Ritual-Based National Identity and Urban Space Construction — A Case Study on Geographic Microblogs of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square

Abstract: 

The advent of location-based service (LBS) and its incorporation into social media services allow connections to progress from merely between individuals to connections between individuals and urban spaces. However, as the heart of China, the public conversation around the area of Tian’an Men Square through social media hasn’t been analyzed closely enough. The purpose of this study is to examine how the individuals reconstruct the urban physical environment within the local cultural context through their location-based microbloggings. Geographic microblogs had been collected through Sina Weibo platforms in the year 2019. This geographic case study chose Tian’an Men Square as the center and its around area within 5 kilometers. This urban environment represents the political, cultural and commercial center in Beijing, and this area is populated with both local residents and tourists. Discourse analysis, including the semiotics analysis has been used to analyze the text and the images of the microblogs. In-depth interviews had been taken with the microbloggers from both of the platforms.