【英语论文】荧幕上的咖啡文化传播：美国电影中的星巴克(英文)

1、毕 业 论 文题目：荧幕上的咖啡文化传播： 美国电影中的星巴克 系 别： 英语学院 国际新闻与传播系专 业： 新闻学 姓 名： 攻 读 学 位： 学 士 导 师： communicating coffee culture through the big screen： starbucks in american moviesbyzhang xiaochena paper presented tothe department of international journalism and communication the school of english and international

2、studiesbeijing foreign studies universityin partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofbachelor of artssupervised by professor fu meirongmay 2010acknowledgementsi would like to thank the following persons for their help and support during my research and writing of the thesis. first of

3、 all, i want to thank professor fu meirong, my thesis advisor. she has talked with me several times during the whole thesis-writing process, discussing my research ideas and approaches and giving me advice on how to conduct the research and present it on paper. secondly, i want to thank the faculty

4、of the school of english and international studies, under whose care i have studied and lived four years during my university life. finally, i would like to thank my parents for their consistent support and help for my studies. especially my mother, who took me on a trip that triggered my initial th

5、oughts on this thesis.abstractcoffee culture changes in different contexts and phases. american coffee culture, represented now primarily by the popular starbucks phenomenon, has been dramatically reshaped over the years. on the one hand, popular media, movies in particular, have a great influence i

6、n transmitting cultural messages. on the other, product placement has long been one of starbucks most successful brand promotion tools. thus, movies are the best medium to study. in the meantime, the audiences ideologies and behavior patterns are in a large part influenced by the stereotyped images

7、in advertisements. therefore it is important and necessary to study the coffee images portrayed by starbucks and the coffee culture it strives to create. this thesis examines the images of starbucks coffee in american movies. the portrait of starbucks coffee in popular movies not only serves as a pr

8、omotional means, but also as a way of communicating coffee culture through the big screen. content analysis and semiotic approach are employed to examine the coffee culture communicated through american movies. a sample of seven american movies from 1998 to 2008 with scenes of starbucks coffee is in

9、cluded in the content analysis while semiotic theories are applied to the 1998 film youve got mail. the content analysis includes variations such as movie settings and environments, demographics of the main characters, time and length of the incidents, etc. the findings of the study suggest that thr

10、ough the movies, starbucks attempts to establish the image of an upscale cosmopolitan coffee chain and a coffee culture that represents vigorous american middle class lifestyle. first of all, starbucks coffee constitutes a large proportion in movies with coffee scenes. it has a relatively high statu

11、s in the american society and the coffee industry. secondly, the image of starbucks coffee shop dramatically changed the image of previous european and american coffeehouses. the unique small town coffeehouse culture flooded with thoughts from all classes is replaced by the identical coffee chain fe

12、aturing cosmopolitan white-collar lifestyle. thirdly, starbucks are connected with the spirit of a number of middle-class aspirants in pursuit their dream. lastly, starbucks attempts to create the unique “starbucks experience”, even though it represents the monotonous giant corporate chain culture.

13、this is an experience that enables consumers to find their own space and self, both literally and metaphorically, in the fast changing society. in conclusion, the starbucks stereotype in movies promotes a coffee culture representing the cosmopolitan middle-class in american society. key words: starb

14、ucks coffee culture american movies product placements摘 要咖啡文化在不同背景时代下有着不同的含义。美国的咖啡文化如今已由星巴克文化改变了。由于电影对于文化传播有着巨大的影响，且在电影中置入广告是星巴克咖啡最成功的宣传手段之一，因此电影充当了星巴克所代表的咖啡文化传播的最佳媒介。同时，由于受众的意识形态与行为习惯很大程度上受广告中的刻板印象影响，星巴克在电影中的形象对咖啡文化的塑造有着不可忽视的作用，本文的研究意义即在于此。本文对美国电影中的星巴克咖啡形象进行了内容分析以及符号学分析，以阐释星巴克在美国电影中所传播的咖啡文化。本研究对199

15、8年至2008年之间的七部电影进行了内容分析，采用定量和定性相结合的方法考察了一系列的变量。其中包括电影场景、氛围，电影角色的年龄段、身份、经济状况，电影片段的时间长短、出现频率等。并进一步应用符号学对1998年的电影电子情书进行了分析。本研究得出以下结论：首先，星巴克咖啡在美国电影中的曝光频率较高，在同类的咖啡产品中有着举足轻重的地位。其次，星巴克咖啡的品牌形象改变了以往欧洲甚至美国咖啡馆的形象。以往小巧别致、风格独特、充斥着不同阶级思想文化的小城咖啡馆形象如今已经变为代表着时尚大都市白领文化的星巴克连锁。再次，在电影中的星巴克咖啡是美国中产阶级生活态度以及积极进取精神的一个缩影。最后，不论

16、是在电影中还是在现实中星巴克都营造了一种与众不同的“星巴克体验”：温馨的环境，多种类的咖啡选择，轻松的氛围。顾客不仅仅是在品味咖啡，同时还能在复杂多变的社会中获得属于自己的空间和归属，找到自身生活的意义。总之，星巴克在美国电影中咖啡文化的刻板印象宣传了代表着美国大都市中中产阶级文化的咖啡文化。通过电影情节、场景、人物等的设置，星巴克提升了自身的形象，营造了电影中的咖啡形象，并通过大荧幕传播了咖啡文化。关键词： 星巴克 咖啡文化 美国电影 插入式广告contents. introduction8a. starbucks and coffee culture8b. starbucks and it

17、s promotional strategies: product placement9. literature review10a. media and society theories10b. content analysis and semiotic analysis11c. on coffee culture12. methodology and data13a. content analysis14b. semiotic analysis16. decoding the images17a. content analysis: findings and analyses171. th

18、e coffee king as an upscale cosmopolitan beverage192. aspirants middle-class lifestyle20b. semiotic analysis of youve got mail (1998)211. joes starbucks: a middle-class daze232. “an absolute defining sense of self”24. conclusion25works cited28communicating coffee culture through the big screen：starb

19、ucks in american movies. introductiona. starbucks and coffee cultureoriginally discovered in ethiopia, the magical coffee beans have earned themselves love of almost every culture around the world. developed together with the special brewing process and flavor is its unique and irreplaceable coffee

20、culture. coffee has gained its popularity in britain with the rise of consumer society in the late 17th century. it soon turned into a commodity yet with its own position in british culture. coffeehouses were the icons of that era. it was common that people sitting in the coffeehouses, discussing th

21、e latest news in the country (ellis 2008). however, when coffee was introduced into america, it took on a different cultural connotation. coffee soon represented the pursuit of the american dream, the expansion to the west, portraying hard work and diligence (bates 1997). coffee has a very significa

22、nt role in americans daily life. it is considered a social custom both private and public. according to a survey by the u.s. department of health, education and welfare in 1980, “coffee drinking is widespread in the united states: in 1976 some 101 million people 20 years or older 80 percent of the u

23、.s. adult population drank an average of 3.2 cups of coffee a day” (troyer 304). however, it was not until the late 1980s when starbucks revived under howard schultz and started to branch out that american coffee culture really started to change. when the company went public in 1992, it had only 165

24、 outlets clustered around seattle and its neighboring areas. yet it has now gown into a giant corporation with over 9,000 retailers around the world (s 2010). this coffee empire was built on not just commercial success, but also cultural triumph. starbucks was then blamed for what b

25、ritish sociologist jeremy tunstall called the “cultural imperialism thesis” when the new coffee empire was extending to both american and the global market. (clark 2007) starbucks is seen as a groundbreaker in successfully implementing globalization commercial and lifestyle into the locals. its revo

26、lution “transformed gourmet coffee from a yuppie status symbol into a mainstream consumer good, and essentially created the american coffee shop market” (thompson 2004).b. starbucks and its promotional strategies: product placementthe scene of people carrying plain white coffee cups boldly imprinted

27、 with the green mermaid logo and hurrying across busy morning city streets is too familiar on the big screen. (knikker 2005) the green logo has almost “become synonymous with upscale, urban chic” (jones 2003). in fact, starbuckss building of a brand image “has been accomplished with almost no relian

28、ce on traditional advertising”. “the company spent less than $10 million in advertising in its first twenty-five years” (pendergrast 378). instead, starbucks has attempted to lure their consumers by creating the actual “starbucks experience” within each coffee shop. the coffee shops on the streets t

29、hemselves, with the bolded green icon have become its main advertisements. however, another promotion mean has been paid little attention to. product placement has long been one of the promotion techniques for starbucks and by far the most successful and noticeable one (jones 2003). product placemen

30、t is an advertising tactic, which usually concerns a product or a brands exposure in media such as television and movies (dastous 2000). “we want to reinforce the brand as a part of peoples daily lives in a variety of different ways.” chris gorley, the program manager at starbucks who is responsible

31、 for product placement, said in an interview with puget sound business journal (jones 2003). though being a background, successful product placement could strike a responsive chord in the hearts of the audience, as it seems to be what they could also experience in real life. starbucks coffee images

32、in movies reinforces its brand image to a wider range of audience. subconsciously, the audiences fall into a seemingly real yet stereotyped and fictitious world constructed by starbucks. studies show that stereotyped images in advertisements affect peoples self-image and behavior patterns (shields,

33、2002:66). what kind of coffee people enjoy, how they consume coffee is largely influenced by the coffee culture, or the coffee images conjured up in their minds. therefore, it is significant to study the cultural connotations of those images, the cultural messages starbucks communicated through the

34、movies. by constructing images in movies, starbucks created the “starbucks stereotype” that features the most distinct starbucks traits: starbucks images in the films reflect its own orientation as a coffee seller, its targeted consumer groups as well as coffee culture. this thesis is to examine wha

35、t brand impression, or brand stereotype starbucks would leave the audiences and what kind of coffee culture is constructed through the big screen. . literature reviewthis section first reviews literature of the theoretical background: stuart halls encoding/decoding theory. then literatures in cultur

36、al and media studies employing content analysis and semiotic analysis are reviewed. finally, a close attention is paid to studies on coffee culture, starbucks in particular. literatures examining both economic and cultural aspects of starbucks are included. a. media and society theoriesthe theoretic

37、al base is the assumption of the relation between media and culture. in the contemporary society, cultures are profoundly influenced by media, or mass communication. the relation of media and culture, the ideology realm presented and constructed by the mass media has long been a topic under discussi

38、on and study (croteau 159). on of the approaches to media and culture is stuart halls theory of encoding /decoding. encoding/decoding by stuart hall was first published in 1973 in encoding and decoding in the television discourse, elaborating his new theory in the studies of media and audiences. he

39、revolutionarily renewed previous theories on mass communication process, contending that the message transmitting process from the media to the audience wasnt as simple as those shown in a lineage, or a circuit (sender-message-receiver). instead, the message transmission process could be more compli

40、cated and influenced by cultural and ideological factors. hall stated in the article that the communication process through media (television in particular) involved the encoding and decoding process. those who “created”, or rather made the media content actually combined the message with their own

41、world view, or ideology, thus the encoding process. this is also what hall called the “dominant”, or the “preferred meaning”. (hall 2002)b. content analysis and semiotic analysiscurrent studies on images portrayed in movies apply either content analysis or semiotic analysis. most studies applying co

42、ntent analysis concern about the smoking and alcohol incidents, including tobacco and alcohol product placement in films, which are mostly in the field of health communication. erin l. ryan and keisha l. hoerrner (2004) examined the smoking and drinking incidents shown in disneys animated classics f

43、rom 1937 to 2000 while susannah r. stern (2005) analyzed the teen-centered films for smoking, drinking and drug use exposure. different units of analysis are chosen (incident of exposure and main characters, respectively) yet they all aim at documenting the content patterns in films that might poten

44、tially influence teenagers and young audiences. in terms of semiotic analysis, prior research mostly focuses on scrutinizing the images and codes of women, fashion, sex, cigarettes, alcohols, etc. in films and television shows. recent semiotic analysis on popular media, films in particular, suggeste

45、d the possibilities and means for analyzing characters and scenes in films. such works as sexual subjectivity: a semiotic analysis of girlhood, sex, and sexuality in the film juno (2008) by jessica willis and fashion as communication: a semiotic analysis of fashion on sex and the city (2008) by kata

46、rina kuruc all focused on the female image portrayed in the films, though with different emphasize: one on sexuality and the other fashion. both studies analyzed the connotation embedded in the characters as a whole instead of analyzing single shot or scene. although the possibility of analyzing cof

47、fee images in american movies is suggested in of cigarettes, high heels, and other interesting things (2008), little study has laid primary interest in analyzing them. c. on coffee cultureprior research on coffee culture mostly explores the political economy of coffee plantation and trade (bates 199

48、7), as well as the branding and advertisements of coffee companies (thompson 2001, 2003; clark 2007; york 2007). however, research on starbucks coffee, including its advertisement analysis, is not the minority (fry 2000; york 2010). katherine fry in her starbucks coffee: cultivating and selling the

49、postmodern brew (2000) analyzed the starbucks advertisement on a magazine. she concluded that by displaying the “exotic self”, or the image of a mysterious and foreign coffee man, starbucks intended to “craft a consumer niche” that represents “a lifestyle and signifier of good taste”. other works on

50、 starbucks mainly focus on its brandscape (thompson 2004) as well as rhetoric analysis on the starbucks coffee shops (dickson 2002; ruzich 2008). the starbucks branscape and consumers (anticorporate) experience of glocalization (2004) by craig j. thompson is a study on meanings communicated through

51、starbucks brand and logo in the globalization and localization era. by extensive observations (at the local starbucks coffee shops in cosmopolitan city) and interviews, the study finds that starbucks s cultural influences on its consumers are more than just globalized corporate expansion in the loca

52、l area, but rather revolutions that “propagate a particular kind of third-place experience” and “shaped cultural expectations and ideals about what coffee shops should be”. two papers examined the starbucks coffee shop and language of starbucks advertisements respectively through the use of rhetoric

53、al analysis. greg dickson in joes rhetoric finding authenticity at starbucks (2002) contended that the decorations and environment of starbucks coffee shops strive to bring the subjectivities into a natural world through the use of natural color and materials, covering the “sins of postmodern consum

54、er culture”. constance m. ruzich in for the love of joe: the language of starbucks (2008) testified his assumption that starbucks use of language appeals to costumers more than their cravings for caffeine, but rather it “has associated coffee with the language of love: self-love, romantic love and p

55、hilanthropic love”. two other studies concentrate on analyzing the cultural massages communicated by starbucks through movies. coffee talk: starbucks and the commercialization of casual conversation (2003) by rudolf p. gaudio focus on the “middle-class sociolinguistic practice of coffee talk” in con

56、temporary american societies (gaudio, 2003:659). the article begins by quoting and analyzing a dialogue in the movie good will hunting (1997). the author concluded that the practice of conversation and social interaction have been associated with the class preference, namely, the choice of coffeehou

57、ses in the context of the movie. another study, think seattle, act globally (2005) by james lyons explores the commercial tactics starbucks employs to achieve promotional goals, namely, the use of “originality”, or “speciality coffee” to disguise “homogenized, mass-market coffee productions”(lyons,

58、2005:14). in particular, the essay examines starbucks product placement in movies such as fight club (1999) and austin powers (1997). by portraying negative starbucks images in those movies, the author argues, starbucks intends to respond to the opposing criticisms attached to the company. (lyons, 2005: 25) however, the studies listed above mostly concentrate on the economic aspects while only adumbrate the