The Construction of City Images in Micro Films: A Case Study of Taipei City Government

Abstract

In recent years, with the rapid development of the media, an increasing number of corporations and even government agencies are using the new format known as the micro film as a means of advertising and marketing. In this study, we took the micro films produced by the Taipei City Government as objects of analysis to investigate the image of the city as constructed in and produced by these films.Furthermore, in this study, the symbol of image in three such micro films was studied: Love@Taipei, My Micro Tour of Taipei, and Happily Ever After. It was found that in these films, the characteristics of the city of Taipei have been presented accurately and successfully by means of the Motivation and Objectives of the StudyThe widespread popularity and use of mobile equipment means that users can now enjoy music and video clips anytime, anywhere. The "micro film" format is a new format that has emerged due to this development. Currently, this method is popular not only with corporations but also with government agencies, with the micro film format used for the communication of issues of public interest and policies and even for city marketing. The new marketing model that is "city + micro film" works by drawing the audience in by laying out an attractive atmosphere in the film and with plot and narrative development. As the audience is drawn into the narrative, they also develop a stronger impression of the city and hence tend to favor the city. This is how the objective of city marketing is achieved (Yahoo! Kimo, 2012 The trend of micro films has substantially attracted the locales of Chinese majority, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Presently, the micro film can be described using several distinctive characteristics regarding technique, market, and cultural terms. Therefore, in this study, we took the micro films produced by the Taipei City Government as objects of analysis to investigate the city image as constructed and generated in these films. Literature ReviewBelow is the description of the literature and theories relevant to this study. City Image and City MarketingIn the concept of image, Bounding (1956) proposed that the image is the cognition of and attitude toward an object in the mind of the subject. Additionally, the image is an overall judgment that is subjective in nature. Human behavior is not only impacted by knowledge and information but also by the image that is formed in individuals' minds. Thereafter, Scott moved one step beyond to propose that the image is an organized representation of an object in the individual's cognitive system (Scott, 1965), a representation that consists of both cognition and emotion as well as an implication of the individual's memories, expectations, knowledge, and opinions of the object (Liu, 2001). The creation of the image can be said to be a dynamic and mobile process wherein the subject continually revises his or her cognition of the object due to the influence of external information and then makes a final judgment and evaluation based on the ...