| The construction of Cultural Landmark is a prevailing phenomenon in cities both in Mainland China and Taiwan, but the research of the cognition, identification and the mechanism of the social ideology behind it are little. This study chose Eslite and Jifeng as cases for their great cultural influence, and conduct a comparative study in use of cultural study and empirical approaches such as in-depth interviews and focus group interviews with 46 respondents in total.This study shows that Eslite Bookstore, through establishing the image of a―Cathedral of Consumption‖in post modern society, produced the four biggest motivation of consumers -- experiencing life aesthetics, joining global-elite, upgrading self-taste and enjoying high quality services– and reached high recognition in the leverage of the imagination of global elite and the experience of localness. Meanwhile, through the established image of Shanghai―Cultural highland‖, the customers of Jifeng Bookstore are satisfied with the enjoyment of high-quality environment, the participant of urban-elite, the sympathy of private bookstore and the concern of mercantilism. Customers of Jifeng identified with the imagination of urban-elite and grassroots strength.The innovation of this study is the usage of empirical research method, combining the cultural study theory, which interpreted the complex social ideology behind contemporary Chinese city cultural landmarks. This study reached the conclusion that cultural landmark is not just a geographical indication, nor a cultural landscape, but a living space that indicates and symbolizes city cultural, helps constructing city lifestyle and is full of class conflicts and social power struggle. Through the customers'active practices of cultural consumption, city cultural landmarks can be regarded as important fields of advocating cultural hegemony, resisting consumerism and cultural colonialism in the globalization context. |
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