| "Disney Friends"(the collective name for all Disney’s IPs)has a large global following,with the most popular being Lina Bell,which debuted at Shanghai Disney in September 2021.The Super Topic Lina Bell at Sina Weibo has already exceeded500,000 followers,and has been trending for two years,showing that the most representative "Disney Friend" Lina Bell has a considerable fandom in China.This paper explores the consumption and identity behavior of the fans from the perspective of symbolic consumption and identity,taking the fans as the main object of study and supplementing them with other fans of "Disney Friends".The first chapter attempts to paint a comprehensive picture of symbols about "Disney Friends",especially Lina Bell,and establishes a symbolic system in three dimensions: physical symbols,price symbols,and action symbols.Based on the interviews,the second chapter not only decomposes the symbolic structure of each symbol through Peirce’s three elements of symbols,but also explores the symbolization process of each symbol through the affinity relationship of icons-index-symbols in order to reveal the significances interpretation of the symbols by the fans.After sorting out the symbolic significances,this paper find that the consumption of symbolic significances by the fans is mainly focused on three aspects: taste,mental state and personality.The consumption behavior in consumer society is not only the use and possession of specific objects,but also the manipulation of symbolic significances,which makes consumption have more symbolic attributes.People’s consumption behavior revolves around self-identity,and they choose the content and form of consumption.This process also reflects people’s proactivity,as the consumption process inherits or changes or even opposes the consumption value of a commodity in different ways,thus constructing its significant relations connected to others and becoming an important expression of group identity.In order to examine the identity of the "Disney Friends" Lina Bell fans as comprehensively as possible,Chapter 3 explores how the fans construct their own identity and the identity of the group through symbolic consumption based on the three paths of taste-mental state – personality.In addition,Chapter 4 reveals the identity crisis that is revealed therein,and discusses the root causes of the identity crisis from the aspects of modernity and consumerism,and proposes relevant suggestions.This study focuses on the symbolic consumption and identity construction of this fandom through observation,interview and textual analysis of Lina Bell,the most representative fandom of "Disney friends",which has certain theoretical and practical significance and is of reference value for a deeper understanding of fandom,consumer society and identity issues. |
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