Abstract:

With the continuous collision of localization and globalization, the transmutation and development of local culture is constantly advancing. Ethnic and cultural borders are blurred, so that social memory is gradually lost. How to maintain the uniqueness of the destination is worth thinking about for destination marketing organizations. In this context, foodscape is deemed to establish the vivid branding image of the destination and plays a significant role in the process of creating social memory. With the rapid evolution of digital technology and mass media, the impact of videos is becoming increasingly obvious. Documentary is one of the most significant ways to save and share social memory, and its greatest feature is that it is drawn from the real living environment. A Bite of China ismore well-known compared with many other domestic and foreign food documentaries because of its strong humanistic spirituality. Thus, we use commentary and interview texts of A Bite of China as research materials. In this article, sentiment analysis, sematic network analysis, and ground theory are applied to analyze the video material, which aims to illustrate the representation and creation of foodscape on social memory. The main conclusions are summarized as follows: (1) In terms of the results of sentiment analysis, people mainly have a positive attitude toward daily food experience. The formation of social memory is based on people's self-awareness and emotional cognition. People's emotional identity forms the mainstream ideology of society and frames the development orientation of social memory. (2) According to the semantic network diagram, food taste, food culture, and family are the most significant in people's memory, which enrich the connotation of social memory. Moreover, from the perspective of time-space dimension, people can activate the path of retaining social memory and construct memorial space via ancient books, anecdotes, bodily practices, and memorial ceremonies; (3) Finally, the representation of foodscape on social memory is divided into three dimensions: environmental, functional, and emotional. First, as far as environmental memory is concerned, a specific food environment can evoke people's memory, which plays a basic role in the formation of social memory. Second, in terms of functional memory, food relies on various carriers with distinctive features, such as villages, classics, legends, customs, and folk songs, which can play social and cultural functions. Third, emotional memory emphasizes the symbolism and emotional value of food, which plays a leading role in the formation of social memory. Overall, the study reveals the mechanism of creation of foodscape on social memory. On the one hand, the research, particularly localized research, enlarges and enriches the study on food and memories. On the other hand, the role of mass media must be recognized. Additionally, destination marketing organizations ought to take active steps to create local foodscape for locals and tourists.

Key words: foodscape, social memory, social identity, documentary, content analysis, A Bite of China