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  4. Vol 6, Issue 1, 2025

"Utopia" or "Communicative Area"?—Community Belonging and Identity Construction in "China Otome Game Convention"

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DOI: 10.23977/mediacr.2025.060105 | Downloads: 30 | Views: 545

Author(s)

Jiawen Hu 1,2

Affiliation(s)

1 Department of Communication, International College-Beijing, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
2 Department of Communication, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

Corresponding Author

Jiawen Hu

ABSTRACT

As an important component of youth subculture, otome games and their offline cultural activities have rapidly developed in China in recent years. However, existing research primarily focuses on in-game narratives and gender representation, with less emphasis on offline subculture practices. Based on the "Triple Articulation" theory, this paper explores community belonging and identity construction mechanisms through online participation observation and in-depth interviews in the context of the "China Otome Game Convention" (COGC). The study finds that the convention builds ritual connections through free gift exchanges and digital bridges at the level of media objects, enhances emotional bonds through static symbols and dynamic social interactions at the level of symbolic texts, and creates immersive cultural experiences through spatial design and emotional continuity outside the convention. The research further suggests that the short-term "withdrawal response" induced by the convention is limited to partial feelings of belonging within the convention, with a limited impact on identity. Long-term responses, however, significantly strengthen overall community belonging and identity, promoting social relationship building and fan culture production.

KEYWORDS

Subculture, China Otome Game Convention, Community Belonging, Identity Construction, Triple Articulation Theory

CITE THIS PAPER

Jiawen Hu, "Utopia" or "Communicative Area"?—Community Belonging and Identity Construction in "China Otome Game Convention". Media and Communication Research (2025) Vol. 6: 33-39. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/mediacr.2025.060105.

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