
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Abstract
In recent years, nostalgic spectacles such as wanghong (internet celebrity) landscapes have become prevalent among urban restaurants in China, especially with the upsurge of the internet economy, leading social media to be a significant medium between consumers and restaurants. This study focuses on a new trending themed restaurant, Wenheyou Supreme in Guangzhou and Xiaohongshu(Little Red Book), a popular social platform among urban young people in China to share personal lifestyles, and explains a currently popular mode of dining out at wanghong restaurants from the perspective of cultural image production and circulation. Drawing on research methods of digital ethnographical approches, interviewing and qualitative data analysis, this article analyses how “old Guangzhou” spectacles in the Wenheyou Supreme are created, circulated, represented, and reproduced by the restaurant, xiaohongshu users, and the mass media. The spectacles, composing of local culture fragments, have succeeded to be materials good for online circulation by fitting the current policies to boost domestic culture consumption. Meanwhile, Xiaohongshu acts as a critical medium via which restaurant images with ways of experiencing the culture are reproduced and circulated, with users performing as “prosumers” who engage in consuming practices and simultaneously contribute to producing a hegemonic homogenous city culture image. This paper may contribute to understanding the wanghong phenomenon emerging in current urban China in the name of preserving and promoting local culture. Specifically, the role of social media in this process can also add a new dimension to the consumption-oriented mode of city culture-making explanations.
Local Culture,Dining Spectacles,and Social Platform in Local Image Circulation: The Case of Wenheyou Restaurant,Guangzhou
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
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