Consumption Practices and Production of Space at Internet-famous Locations in the Era of Visualization:A Case Study of Better Days and Its Film Location Chongqing
Visual texts contain abundant symbolic meanings,which play increasingly important roles in the production of space at tourist destinations.Following the development of information technologies in recent years,film locations in Chongqing,a popular city for film productions,have gradually become Internet-famous because of consumers'consumption practices on online media platforms.Using Lefebvre's theory of production of space,this paper takes the film Better Days,which was mainly produced in Chongqing,and a film location,Haitangxi Tongzilou house,as an example case.A text analysis method was used to examine the texts and pictures collected from Better Days,photos taken by tourists,comments by film audiences and tourists collected from online social media platforms and interviews.This study discusses the presentation of geographical landscapes and the construction of meaning through filmic texts.In addition,consumers'responses are explored,as well as the way they carry out photographic practices and construct meaning when visiting film locations.This study also elucidates the performance of residents'daily lives at film locations.Films,places and audiences combine to produce filmic spaces comprising narrative,emotional and imaginary spaces.Tourists reproduce the meaning of geographical landscapes based on not only the original filmic texts but also their diverse travelling experiences and construct their self-identities through photographic practices,including imitative,recording and creative photography.In the reconstruction of film locations into tourism destinations,the imaginary and reality constantly interact between various subjects to continuously produce the film locations'spatial meaning in mixed and pluralistic forms.This dialogue between the imaginary and reality shows the layered construction of meaning through film images and tourism practices as well as tourists'negotiations with residents,indicating an overall dynamic and uncertain process.Film locations become symbolised and emotionalised by the construction of filmic texts and audience responses.In their embodied experience and diverse tourism practices,tourists can embed more diversified spatial meanings into film locations beyond the narration of film texts.In this way,tourists create new visual texts,social relations and geographical imaginaries while residents reconstruct the spatial meaning of their homes through daily practices.In the current information era,virtual spaces are rapidly becoming significant.The visual texts produced by films and photos become entangled with the space of consumption practices in daily life through informatised online media platforms.These recent innovations in information technologies differ from earlier social forces because they enable the informatisation of individual worlds and become subjects within the social production of space.
production of spacevisual textinformatizationfilmChongqing
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