Symbolic Performance and Spatial Game: A Study on the Spatial Production Mechanism of Internet Famous Rural Spaces from the Perspective of Media Geography
A case study of Caijiapo Village, Huyi District, Xi’an
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/knwf8v07Keywords:
Media geography, internet famous village, spatial production, symbolic performance, spatial gameAbstract
Digital UGC‑driven social media reshapes tourism human‑land relations. Many villages gain internet‑famous popularity via short‑video platforms, yet some fall into the paradox of “media‑driven boom, spatial alienation and declining tourist experience”. Taking Caijiapo Village of Xi’an as a case, this paper adopts media‑geography perspective and integrates Lefebvre’s tri‑dimensional spatial production, internet‑famous tourism gaze and symbolic consumption theories. Based on online‑text analysis, open‑ended interviews, participant observation and single‑case study, this paper explores the formation of rural symbolic performance, reveals the whole process of media‑driven spatial production, and analyzes disciplinary effects of multi‑layer internet‑famous gaze on tourist check‑in behaviors as well as spatial‑alienation mechanisms caused by multi‑agent conflicts. Results show that: firstly, digital media acts as a core actor in rural spatial production following the path of “representations of space - spatial practice - representational space”. Media‑led symbolic performance precedes physical onsite experience, with constant mutual construction between online narratives and offline realities. Secondly, a four‑layer gaze system including platform algorithmic gaze, influencer‑demonstration gaze, group‑conformity gaze and tourists’ self‑presentation gaze governs tourist check‑in practices, and tourist‑generated UGC further reconstructs local symbolic space. Thirdly, interest tensions among government, capital, platforms, tourists and local residents are amplified by traffic logic, triggering excessive spatial symbolization, cultural superficialization, business homogenization, seasonal imbalance and host‑guest conflicts. To avoid traffic overdraft and realize sustainable cultural‑tourism development for Guanzhong art‑empowered internet‑famous villages, four countermeasures are proposed: optimizing media narratives, balancing tri‑dimensional space, building multi‑agent collaborative governance and guiding rational tourist gaze.
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