Abstract:In the international competition for the global audience, how should Huallywood films choose geographical samples to construct the image of China, and how can they become important media to bridge the gap between native and overseas audiences? The large overseas Chinese communities are the core audiences for the global communication of Huallywood films. However, previous studies tend to focus on the interpretation of film texts and lack in-depth investigation and research on overseas Chinese audiences, and rarely focus on “Huadi” (places where Chinese people dwell or gather) to carry out empirical research, failing to explore the unique media utility of image “Huadi” from the perspective of global emotional communication.
Based on the theoretical perspective on Geography of Media, this study starts from the interaction relationship of “human (overseas Chinese audiences)-media (films)-geography (Huadi)-emotion”, investigates the feedback of overseas Chinese audiences on watching Huallywood films, and explores how the “Huadi” image in the films gets the emotional response from overseas Chinese audiences. And how the “Huadi” image stimulates their emotional identification of the Chinese native places? What kind of emotional communication effect has it produced?
This study empirically explores the phenomenon of “place empathy” in the global communication of Huallywood films, which is embodied in the audience’s empathy for place landscape, empathy for place memory, and retention of place characteristics. The study reveals the occurrence path, generation mechanism, influencing factors and emotional effectiveness of “place empathy” in overseas Chinese movie-watching, and thus refines the empathetic communication path of Hulywood films based on “Huadi” to connect the global Chinese. It is an important inspiration to explore the unique effect of “place” in the global communication of Chinese culture and the construction of Chinese image.
Furthermore, the research points out that “Huadi” is the spatial, emotional, cultural and material media for the global communication of Chinese culture and the construction of Chinese image. The creation of Huallywood films should take the audience’s “place empathy” as the clue, connect the world with the “place” of “Zhonghua (China)”, and construct the image of China by the media of “place”. “Huadi” is a space to accommodate “Huaren” (Chinese people), “Huayu” (Chinese language), “Huashi” (Chinese story), and Huashi (Chinese history)”. The bridge of place empathy is used to strengthen the homesickness and topophilia of overseas Chinese, and the multi-dimensional image of China is constructed with colorful and vivid place image samples, so as to promote the global communication of Chinese culture and Huallywood films.
This discovery takes Geography of Media as a theoretical perspective and Huallywood films as a research entry point, providing an operable and innovative concept for the study of the interactive relationship of “human-media-geography-emotion” in Geography of Media Research, and an achievable method and path to explore the mechanism and effect of film emotional communication. It provides important inspiration for Huallywood films to choose the unique place landscapes of China as geographical samples to construct the image of China, and to carry out emotional dialogue and cultural communication globally while based on places. This study not only effectively answers the major practical question of Geography of Media on “how Chinese film and television choose geographical samples to construct the image of China”, but also further strengthens the five-“Hua” theoretical system of Huallywood film through the empirical research on “Huadi” and overseas audiences, thus expands the research direction of Huallywood film from the perspective of Geography of Media.