Chapter 4 - A Multi-perspectival Approach

Summary

This chapter outlines the project's overarching research approach and the methods undertaken to facilitate this approach. It explains the data collection and data analysis stages as part of the research design. To explore the implications of digital technology for China's rejuvenation and global cultural presence through art, I employed a multi-perspectival approach using an entirely qualitative methodology. As I have mentioned in the previous chapter, Digital China lends itself to viewing digital immersive art as a cultural product via a political economy lens. An approach combining political economy and cultural studies is therefore appropriate. This multi-perspectival approach, which is often used in studies regarding media studies, cultural studies and creative industries, has three levels of analysis: the production and political economy of culture; the cultural text; and audience reception and effects (Kellner, 2011). This approach provides a reasonable and multiple analytical perspective for cross-checking claims against observational data in qualitative methodologies (Livingstone et al., 2008).

The digital world we live in challenges the foundations of political economy since digital technology accelerates the convergence of products and services as well as audiences and labour ( Jenkins, 2004). Cultural studies scholars Scott Lash and Celia Lury (2007) point out that cultural objects are diffused everywhere, including information, communications, branded products, financial services, media products, transport and leisure services. Their argument is that it is hard to differentiate between products and services as everything is digitalised. The rapid move to online on-demand content enables audiences to have more opportunities to choose cultural content and be involved in the production, so there is a tendency in research scholarship to focus on audience studies of culture. Nevertheless, some scholars (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013; Kellner, 2003) in the area of media culture and political economy studies have expressed concerns that the focus on audiences can lead to neglecting discussions of production in cultural studies.

A series of ongoing debates have ensued among scholars; those that focus on the control of production (political economy) (Fuchs, 2014) and those that identify the agency of the audience (cultural studies) (Hartley et al., 2015).