The ‘danmu’ phenomenon and media participation: Intercultural understanding and language learning through ‘The Ministry of Time’

Abstract

While research on Western multimedia platforms, such as YouTube, is prolific and interdisciplinary, Asian portals remain unknown. We explore this field by analyzing the juvenile and intercultural uses of a popular visualization system in Japan and China, known as “danmaku” or “danmu”. This technology inserts dynamic and contextualized comments on a photogram, with several typographical possibilities. Based on a corpus of 1,590 comments on “The Ministry of Time,” collected from a fandom platform with millions of users, we analyzed the topics that arouse the most interest among Chinese fans. We combine content analysis, which incorporates coding and counting techniques of the categories with the most interventions (n>16), with multimodal discourse analysis (TV series, Asian platform and user comments). Results show that the viewers are most interested in the film genre (time travel), the characters, the plot, certain sociocultural contents, and the Spanish language. Their discussions address issues of interculturality, some topics that are taboo in China and the fandom culture in Asia. Our study illustrates the potential of participation, communication, and learning in Asian social media, and constitutes an interesting and innovative contribution to the field of media and digital literacy, with various suggestions to promote intercultural competence with the use of popular culture. Mientras la investigación sobre las plataformas multimedia occidentales, como YouTube, es prolífica e interdisciplinaria, los portales asiáticos siguen siendo desconocidos. El presente trabajo explora este campo analizando los usos juveniles e interculturales de un sistema de visualización popular en Japón y China, conocido como «danmaku» o «danmu». Esta tecnología inserta comentarios dinámicos y contextualizados sobre un fotograma, con varias posibilidades tipográficas. Partiendo de un corpus de 1.590 comentarios sobre «El Ministerio del Tiempo», recogidos de una plataforma de «fandom» con millones de seguidores, este artículo analiza los temas que despiertan más interés entre los fans chinos. El análisis de contenido, que incorpora técnicas de «coding and counting» de las categorías con más intervenciones (n>16), se combina con un análisis del discurso multimodal (serie de TV, plataforma asiática y comentarios de usuarios). Los resultados muestran que los espectadores se interesan por el género cinematográfico (viaje del tiempo), los personajes, la trama, determinados contenidos socioculturales y la lengua española. Sus discusiones abordan cuestiones de interculturalidad, algunas cuestiones que son tabú en China y la cultura «fandom» en Asia. El estudio ilustra las potencialidades de participación, comunicación y aprendizaje en las redes sociales asiáticas, y supone una aportación interesante e innovadora al campo de la alfabetización mediática y digital, con varias sugerencias para fomentar la competencia intercultural con el uso de la cultura popular.

Slice of life in a live and wired masquerade: Playful prosumption as identity work and performance in an identity college Bilibili

“…In addition, danmaku interaction is also a learning process, for example, taking notes from Teacher Big, appropriating and re-contextualising moe-elements for the creation of new meanings. Subtitle and translation providers, evident in danmaku, are also part of the learning process, making Bilibili a place for intercultural competence building (Zhang & Cassany, 2018). When considered together, these aspects demonstrate more complex identities and practices beyond the conventional portrayal of fans as cultural dopes who are amused to death.…”

“…Following the ‘agentic fan’ theorem, scholars have demonstrated online virtuality, such as Bilibili, can work as alternative spaces (Chen, 2018), function as a shield against interpellation and control (Yin & Fung, 2017) and serve as a field to negotiate with ‘gamified patriarchal order and normative romantic ideals’ (Liu & Lai, 2020, p. 14). Furthermore, Zhang and Cassany (2018) identified language learning participation on Bilibili as having great potential for intercultural competence through collective intelligence and re-contextualisation. This is possible despite Otaku and gamers’ significant emotional and affective investments, since the ‘network effect’ and accumulated social capital make leaving such a social space rather difficult (Chen & Cheung, 2018).…”

The Fine Line between Person and Persona in the Spanish Reality Television Show La isla de las tentaciones: Audience Engagement on Instagram

“…The starting point was descriptive in nature: to measure the presence of certain categories in followers' comments, combining content analysis and discourse analysis. The coding-and-counting method was used, as employed by computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) [42,43] and replicated in numerous studies of virtual environments [44][45][46]. "The basic methodological orientation of CMDA is language-focused content analysis.…”

Making sense ofdanmu: Coherence in massive anonymous chats on Bilibili.com

“…Communication scholars have argued that through danmu , platforms like Bilibili can become an alternative space for democratic discussions (Yin and Fung, 2017) and a virtual heterotopia to resist social pressure, repression and control (Chen, 2018; Gu, 2017; Zheng, 2016). Finally, linguists have illustrated users’ appropriations of danmu , such as collaborative subtitling (Díaz-Cintas, 2018; Yang, 2019, 2020), humorous acts (Hsiao, 2015; L Zhang and Cassany, 2019c), heteroglossia and multilingualism (Y Zhang, 2017, 2020) and language and intercultural learning (L Zhang and Cassany, 2019a, 2019b). However, no study to date has looked into the interactional organization of danmu from a discourse analytical perspective.…”