Digital entertainment industry

Author: Li Sikui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Section 2: Narrative Symbols and Medium Narration As previously mentioned, narrative symbols refer to the symbols that turn nouns like characters and events into stories. Their key function is "virtuality." Through the combination of time, they create a virtual life world different from the real world, further weakening the practical tool function of the symbols, thereby enhancing their entertainment function. This allows them to act on people's visual and auditory nerves in pure symbolic form, demonstrating their unique entertainment value. Narrative symbols encode audiovisual symbols according to a symbolic logic different from real-world logic, increasing their virtuality and reducing their practical utilitarianism. This is a fundamental principle in the symbolic production of the digital entertainment industry. In this section, we will explore the role of narrative symbols and national style, as well as the relationship between medium narration and daily life, in order to deepen our understanding of the laws of symbolic consumption and production.
I. Narrative Symbols and National Style
Anime and video games from Europe and America differ significantly in style and spirit compared to those from Japan. This individuality in style and uniqueness in spirit are marks of mature symbolic production. This individuality acts like a striking brand, attracting consumers of different digital entertainment products. Different styles and spiritual personalities reveal different spiritual forces. These forces are both a commercial force, ensuring corresponding market profits, and a symbolic force, exerting cultural "soft power." Therefore, to develop China's digital entertainment industry, it is essential to vigorously promote digital products with Chinese style and spirit. Otherwise, China's vast digital entertainment industry may become merely a processing base for other countries.
Nowadays, when people discuss the national style and cultural individuality of digital entertainment products, they are often limited to the themes and subjects of the works. The depth of their discussion usually only involves the level of audiovisual symbols. It seems that as long as Chinese visual designs are adopted and Chinese musical elements are used, it must be Chinese style and spirit. Under this mindset, the success of Disney's animated film Mulan can be seen as a victory for Chinese culture, as if Hollywood is making voluntary propaganda for Chinese culture. However, is Mulan truly Chinese in style and spirit? No! On the contrary, Mulan, though inspired by Chinese cultural resources and featuring Chinese-style visual designs, is fundamentally an American product in terms of artistic style, spiritual connotation, and aesthetic appeal. All the audiovisual symbols derived from China are merely decorations for American culture. In the narrative model of American Hollywood, the meaning of Chinese symbols is stripped away, leaving only an empty system of symbolic signifiers, which serves to provide the audience with pure audiovisual enjoyment. It is clear that focusing solely on visual designs and sound systems to address issues of national style and spirit captures only the most superficial aspects. From the perspective of symbolic production, we can explain this "content production" phenomenon and realize that the above approach remains at the level of audiovisual symbols, completely ignoring the deeper level of symbolic logic—the role of narrative symbols.
Audiovisual symbols are indeed an expression of national style, but they are ultimately only an external manifestation. They can represent a specific national spirit or serve as mere external decorations for the spirit of other nations.