Abstract
Although face-to-face events starring film professionals have become increasingly popular, they have rarely been studied, especially from the perspective of production. Focusing on the phenomenon of Chinese movie roadshows, this study explores the motivations and techniques used to produce popular media events in the Chinese film industry. Based on expert interviews with 15 media practitioners, the results showed that roadshows are staged as ritualized events that are centered on the performance of a symbolic boundary between “inside” and “outside” the media. Film industry professionals embrace face-to-face communication with audiences and use such events to display sincerity, producing them as a seemingly “unmediated” peek behind the veil of an otherwise hidden world. Moreover, communication on social media is another form of ritualized practice. We conclude that, by thus mediating the “unmediated,” movie roadshows offer an insightful perspective on the machinery of media power in China.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 312-328 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Chinese Journal of Communication |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2 Jul 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This study was carried out with the financial support of the China Scholarship Council. The authors would like to thank Balázs Boross, Henry Chow, Siri Driessen, Apoorva Nanjangud, Débora Póvoa, and Rosa Schiavone for their helpful comments on an early draft of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Research programs
- ESHCC A&CS