Social-Media-Popular Place and Its Media Architecture: Investigating Place Identity of Grant-Tang Mall Through Online Reviews

Abstract

In the new media era, media architecture often serves as attractive urban spectacles and is widely represented and promoted on social media. Meanwhile, images and videos on social media also have an impact on the place identity and media architecture in the urban experience. This study argues that social media expands the conceptual scope of media architecture, aims to explain the mechanism of the impact of social media on online/ offline media architecture, and designs a methodological framework for analyzing the mechanism. Taking Grant-Tang Mall, a pedestrian street popularized by media architecture on social media, as a case study, the study analyzes the impact of social media on place branding, cultural space reproduction, and placemaking through media architecture. The findings show that social media promotes the online representation and dissemination of media architecture. Social media also combines cultural offline activities to promote citizen participation, shape collective identity, and transform offline media architecture for placemaking.