Pastoral Nostalgia and Digital Media: A Case Study Exploring Nostalgia Communication in Li Ziqi’s Online Short Videos

Department of Informatics and Media

Master’s Programme in Social Sciences, Digital Media and Society specialization

Two-year Master’s Thesis

Pastoral Nostalgia and Digital Media: A Case Study Exploring Nostalgia Communication in Li Ziqi’s Online Short Videos

Student:

​ Jinpei Deng

​ Helga Sadowski

August 2020

Abstract

The primary goal of this study is to observe how the meaning of nostalgia is negotiated and remediated in Li Ziqi’s short videos, and understand the construction and expression of pastoral images in the video, by examining its social modality of the audiencing site and the compositional and social modalities of the image site through a Critical Visual Approach(CVA).

Except for CVA, Remix as a thinking tool helps to frame data selection, mixed methods and theories throughout. To be specific, the aim of this study is to examine Li Ziqi’s communication of nostalgia online via short videos, showcases how the pastoral characteristics are evoked in the videos and the relationship between nostalgia of pastoral life and short videos. Moreover, it is of interest to think about what nostalgia communication on short videos say about society. When it comes to the two sites, firstly, an ethnographic method of thick descriptions is used to study media text and selected comments on the audiencing site. Secondly, on the image site, compositional analysis on selected visual materials is used to examine its compositions and then signs and meanings embedded in them are analyzed through semiotic analysis and interpreted by thick descriptions. As for theories, nostalgia and media, the logic of social acceleration, remediation and new media, and simulacra and simulation are applied to facilitate discussion.

Keywords:

​Nostalgia, pastoral nostalgia, short videos, new media, Li Ziqi, communication,

critical visual analysis, semiotics, remix, Sina Weibo, online videos, digital

Table of Contents

Abstract 1

Table of Contents 2

List of Figures and Tables 4

Preface 5

1 Introduction 6

1.1 Background: Li Ziqi’s Online Short Videos 6

1.1.1 Li Ziqi and the Chinese Rural Life Published Through MCN 8 1.1.2 Arguments Concerning the Authenticity of Her Pastoral Life 10

1.2 Defining Nostalgia 10

1.3 New Media of Short Videos in China as a Product of a Fast-Paced Lifestyle 12

1.4 Aim and Research Questions 13

1.5 Disposition 14

2 Literature Review 15

2.1 Studies on Nostalgia and Media 15

2.2 Reasons to Study Pastoral Nostalgia 19

3 Theoretical Framework 20

3.1 Types of Nostalgia and Media 21

3.2 The Logic of Social Acceleration and Temporal Structure 22

3.3 Remediation and New Media 24

3.4 Simulacra and Simulation 25

4 Methodology 26

4.1 A Critical Framework and Remix Method 27

4.1.1 A Critical Approach 27

4.1.2 Remix: a Tool of Thinking About Methods 28

4.2 Mixed Method 30

4.2.1 Methodological Tools and Selection of Methods 30

4.2.2 An Ethnographic Method of ‘Thick Description’ 32

4.2.3 Compositional Interpretation and Semiotics 34

4.3 Data Selection 36

4.4 Data Sampling 38

4.5 Coding and Analytical Procedure 44

4.6 Ethics 46

5 Results and Analysis 47

5.1 An Overview 48

5.2 Through the Image Site of CVM 48

5.2.1 Content: 48

5.2.2 Color: 52

5.2.3 Spatial Organization: 56

5.3 A Mixture of Studying Audiencing Site of CVM and Media Text 61 5.3.1 The Audiencing Site of CVM and Media Text Study: Nostalgic Narratives 61

5.3.2 Media Text Study: A Simulacrum of Ideal Life 69

6 Discussion and Concluding Remarks 72

6.1 Critical Discussion 73

6.1.1 A Critical Discussion of the Image Site 73

6.1.2 A Critical Discussion of Studying Media Text 75

6.2 Research Questions Reiterated 77

6.3 Limitations and Implications for Future Research 79

References 82

Appendices 89

Appendix 1: A Mind Map of the Methodological Framework 89

Appendix 2: A Screenshot of Compositional Analysis to the Video 90

Appendix 3: A Screenshot of Comment Analysis 91

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1.1...7

Figure 4.1...41

Figure 4.2...41

Figure 4.3...46

Figure 5.1...52

Figure 5.2...55

Figure 5.3...64

Figure 5.4...66

Table 4.1...32

Table 4.2...38

Table 4.3...42

Preface

First and foremost, I am thankful to my supervisor Helga Sadowski for her thoughtful comments and recommendations on this thesis. I would like to express my gratitude to my examiner Martina Ladendorf for guiding me to develop critical discussion and for her feedback on thesis revision. I would like to thank Sarah Schwarz from the Department of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University for helping me with written and spoken English. I would like to thank Ylva Ekström and Bóas Hallgrímsson from the Department of Informatics and Media for the considerate guidance and support.

I am eternally grateful to have my dear friends: Xingxing, Benzhong, Aji, Tanling and May in

my life for always listening to me, supporting me and encouraging me. To conclude, I cannot

forget to thank my family for the unconditional support in my entire academic journey.

1 Introduction

1.1 Background: Li Ziqi’s Online Short Videos

Li Ziqi’s short video ‘Childhood Taste: Snacks for Spring Festival in Memories’ on Sina Weibo (published on the 30th Jan 2019) begins with an image of chestnuts on the ground and a rustling sound from leaves and footsteps, followed by the scene of Li Ziqi backpacking a bamboo pack basket and searching for chestnuts in the open. She is surrounded by two puppies and a sheep.

The above scenes seem to display an ordinary day in the countryside. After picking up chestnuts, she takes the puppies and lamb home. At this time, a high-angle shot shows Li Ziqi, with small animals behind her, going home along the wind-blown weeds, giving people a feeling of peace in the vast world (see Figure 1.1).

At 40 seconds into the clip, Li Ziqi returns to the yard, calling out affectionately to her 'grandma'

who is warming up around the bonfire in the yard, waiting for her. Except for communicating

with her grandma, she hardly speaks anymore or deliberately looks into the camera. The puppies

and lambs that follow her all the time surrounded her feet. She skillfully pours out the chestnuts

that she has just picked up in the mountains from the back cage and uses tongs to remove the

thorns wrapped around the chestnuts while sitting on a small bench in the yard. Two plates are

quickly filled with chestnuts. Then the camera moves, she takes the chestnuts to the kitty oven

she made, scoops out the charcoal fire with a shovel, and starts roasting the chestnuts. The

camera turns again. The lamb is eating radish leaves in the yard. At this time, Li Ziqi is already

holding stalks of wheat, wooden sticks, and vise to prepare the ingredients for rock candied

haws. The next ingredients are already placed in front of the small table. Next is the cleaning

part. She sits at the table where she always prepares food, red bacon and sausages hanging on the

wall and green plants decorating the background. It gives the audience a sense of tranquility and

simplicity. She cooks one dish methodically and quietly, brings it to the table, and goes back to

the kitchen for the next dish. At the end of the video, the scene returns to her and her

grandmother again. This is the most common scene in Li Ziqi's video since the end of 2017. She

carefully arranges the food on the plate and shares it with the grandma, surrounded by the puppy and lamb by the bonfire. The video ends with a burst of harmonious laughter.

This is also a typical scene in the video of Li Ziqi, the subject of this article. The video tries its best to express the tranquility and beauty of rural life in terms of content, sound, and spatial organization. At the same time, the young woman in the video is elegant and agile. It brings a sense of nostalgia to the tranquility of an ancient hideaway and a calming feeling by staying away from the hustle and bustle of the city. If the audience is attentive enough, they can already find out many objects that symbolize nostalgia in the video, such as baskets, kitchen utensils, cauldrons, and objects referencing pastoral life used by Li Ziqi. But at the same time, among other doubts and debates brought up by social media, are the beautiful images real? Is the image presented by Li Ziqi a real country life or a beautified mimicry?

Figure 1.1 Screenshot of the Scene from Li Ziqi’s Video “Childhood Taste: Snacks for Spring

Festival in memories.”

The descriptions of the scenes above should give readers an indication of what type of pastoral

characters are embedded in Li Ziqi’s short video, as well as the feeling of nostalgia evoked. After

a glimpse of Li Ziqi’s video content and the concerns around her, to help readers have a better

understanding of the phenomenon and the context, a brief overview of Li Ziqi, her network, and

the rural China where she shots the video is presented below, as well as the online debates

around her. Moreover, it is essential to explain the development of short videos in China and the characters of short videos at the fast pace of modern life as a background.

1.1.1 Li Ziqi and the Chinese Rural Life Published Through MCN

Li Ziqi is a short video blogger known for displaying traditional Chinese cuisine with beautiful lens language and a simple aesthetic tone on multi-channel networks with a large amount of the audience at home and abroad. Although she lives in rural Sichuan with her elderly grandmother, she introduces pastoral life to people all over the world through digital platforms. In her lens, she displays clothing, food, housework, and all aspects of rural life following the changes of seasons.

From brewing soy sauce to making wormwood dumplings, from woolen wool to cloaks and ancient papermaking, this girl seems to be handy in all sorts of rural labor. She appears in the camera silently while she elegantly works all the time as if she is omnipotent with her magic hands. According to Li Ziqi’s account on Weibo’s post, the ability comes from her experience in rural life from childhood when she watched and helped her grandpa cook as a chef in the village.

She went to the city at 14 for a better life after her grandpa passed away. After 8 years’

struggling in the city, she returned home and decided to stay there to take care of her ill grandmother in 2012. The story from her childhood and her love to her grandparents later set the tone of the theme in her video.

To make a living at home, in March 2016, Li Ziqi published her first short video on the theme of

farmhouse food and cooking skills on social media to advertise her online shop at Taobao which

is the world's biggest e-commerce website according to Alexa. Back then, she used a cheap

camera and edited videos on the phone before releasing them. She started to gain attention and

clicks from her peach blossom wine making video on Mar 25th, 2016, after many trials. From

2017 with her popularity growing and her videos going viral, she hired a commercial team to

help her run the production of short videos. It was from that time that the quality of her videos

was noticeably raised in aesthetics with a cinematic feel. She also made a commercial success by

registering the “Li Ziqi” trademark and selling food that appeared in her short videos (Li

Ziqi.fan).

Organic food and wholesome lifestyle, what she presents is the natural cornucopia of the earth's bounty from old times, which is a lifestyle disappearing in modern society. In other words, she provides netizens an emotional habitat to escape from the pressure of urban life. Li Ziqi has become a remarkable phenomenon in short video production and distribution in China, not only because of her huge amount of followers and great popularity at home and abroad but also because she is acknowledged as an outstanding example for exporting traditional culture by Chinese mainstream media such as state media and by social media.

Besides her skills in farm work, food making, and handcrafts, she shot, edited, and published videos at the beginning. Over time, Li Ziqi started a multi-channel network (MCN) to publish her videos on different platforms at the same time. By MCN, it means that the video content is basically the same on her multiple platforms, except that the subtitles of those videos are adapted to the style of platforms accordingly, as well as different numbers of followers since the platforms aim at specific content and different target audiences. Taking her three popular platforms as examples, the account of ‘李子柒’(Li Ziqi in Chinese characters) has 5.559 million followers and 124 videos on Bilibili until the end of April 2020, a Chinese video-sharing website themed around animation, comic, and game, famous for its bullet-screen comments by which users can add commentary subtitles on videos. On Chinese Twitter-like Sina Weibo, one of her most active platforms, there are a number of more than 24.5 million followers (data acquired on April 30th, 2020) under the account ‘李子柒’(Li Ziqi in Chinese characters) ​. As to the most active platform, it refers that she replies and receives the most comments here on average by comparing the different platforms. Meanwhile on YouTube, ‘李子柒 LiZiqi’ has a number of 10 million followers abroad (data acquired on April 30th, 2020). With a top 5 category rank on YouTube

(https://app.hypeauditor.com/en/youtube/li_zi_qi_liZiqi-UCoC47do520os_4DBMEFGg4A/), she

can be seen as an expert as a How-to & Lifestyle video blogger of YouTube communicative

ecology (Burgess and Green, 2009, p.57). Just on the 29th April 2020, the followers of Li Ziqi on

YouTube channel reached 10 million which made her the first Chinese content producer who had

ever attained this achievement on YouTube (Sina Technology, April 29th, 2020).

1.1.2 Arguments Concerning the Authenticity of Her Pastoral Life

Li Ziqi is popular yet controversial. Despite her popularity, there have always been debates on the authenticity of the countryside life in China presented in her videos. Some worry that she misleads the urban audiences by presenting a perfect image of rural China and diminishing the harshness of farm work. At the end of 2019, there was a heated discussion around Li Ziqi on Chinese mainstream media, China’s Twitter-like Weibo, as well as some other social media platforms in China. Discussions on her were focused on different angles, for instance, the hashtag # Is Li’s channel a cultural export # and # Does Li present a real country life in China? # Furthermore, there were some people questioning how real she is as a peasant working in the fields while looking perfectly coiffed and beautiful in front of the camera.

In Li’s videos, she presents a romantically pastoral life by making traditional Chinese food and handcrafts, such as clothes, bamboo furniture, silky worm quilts, and so on, from scratch.

Interestingly, since the image of herself has blended with her video so deeply and has integrated into a brand of pastoral life, many people assume what happens in the video reveals her real life or some do not care about the blurring of two differences anymore as long as her video meets their fantasy of an ideal life. No matter what, Li Ziqi has become a household name and a sign in the online world in relation to pastoral life. The audience interprets her with different focuses.

Some people see the philosophy of living harmoniously with nature, some capture the commercial opportunity in the countryside, some feel nostalgia, while others appreciate her DIY skills, and her hard-working (Xue, 2019; Dai, 2019).

1.2 Defining Nostalgia

To set the scene for the purpose of the study, this part first introduces the origin and evolution of nostalgia, as well as dissects the various definitions of nostalgia in different fields.

Etymologically, nostalgia is promoted by the two Greek words ‘nostos’ meaning returning home

and ‘algia’ meaning longing or reminiscence (Boym, 2001, p. 24). Yet it did not originate from

Greece, instead, it dates back to 1688 when a Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer created the term

“nostalgia” in a medical paper and treated it as a mental illness which might show physical symptoms ranging from mild ones such as nausea, loss of appetite to serious signs such as suicidal tendencies. Often it happens to those who arrive in foreign countries. When it comes to the medical solution, the possible ways to recover are returning home at once, leeches, opium, etc (2001, P. 25).

It was until the beginning of the 20th century that nostalgia was regarded as a psychiatric disorder. Soon after, it was taken as a depression accompanied by a sensation of loss and regret because of homesickness (Sedikides, et. al. 2008). From the late 20th century, an independent meaning of nostalgia other than homesickness emerged. The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines nostalgia as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations” (1998, p. 1266). A similar definition in Merriam-webster is “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nostalgia).

Both definitions refer nostalgia to a pensiveness of happiness and positivity that only exists in the old time. Here, to distinguish them, homesickness is associated with the origin one comes from, while nostalgia refers to the past which not necessarily refers to home but can also be

“events, persons or sights” (Sedikides, et. al. 2004). Some believe that nostalgia provides people with an emotional link to a utopian world (Turner, 1987). From the end of the 20th century with the popularity of the use of nostalgia, Fred Davis (1979) claims the wider scale of nostalgia including its commodification. He considers that nostalgia is deeply rooted in the social relations and social structure of an era.

In her work ​The Future of Nostalgia​, Boym (2001) considers nostalgia as a yearning for a home

that is not there anymore or has never been there, which implies it is “a sentiment of loss and

displacement”, as well as “a romance with one’s own fantasy” (2001, p.12). She also argues that

instead of a yearning for somewhere, nostalgia is more like a desire for a period where a happy

childhood and slower pace exist. Nostalgia in this sense is resistance to time and progress in an

age of social acceleration (2001, p. 15), and it might get popular when frustration or dissatisfaction happens to someone in their present lives. Moreover, the truth is that nostalgics often find the feeling elusive and hard to define what they long for exactly and there is no universal rule to perceive it (2001, p. 22). Boym states, “Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals” (2001, p.

23). Klinina more recently mentions that temporal nostalgia and spatial nostalgia have always been intertwined and have never been isolated from each other (Klinina, 2016, p. 8). The integration of the two kinds is also looked at as nostalgia in most cases considered to be an emotional attachment to the past or “a version of the past” (Niemeyer, 2014, p. 216). People may experience nostalgia for different reasons, for instance, most commonly, “a longing for past childhood, family home, perhaps country of origin” (Niemeyer, 2014, p. 216).

1.3 New Media of Short Videos in China as a Product of a Fast-Paced Lifestyle There have been tremendous changes in social development in contemporary China since the implementation of an economic reform policy called “Reform and Opening Up” in 1978.

Unprecedented economic growth took place from 1978 until 2013 with an increasing rate of 9.5% per year (Fang, 2018: 26(2), 1-22). The economic growth and other aspects of social change happened due to “modernity by urbanization, reform of state-owned enterprises and joining the World Trade Organization (WTO)” (Gu, 2019, p2). What was accompanied by the changes was a large amount of migrations from rural to urban areas. In this case, the experience of going to the city to strive for a better life then return home to look after the elderly empty-nesters in the countryside is not only Li Ziqi’s personal story but also a collective experience of the post-80 and -90 generations. In between, the feeling of being displaced from home is related to nostalgia. Therefore, this should be marked as an important aspect of the social context of Li Ziqi’s social environment.

The phenomenon of "fast" is widespread and everyone has got involved. In an accelerated

society, people's life rhythm is getting faster while they have less time and more things to do, as

the pressure and anxiety become prominent (Zeng & Shi, 2020). It can be said that contemporary

China has stepped into an era of "national anxiety" (Zeng & Shi, 2020). Moreover, anxiety is no longer just an occasional psychological symptom at the individual level. It has become a persistent social mentality, as well as a widespread life experience (Wang, 2015, p184). Zeng &

Shi (2020) believe that anxiety has become an illness in the current world and it is an emotional expression of feeling uncertain under social acceleration.

As a consequence, the market for short videos in China has been rocketing. According to “The 45th China Statistical Report on Internet Development" from Cyberspace Administration of China (2020.4.28), "As of March 2020, the number of online video users in China has reached 850 million, accounting for 94.1% of the total Internet users, and the number of short video users is 773 million, accounting for 85.6% of the total Internet users." Short videos are inherently simple, direct, fast-spreading, and low threshold.

Nowadays, the prevalence of short videos is closely linked to the fragmented life and work as well as time anxiety. On one hand, short videos are convenient to watch on the short breaks during work and life regardless of locations and timing; on the other hand, people don't have to engage fully and think in-depth while watching short videos. Hence, the aesthetic feature of short videos is characterized by speed, which is totally different from traditional media like movies, TV programs, documentary, etc. When it comes to the expression of pastoral nostalgia, short videos as the product of the accelerated society provide a powerful platform for content producers to display the nostalgia that mainly exists in people’s minds. By making use of the short video, content producers combine new media with rural life to monetize the network traffic, displaying varied sides of rural life in China.

1.4 Aim and Research Questions

The primary goal of this study is to observe how the meaning of nostalgia is negotiated in Li

Ziqi’s short videos, and to understand the construction and expression of pastoral nostalgia. It

explores what the elements of pastoral nostalgia are and how they are expressed in Li Ziqi’s

short videos. In light of the above, the study aims to answer the main research question “How is

communication of pastoral nostalgia like in Li Ziqi’s short videos?” This main research question broken down into the following sub-questions:

1. How is the nostalgia of pastoral life transformed and remediated in the analyzed videos?

2. What is the relationship between nostalgia and Li Ziqi’s short videos on Weibo?

3. What does nostalgia communication on short videos say about society?

The first sub-question focuses on ‘how’ and the construction of pastoral characters from the visual site by looking at the process of transformation and remediation of pastoral nostalgia on the platform. The question tries to explore how Li Ziqi delivers pastoral images to the public by repackaging her farm life through the videos. The study intends to explore the reasons behind the trend of the popularity of Li Ziqi’s pastoral construction. It thus considers a critical visual study, as well as the implementation of compositional interpretation, semiotic analysis and thick descriptions. The second question looks into the relationship between nostalgia and short videos, where it is possible to observe the communication on both the image site and the audiencing site.

Both questions will be answered through data collection and analysis that entails the observation of a sequence of Li Ziqi’s videos. The third question explores the social meaning of the discussion on authenticity of pastoral life in the videos, as well as nostalgia communication as a whole process in this study. The discussion is based on the overall context that people in modern society suffer from the impact of social acceleration and they look for escapism through watching online videos to meet their imagination of the ideally good life as Li Ziqi’s videos show.

1.5 Disposition

To help readers have a better understanding of the research questions, in the first chapter, a brief

introduction to the subject including the aim of this study and research questions is presented,

and it details the case of Li Ziqi and short videos as background knowledge. Chapter 1 is made

of five subsections. Li Ziqi’s short videos, the Chinese rural life, and her multi-channel networks

are first introduced. It is followed by the introduction of the history of defining nostalgia. The

third section of this chapter brings in the background of new media of short videos in China as a product of a fast-paced lifestyle. The fourth section introduces the research questions and a research problem description. In order to answer the research questions in this study, chapter 2 provides an overview of previous research on nostalgia within the media. Thereafter, chapter 3 presents a theoretical framework consisting of media and nostalgia, simulacra and simulation, the logic of social acceleration, as well as remediation and new media. Following that, chapter 4 discusses the methodology where methods of sampling and analyzing are presented as the emphasis. Furthermore, ethical consideration is included. Chapter 5 is about the result and the analysis of data. Finally, chapter 6 consists of the concluding discussion, as well as the limitations and possible proposals for further research.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Studies on Nostalgia and Media

Nostalgia expression online is not a new thing, for instance, the application of faux-vintage

photos (Jurgenson, 2011) which indicates a way of reproducing photos so that they look like old

goods produced years ago, through the ‘Filters’ function on Instagram which is a social media

platform famous for its photo-sharing and digital filters. Other examples such as the vinyl

records come back in style and ​“[...]media design adopts new products to the vintage appeal of

old media technologies. TV dramas, music styles, advertisements, and product design alike are

flirting with the charms and lifestyles of the past.” ( ​Menke & Schwarzenegger, 2016, p. 2​). ​Yet,

there has been little detailed discussion on how pastoral nostalgia is presented via short videos,

especially in the context of online celebrities in a fast-paced era. As for nostalgia in short videos,

it is not merely a phenomenon happening in China. Internet celebrities expressing nostalgia

become popular around the world. In Sweden for instance, the internet celebrity Jonna Jinton

who lives a life in a way of reliving her childhood memories in her grandparents’ peaceful

village. She builds her own website and posts blogs and vlogs based on her nostalgia and

peaceful life, as well as sells products and builds her business in rural north through social media

( ​https://jonnajinton.se/​; ​https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAk3t7WHs2zjsZpopox8Taw​). On her own webpage, there are nostalgia narratives recalling the happy childhood time with her grandparents, implying the nostalgia for something from the past. “ ​On evenings like this, the childhood memories from Grundtjärn come out so extra strongly. It is enough that a small evening breeze brings with it a scent reminiscent of then, for my heart to stop and I almost want to cry for a while. Not because I'm sad, but because it feels so strong. Because it's so beautiful.

Because it is reminiscent of a time that no longer exists. With people who are no longer alive.

Grandma and grandpa. ​ ” (Jinton, https://jonnajinton.se/nostalgi/)

On Reddit, there are posts of Li Ziqi’s video as an example of non-eurocentric cottagecore under the topic ‘Cottagecore’. Also known as farmcore, cottagecore is an aesthetic movement inspired by a soothing, escapist interpretation of the life of living in a cabin in the woods, romanticized pastoral life (aesthetics.fandom). Common themes include plants, animals, rural kitchens, and straw (r/cottagecore reddit). Although hashtags and posts about the coziness of countryside life have been a mainstream theme on social media, it’s not until 2018 that the term “cottagecore”

was coined (Jennings, 2020). It has proliferated online in 2020 when the COVID-19 hit, experiencing a boom on platforms like Tumblr, which has seen a massive spike in engagement with cottagecore content with posts up by 153%, likes by 541%, and reblogs by 644% (Haasch, 2020). This is in line with What Boym (2001) proposes, as mentioned in section 1.2, that nostalgia is more like a desire for a period of slower life and a rejection to fast-paced time (2001, p. 15), and it might get popular when people are preoccupied with unhappiness.

The irony is that people are forced to practice social distancing and trapped alone inside cluttered

apartments alone, but cottagecore contents include the element of isolation. One of the reasons

for that is the root of cottagecore oriented from the minimalist aesthetic, which is the desire to

control your space, and in turn, your life. Most of the cottagecore content shows the netizens

how to grow plants, raise animals, or bake bread. The fantasy of a self-providing lifestyle is a

response to the global crisis when every resource one needs is out of one’s control. The DIY

elements idealize a sustainable, environmental friendly lifestyle that is crucial for the future in

the after-epidemic era (Haasch, 2020). David Gauntlett also discusses this in “Making is Connecting” (Gauntlett, 2019), talking about everyday creativity is not just a sweet kind of sideshow compared to some serious political or social concerns. It is crucial and political because people made a choice to make things themselves instead of consuming goods through suppliers. It then relates to how to view and deal with the world, therefore, some significant or political changes could happen by stemming from it.

The second is that cottagecore contents include many calming elements (Haasch, 2020), which is quite understandable in an era defined by anxiety and uncertainty. This is in line with Gauntlett’s thoughts (2019) that in a time of ‘money buys everything’ where so many people feel alienated with the goods they use. Therefore, it becomes relevant to explore spaces like Li’s channel where individuals can perceive creativity so that they can obtain a sense of security. Li Ziqi sets an example of being creative by using some ordinary recipes in the daily scenes in her videos and it fosters a sense of shared feelings and common sense between makers and viewers. For instance, one YouTube user says: “Art is not only the painting but the things used on it and the time consumed in order to make a remarkable and wonderful painting”. Moreover, netizens talk about all the goods Li made just like talking about their friends. They are so familiar with her work and surroundings. This is the presence of the maker in the things she made, and it is creativity as a process and interaction with others. “It fosters a sense of shared feeling and common cause, even when the maker and the audience never meet” (Gauntlett, 2019, p. 256).

Interestingly, cottagecore aesthetics exist almost exclusively online. Most of the fans do not necessarily adopt the lifestyle of cottagecore, they just post and participate in the community formed online. One of the reasons is that most of them live in urban apartments or suburban bedrooms (Jennings, 2020). Buying a house in rural wood without internet access is not realistic.

The cotagecore aesthetics is more of a state of mind than an actual solution. Fans have a vision

of romanticized ideal life that human and nature is always in harmony and everything one needs

is always within reach. Therefore, this lifestyle could be a future that urban netizens hope to

adopt.

Back to scholars’ work on nostalgia, so far, there have been researchers studying the connection between Instagram and nostalgia (Meijers, 2015; Nguyen, 2017), for instance, the aesthetics of images with a trend of old modes, the ‘illusionist technology’ vs the new kind of nostalgia called

‘Instant Nostalgia on Instagram’ (Meijers, 2015, p. 14), as well as Instagram as the new form of digital media makes use of nostalgia through applying the retro aesthetics of old media (Nguyen, 2017). However, nostalgia on short videos as a new form of digital media applied to different social media platforms gain little attention in scholarly work. The following part will focus more on nostalgia expressions in China. In his PhD dissertation “The construction of nostalgia in screen media in the context of postsocialist China” (Gu, 2019), Gu identifies that nostalgic culture is displayed in different forms of screen media in the past thirty years in China. He argues that the nostalgic culture has been shaped together by the screen media industry and the Chinese government for political and lucrative reasons. On the political side, for instance, “the urban-rural divide, urbanisation, commercialisation, and youth experience”(Gu, 2019, p1) in the context of postsocialist China have affected the nostalgic expression. Gu states that “[...] ​three kinds of nostalgic culture have been portrayed on the Chinese screen since the 1990s, attempting to transport viewers back to different types of ‘home’ within various social contexts ​” (p. 2), in which ​“Each of these screen media evokes different longings for the past: some for enthusiasm and passion, some for innocence, and some for simple everyday life. Such diverse nostalgias also carry different functions, as some tend to engage with social issues and have political motivations, while others lean more towards being seen as commodities to attract the screen market. ​” (p. 2). The paper tries to understand the dynamics between socio-economic and political contexts by looking at five different forms of screen media texts in movies, internet drama, and TV documentaries (Gu, 2019).

In a special issue ​Media & Zeit ​(Menke & Schwarzenegger, 2016.4), there were concentrative

discussions on nostalgia from a communication and media perspective where a wide range of

topics were researched by media scholars. They mainly presented how nostalgia is entangled

with the past, present, and future. As the editors, Manuel Menke and Christian Schwarzenegger

(2016, p. 2) concluded the recent trend of studying media and nostalgia. They mentioned that political events including the Brexit campaign, ‘Take back control’, and ‘Make America great again’ were indeed nostalgic discourses and strategies by reminiscing the good past and resisting the present to promise a better future. In an age of digital media occupying our life, through sharing past stories online, using nostalgia as a strategy of commodification and many other experiences related to the old time, it is possible for people to understand their identities.

Nostalgia therefore could relate to “[...]political orientations, social norms, and cultural values”

(2016, p. 3). Kalinina (2016) studied relations between media and nostalgia, as well as how vital that media is for nostalgic productions nowadays. About the commodification of nostalgia, as Niemeyer suggests, when nostalgia as a strategy is used for marketing and commercial purposes, it is only a sentimental construction of the past and media is an important role in this construction (Niemeyer, 2014). As we can see, there are some economic studies of nostalgia regarding consumer behavior (Marchegiani & Phau, 2010; Chen, Yeh. & Huan, T. 2014), as well as it being used for consumer purposes (Baer, 2001). Gu(2019) also considers that commodity attribute is one of the aims coming along with nostalgic construction. Other disciplines have literature related to nostalgia such as sociological (Keightley & Pickering, 2006), psychological (Vuennet, 2009).

2.2 Reasons to Study Pastoral Nostalgia

As a study of cultural expression via digital media, the research focuses on the socio-cultural

dimension of the Li Ziqi phenomenon and the nostalgic expression in her videos. As we are

aware, people who live in the city nowadays buy everything from the shop without knowing

where they come from and they also lose the patience to wait for the whole year to see the

sowing and harvesting. However, they find Li Ziqi’s video brings them back the happiness of

knowing how things come out and the pleasure of living with a pastoral life. In the meantime,

people complain about not having enough time all the time and they do not even have the

patience to review the news that happened yesterday. After watching her videos one by one and

browsing the comment section and news reportage on her, a feeling of nostalgia and the yearning

for old time are obtained.

Among the many perspectives to look at in the Li Ziqi phenomenon, the nostalgic construction through short videos and what this might reflect on the connection between media and our society are the parts I am most interested in. The nostalgic feeling is a sentiment I am familiar with and nostalgia has been a keyword in my personal life since I left my parents’ place to boarding high school at 15 years old. At the end of 2019, there have been intense debates about Li Ziqi on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo and Chinese Quora-like ZhiHu where netizens argue around her passionately and sometimes acrimoniously. Unlike others, she is a typical online influencer that was first famous abroad and then caught attention in China. Curiously, I clicked on the videos of her YouTube channel named “李子柒LiZiqi” and could not stop watching the videos all afternoon. “I would also love to live her life.” I thought. It reminded me of each summer and winter break living with my grandparents in the countryside of China when I was a kid. Even though the memory fades over time, a sense of intimacy came over me when I watched her videos.

When it comes to the research, to apply thick description and semiotic analysis in this case, it asks the researcher to be an insider to know well about the research object. As for this, I am familiar with the life which Li Ziqi displays in the video not only because I am a Chinese who understands the traditional cultural signs and connotations embedded in her content, but also because I have seen familiar scenes at my grandparents’ home in my childhood. Located in Li Ziqi’s neighboring province which is southwestern China, there are many customs and cultures in common at my grandparents’ place compared to Li Ziqi’s hometown. Now that I have grown up and lived abroad, watching her videos also brings me nostalgia for the past. Moreover, I am a follower of Li Ziqi’s channel who watched most of her videos so I have a good knowledge of the content and the pattern of her short videos.

3 Theoretical Framework

Having understood the history of nostalgia in section 1.2, this part will present a theoretical

framework of nostalgia, detailing how it relates to the relationship between nostalgia and media

by Fred Davis (1979), Svetlana Boym (2001), and Katharina Niemeyer (2014), as well as the logic of social acceleration and temporal structure, remediation, and simulacra and simulation.

3.1 Types of Nostalgia and Media

Scholars have put nostalgia into different types. For instance, Fred Davis (1979) categorizes nostalgia to three orders (types), which are “simple nostalgia” (1979, p. 17) where it emphasizes the positive feeling of the past by avoiding mentioning the negative experiences happened before and involves an emotional longing for return, “reflexive nostalgia”(p. 21) who adds a voice of questioning the past experience, and “interpreted nostalgia” (p. 24) who digs deeper and goes further to explore the reasons behind the nostalgia based on the first two types.

According to Turner, the idyll themed art was a symbol of stability and authenticity in western civilization (1987). It is believed that nostalgic feelings are hard to be captured by language or practice, but possible to be caught by photography partly. From a social and cultural discourse, nostalgia has four dimensions including the loss of “historical decline and loss”, the loss of

“personal wholeness and moral certainty”, the loss of “individual freedom and autonomy with the disappearance of genuine social relationships” and “a loss of simplicity, personal authenticity, and emotional spontaneity”(Turner, 1987, p150-151). The nostalgic sensation is often associated with a loss of rural simplicity and stability influenced by industrialization, urbanization and capitalist culture, etc (Turner, 1987, p152).

Boym (2002) considers the contemporary nostalgia concerns more on the present and she focuses on the correlation between personal and collective memories. She categorizes nostalgia into two kinds to explain “one’s relationship to the past, to the imagined community, to home, to one’s own selfperception” (2002, p. 70), which are restorative nostalgia and reflective nostalgia.

The two types provide references to think about what the feeling of yearning bears and in which

ways it exists. Restorative nostalgia looks for a reconstruction of the past and the lost home

while reflective nostalgia tends to stay in the sensation of loss and yearning, as well as

interrogates the past. Restorative nostalgia also helps to ease the pain of displacement by

providing a return home even if it is not your own home (p. 74). Boym reminds people of the necessity of differentiating “the habits of the past” from “the habits of the restoration of the past”

(p. 70) in restorative nostalgia.

As for the relationship to nostalgia and technology and media, Boym argues that “fundamentally, both technology and nostalgia are about mediation. As a disease of displacement, nostalgia was connected to passages, transits and means of communication. Nostalgia like memory depends on mnemonic devices.” (p. 406). People tried different devices to help settle the displacement but failed, from writing to fast transportation like railroads. It is now believed that the types and forms of nostalgia vary at different stages of modernization and each medium has its effects on nostalgia. Boym claims that cyberspace enables nostalgia in digital form which seems more desirable than nostalgia in reality (p. 408). To summarize, she mentions that “reflection on nostalgia allows us to reexamine mediation and the medium itself, including technology.” (p.

413). Nostalgia could never be caught by any technology since it is about human consciousness.

3.2 The Logic of Social Acceleration and Temporal Structure

According to Paul Virilio(2006) and Hartmut Rosa(2018), the phenomenon of acceleration is a defining quality of contemporary life. Each individual is drawn in a constantly accelerating world emphasizing efficiency, speed, and competition, from which the universal anxiety arises.

Virilio(2006) takes speed as a basic condition for modern civilization. He proposes the concept of dromology (speed) which is “a shifting, restless logistics of differential governance transforming the raw material of the world and rendering it in a more appropriate form” (p. 10), and he believes that human civilization has been chasing after speed since the Industrial Revolution. In relation to the vision, Paul Virilio (1994) proposed that humans are stuck in ‘the vision machine’ that is created by technologies. “ ​The use of the term visual culture refers to this plethora of ways in which the visual is part of social life. ​” (Rose, 2016, p. 6)

In his book (Rosa, 2018) (Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity, New Directions in

Critical Theory, the original German title "Beschleunigung und Entfremdung: Entwurf einer

kritischen Theorie spätmoderner Zeitlichkeit", Rosa, 2013), Rosa discusses what affects the quality of life in modern society. He finds out the breakthrough point is time and temporal structure which can be analyzed by the logic of social acceleration. He thinks that social acceleration is the core process of modernity, which the acceleration is reflected in many ways including social structure, communication, lifestyle, and pace of life, to various extents. To answer the reasons for the acceleration, he points out that three aspects, accelerated technological development, the acceleration of social change, and accelerating pace of life, have gradually formed a closed circle, in which they speed up and affect each other. As a result, it leads to the new alienation of five dimensions in our daily life, which are space, goods, action, time, and self.

The difference between the previous research and Rosa’s is that the former often emphasizes the determinism of technology, and believes that accelerating technologies increase the pace of life and social changes. However, if that is the case, why would we have less time instead of saving a lot of time? Therefore, Rosa (2015) suggests a new order of the three aspects of acceleration:

first people use technology to deal with a fast-paced life, and then they save time to make social changes through the technology. However, the accelerated social changes bring more new things for people to deal with, therefore it leads to the increasing pace of life. The three accelerations interact with each other while each has its own internal motivation.

Digital media, as a tool of the progress of technology in post-modern society for us to communicate with, is in line with new alienation where Rosa(2018) addresses technological progress as the first layer of social acceleration, bringing acceleration of social change and the atrophy of the present. In response to the problem of new alienation he proposes, Rosa brings up the concept of resonance(in German ‘resonanz’, 2018 ), the reciprocal relationship between subject and world, as a solution. It means that if a human being is a social being, a fundamental premise of social conditions for a good life lies in whether he or she can be in a life world that would respond (resonanz) to him or her.

As Rosa suggests, in the age of acceleration, people should turn the critical perspective to the

temporal structure in order to have a more complete view to diagnose social pathology. In his

book (Rosa, 2015)(A work in Chinese translated from the original German title

“Beschleunigung: Die Veränderung der Zeritstrukturen in der Moderne”(2005). Dong, Trans.), Rosa (2015) points out that the development of modernization is manifested as the "acceleration"

of the social temporal structure from the perspective of time sociology. Accelerating comes from the logic of increasing the density of time, instead of a physical property it is rather a fundamental change of the social temporal structure in the modernization. Therefore, this speed is about social acceleration, which is the nature of society itself.

3.3 Remediation and New Media

In the work ​‘Remediation: Understanding New Media’​, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin(2000) define remediation as “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms” (p. 273). It’s a competition in which new media try to take over while the old one tries to keep their current status (Bolter & Grusin, 2000, p. 5). In general, it’s a constantly evolving process that one media borrows, remixes, and absorbs some characters of other media. For example, new media like news websites will integrate video with the news articles on the page, which are the features of the TV. But it also works the other way. Old media like News on TV nowadays will add running subtitles on the bottom of the screen. Hence remediation also refers to a blending of new and old media. Along with immediacy and hypermediacy, remediation is one of the three traits of our genealogy of new media (p. 273).

Immediacy and hypermediacy are also two major strategies in the medial competition between

old and new media. Immediacy aims to fulfill the reader or the viewer’s desire to experience all

sensations immediately and directly while forgetting the present of the medium (p. 272–73). On

the other hand, hypermediacy is a “style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the

viewer of the medium” (p. 272). The goal of hypermediacy is to infinitely multiply our media

and heighten our awareness of them by blending several different forms of media in one

document. For example, cookbooks on Pinterest are remediated by turning recipes (or links to

recipes) into pins that feature visually stunning food photos.

Each new media tries to reform the old one by promising a more direct experience, yet such a promise will make us aware of the new medium as a medium. The producers have to achieve the effect in a hypermediated way which results in “double-logic of remediation” – the desire to present a vast amount of media to a consumer while maintaining the illusion that they are getting an immediate, unfiltered look at the content (p. 17).

The remediation of digital visual media can be analyzed through the ways in which they borrow, remix, and absorb the old one (p. 15). They will continue to refashion other forms of media, presenting themselves as new, improved versions. Meanwhile, the medium of the Internet has a

“jukebox”-like feature, like hyperlinking to different cameras on a webcam site, which allows the user to choose what they want to look at in real time (p. 6). With such a feature, the user could have a different experience compared to old media like watching a movie, despite the similar audio-visual presentation of the two platforms.

3.4 Simulacra and Simulation

Being one of the most important theories of Jean Baudrillard's work, simulacra and hyperreality become unique discourses in postmodern society. Baudrillard (1981) interprets simulacra in the way that in a contemporary society dominated by symbols, codes, and images, the original objective reality is dispelled to create a hyperreal world. In such a new society where material forms have disappeared, the boundaries between reality and falsity have disappeared. With the varied means of technologies, the real has been simulacified and the principle of simulation becomes the dominant power of social life. With simulacrum everywhere, people have unconsciously stepped from modern to postmodern society.

Baudrillard discusses three orders of simulacra in his book (p. 121) which include “simulacra

that are natural (on counterfeit), productive (on production), and simulacra of simulation” and

they correspond to the imaginary of an ideal world, science fiction, and ‘something different’. To

be specific, on the first order, objects copied are regarded as a unique imitation of the original,

and they follow the law of natural value, copy nature, and reflect nature. At this stage, there is

still a perceptible difference between the illusion and the reality, that is, the reality still exists.

Not like the counterfeit on the first order, the product on the second order is no longer a copy of the original, but as an equivalent component of the original. As for the third order, Baudrillard points out that we are surrounded by “the simulacrum of value[...] by the law of value and of the commodity” (1981, p. 153). At the same time, simulation becomes the current order of simulacra. The simulacrum at this stage creates hyperreality which breaks the tradition, and the model constructs reality. In the simulation phase, reality disappears within the process of copy coming to its limit. The true not only becomes something that can be copied but also becomes hyperreality.

Baudrillard proposes that it is because of the media that has accelerated the degeneration (1981, p. 13)from the modern society to the simulacra society, and the contemporary society is a simulation society created by the mass media. “Today, it is the real that has become the alibi of the model, in a world controlled by the principle of simulation. And, paradoxically, it is the real that has become our true Utopia - but a Utopia that is no longer in the realm of the possible, that can only be dreamt of as one would dream of a lost object.” (1981, p. 122-123). He borrows the idea of ‘implosion’ (p. 79-86) by Macluhan and talks about the implosion of meaning in the media, in which implosion blurs the boundary between simulacra and reality. It corresponds to the chaos of the subject and the object and the death of meaning and the truth.

4 Methodology

This chapter discusses the research approach and methods that are used to collect, sample, and

analyze data, that is, the justification of the selection of my data and analytical approach. In

addition to that, the coding and analytical process will be presented. Thereafter, the limitations of

the study including ethical considerations are likewise clarified.

4.1 A Critical Framework and Remix Method

4.1.1 A Critical Approach

It seems that this world is heavily encountered visually (Rose, 2016). Choosing short videos as a media form to analyze entails the necessity to face the visual world and figure out how things are visually constructed. In this study, in order to understand how pastoral nostalgia is constructed, transformed, and remediated through visual materials meaning Li Ziqi’s short video, and how visuality becomes meaningful, ​Critical Visual Methodology (CVM, Rose, 2016) as an analytical approach is applied.

Why is it important to think about the visual? What’s more, why does it have to be critical in this case? To respond to the above questions, as Rose suggests, being critical means to study the visual from the perspective of cultural significance, social practices, and power relations, and it means ways of watching and understanding it can in turn affect the power relations (2016, xxii).

Images are always constructed through something, being critical means to ​“(..) thinks about the agency of the image, considers the social practices and effects of its circulation and viewing, and reflects on the specificity of that viewing by various audiences, including the academic critic.”

(p. 23)

A few criteria for applying CVM to interpreting visuality are as follows (Rose, 2016, p. 22-23):

firstly, this study takes visual representations carefully, to answer the first research questions,

compositional methodology is used and therefore elements like color, light, the aesthetic style,

etc are presented to see the effects of the image itself. Secondly, it is vital to consider the social

context of the video content, which in this case is the context of pastoral nostalgia in an

accelerated society and it could include its development, expression, as well as questioning and

debates around it. Thirdly, I, as a researcher, need to have my own perspective to view the videos

with reflexivity, with thinking about images responsibly.

Adopting Rose’s theory on methodological tools of visual analysis which are sites and modalities (2016, p16), it is possible to get an idea of the process of Li Ziqi’s short videos and develop a framework for methods to work with the visual. To quote Rose’s (p24) interpretations on sites and meanings of an image:

“The framework developed is based on thinking about visual materials in terms of four sites: the site of production, which is where an image is made; the site of the image itself, which is its visual content; the site(s) of its circulation, which is where it travels;

and the site where the image encounters its spectators or users, or what this book will call its audiencing.”

Moreover, each site is reflected via three different modalities which are technological, compositional, and social (p25). By technological, it means technologies that make and decide the visual effects. By compositional, it means formal qualities such as content, color, and spatial organization, etc. As for social, it refers to " ​(..) economic, social and political relations, institutions and practices that surround an image and through which it is seen and used. ​" (Rose, 2016, p. 26)

4.1.2 Remix: a Tool of Thinking About Methods

As was mentioned in the previous section, the four sites and three modalities of each site mean a

big amount of data from different layers, platforms, and media, etc. How to generate data and

rationalize the use of methods? It would be instructive to bring in Annette Markham’s

philosophy of ‘remix method’(2013, p. 65) to further situate different methods and justify the

data selection. Here, the term of remix refers to “the processes and products of taking bits of

cultural material and, through the process of copy/paste and collage, producing new meaning to

share with others” (2013, p. 64.) Remix is taken as a powerful tool to interpret meanings in

qualitative studies (p. 65). It is actually a way of putting fragments of data together from

everyday life including the digital world and practical life, and to make sense of them. Markham

(p. 66) suggests five elements of remix which are generate, play, borrow, move and interrogate

to better implement qualitative research in the digital world. The idea throughout the entire process reminds us that research is “exploratory and creative, a mix of passion and curiosity” (p.

66)

Now I will detail the five elements and combine them in this case. As for ‘generate’, what Markham means is for data gathering and data should be approached decidedly instead of sitting still and waiting to be picked. ​“Focusing only on the first layer of data (the original stuff we collected) doesn’t allow us to fully appreciate what is actually at play when we engage in the long, involved, inductive, and explorative art and science of ‘writing culture’.” ​(Markham, 2013, p. 74-75). That is to say, the inquiry of data will influence the scale of data and further affect how we interpret data. In this study, ‘generate’ is reflected in sections 4.3 and 4.4 where data selection and data sampling are first implemented through online observation and then decided by taking the nostalgic references into account.

‘Play’ is a way to explore and help finding connections in complex social media contexts. In inquiry, remix combines different elements to make sense of them inventively. It provides guidance in research design regarding contexts and in ​“[...]finding forms of representation that have contextual integrity and finding rather than simply applying conceptual models that help make sense of these phenomena.” (2013, p. 76) ​The focus of this study is not to analyze isolated images, but to explore how pastoral nostalgia is constructed and transmitted. Therefore the strategy of ‘play’ is to mark the text posts that involve a nostalgic meaning and to point out what nostalgia the visual samplings, as well as the decision to apply a mixed method of compositional analysis and semiotic analysis to the visual materials.

According to Markham, borrowing or quoting from others is fundamental or almost inherent in

academic work, for instance, we borrow sampling methods, theoretical frameworks and analysis

tools. As she points out, there are many aspects of Internet-related phenomena happening across

varied platforms and different media. In the process of inquiry, things get clear by applying

“ ​approaches, perspectives and techniques [...] to figuring out creative ways to grapple with these contexts. ​” (2013, p. 77).

“ ​Inquiry is always situated, but never motionless[...]It is also not necessarily forward, in that many movements will take us back to the beginning or will cause us to see the entire project in different ways, forcing us to mark our current point as a new beginning to move from. ​” (2013, p.

77) As Markham argues, ‘move’ as a philosophy of being adaptive encourages scholars to embrace the flows and changes, and to be flexible and creative within the whole process.

“ ​[...]everywhere we see the production of culture, we know we are witnessing the outcome of a process of reflexive interrogation ​” (2013, p. 77). ‘Interrogate’ means a constant questioning of what, how and why in the process of study and a reflexive attitude of doing research. It also happens in this study, as the pastoral nostalgia means a yearning for the past in real life while in Li Ziqi’s videos, we talk about the construction and simulation of pastoral life and how the audience absorbs it, this indicates interrogation of nostalgic communication online.

4.2 Mixed Method

Having introduced the above critical approach and the tool of remix, section 4.2.1 will present an overview of methods (see Table 4.1), and section 4.2.2 and 4.2.3 will further discuss the details of mixed methods.

4.2.1 Methodological Tools and Selection of Methods

The present part will translate methodological tools into this study by examining the intersection

of sites and modalities and explain which of them are more important. Since the research

questions do not involve circulation and production, the sites of circulation and production are

not included in the study and other two sites including image and audiencing will be discussed,

together with three aforementioned modalities: technological, compositional and social.