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UM Dissertations & Theses Collection (澳門大學電子學位論文庫)

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Title

Creating the myth : fantasy theme analysis of "Yang Sheng" advertorials in WeChat

English Abstract

WeChat, the most popular mobile application in China, plays an increasing role as an information source in everyday lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese. It is a hotbed for information marketing in the form of advertorials. This study sets an inquiry of a special type of advertorial, namely "Yang Sheng" advertorials which are soft advertising articles packaged in the rhetoric of the Chinese way of keeping healthy. "Yang Sheng" (Chinese pinyin: yang sheng, direct translation: keeping a life), is the unique health concept similar to health preservation and disease cures. It is one of the most circulated types of information shared in the Chinese social media. This study attempts to identify the symbolic reality shared by Chinese social media users in understanding the "Yang Sheng advertorials with the application of the Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) and Fantasy Theme Analysis (FTA). It first examines fantasy themes, fantasy types and rhetoric visions embodied in the "Yang Shen" advertorials which are mostly marketed in the subscription accounts of WeChat. Second, it analyzes how these fantasies are shared by young WeChat users through two focus group interviews of female university students. Based on the findings, the paper further elaborates how the sharing of health information is rooted deeply in the traditional Chinese health philosophy of keeping a balance of Yin and Yang forces within the individual body. Moreover, what's the relationship between the knowledge system of "Yang Sheng" and participants understanding of Western medicine? What's more, the role of social media in fantasizing health and body is also analyzed

Issue date

2015.

Author

Lin, Pei Yuan

Faculty
Faculty of Social Sciences (former name: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities)
Department
Department of Communication
Degree

M.A.

Subject

Wechat -- China

Online social networks -- Social aspects

Health in mass media

Supervisor

吳玫

Files In This Item

Full-text (Internet)

Location
1/F Zone C
Library URL
991001606839706306