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| THE VISUAL REPRESENTATION ANALYSIS OF SHANGXIAJIU STREET IN GUANGZHOU CITY——From the Perspective of the Photos on Internet for Maketing |
| DAI Guang-quan1,2, CHEN Xin1,2 |
1. School of Economics and Commerce, South China Uni. of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China;
2. Academe of Modern Service Industry, South China Uni. of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China |
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Abstract This study attempts to identify the image representations of Guangzhou Shangxiajiu Street on internet by analyzing the marketing photos of a variety of web information sources-official tourism website, tour operators and travel agents' websites, online travel magazine and guide websites, and online travel blogs. In order to dig out the "metaphorical image" of those marketing photos, and explore the perception of city manager governors and tourism developers towards this tourist destination as well as their idea of resource utilization, Content Analysis Method (CAM) is adopted to analyze the visual information on the sampled photos from two aspects including shooting objects (contents) and shooting technique (rhetoric). The results reveals that there is a dominant "photographic paradigm" in these marketing photos of Shangxiajiu, which has endowed different visual issues with varying degrees of significance. For instant, night view, neon lights, crowds, shops and shops are emphasized in these photos, which become the icons of the street. And then the street is represented as an amorphous sprawl construction with infinite repetition of these elements. Ultimately, a "prosperous", "bustling", "popular" and "civilian" destination image is represented. However, this particular image which attracts the tourists to visit has also dominated the manner of the tourists looking, and induced them to choose certain scenic spots to shoot and remember.
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Received: 03 March 2010
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2010, Vol. 25 
