Causes, effects, and countermeasures? : a qualitative research on the relationship between cultural discount and film stories in the cross-cultural communication [article]

Yu Zhong, 0000-0003-0968-7534, Austin, The University Of Texas At, Joseph D. Straubhaar
2019
In 2017, the Chinese film box office surpassed $86 billion, making it the second largest film market just behind the United States. However, a series of data show that the international competitiveness of the Chinese film industry is still very low, which has limited its potential to influence Chinese culture more broadly. This dilemma could be accounted for by both economic and cultural reasons. The special cultural properties of the films provide a new perspective, the cultural discount, for
more » ... he research of international competitiveness of the film industry. Although the influence of the overseas audience's reception of the film by the cultural discount has been confirmed, how the cultural discount affects the international competitiveness of the film industry, or what roles the cultural factor plays in the film industry, provide more diversified perspectives for this study to research on this topic. This research mainly focuses on the relationship between the cultural discount and the international competitiveness of the film story. Based on Story approach, concepts of narratology, cultural geography, cultural distance, and linguistic affinity are applied to analyze how is culture encoded in the film story to produce the cultural discount. In different story elements such as structure, setting, characters, genres and meaning, the reasons that may cause cultural discounts in the process of film production are found and analyzed respectively. The function mode of the cultural discount in the cross-cultural communication between films and the foreign audiences is also concluded by utilizing Encoding/decoding theory. Three American films have been taken as a case study to explore their methods of reducing the cultural discount from the angle of narrative transparency. Using clear narrative structure to promote the audience's understanding of the film plot, applying the prototype story and universal life experience to shape the film characters, and exploring the common feelings in different cultures to convey the m [...]
doi:10.26153/tsw/5655 fatcat:jx5elevmsfe6vhiuimgo5x2xzi