The Production of a 'Manga Culture' in France: a Sociological Analysis of a Successful Intercultural Reception
THE PRODUCTION OF A “MANGA CULTURE” IN FRANCE: A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A SUCCESSFUL INTERCULTRAL RECEPTION Olivier VANHEE
Communication à la Conférence Internationale Asia Culture Forum 2006 Mobile and Pop Culture in Asia Gwangju, Corée, octobre 2006
Introduction Manga and anime are now part of the cultural habits of different generations of French readers, and they are a major cultural space where images and meanings about Japan and Asia circulate. From the end of the 1970’s, intercultural relations with Japan developed mainly through this Japanese media culture1. The success of manga and anime contributed to a strong interest in different aspects of Japanese culture, but there are still few studies of this successful intercultural reception. This paper is an attempt to analyze the reception of manga in France as an historical process challenging French traditional cultural hierarchies. The reception of these global commodities in France has involved conflicting discourses and representations, and has eventually resulted in the production and recognition of a specific set of activities and cultural resources about manga and anime. This “manga culture” is however far from being homogeneous, and is even more and more diverse: distinctions and boundaries have been created within this specific cultural domain, and the perception of manga is shaped by various French stereotypes and cultural myths about Japan. I will try to show how this form of “cultural capital”2 was built up and used, and how it relates both to an interest in Japanese society and to skills related to Information and Communication Technologies, especially among teenagers and young adults. Two dimensions of these processes will be more precisely developed in this paper: A discourse analysis of the symbolic conflicts between traditional cultural “gatekeepers” and fans, which led to different forms of cultural acknowledgement of manga and anime.
1
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See Rafoni Béatrice, « Le néo-japonisme
Communication à la Conférence Internationale Asia Culture Forum 2006 Mobile and Pop Culture in Asia Gwangju, Corée, octobre 2006
Introduction Manga and anime are now part of the cultural habits of different generations of French readers, and they are a major cultural space where images and meanings about Japan and Asia circulate. From the end of the 1970’s, intercultural relations with Japan developed mainly through this Japanese media culture1. The success of manga and anime contributed to a strong interest in different aspects of Japanese culture, but there are still few studies of this successful intercultural reception. This paper is an attempt to analyze the reception of manga in France as an historical process challenging French traditional cultural hierarchies. The reception of these global commodities in France has involved conflicting discourses and representations, and has eventually resulted in the production and recognition of a specific set of activities and cultural resources about manga and anime. This “manga culture” is however far from being homogeneous, and is even more and more diverse: distinctions and boundaries have been created within this specific cultural domain, and the perception of manga is shaped by various French stereotypes and cultural myths about Japan. I will try to show how this form of “cultural capital”2 was built up and used, and how it relates both to an interest in Japanese society and to skills related to Information and Communication Technologies, especially among teenagers and young adults. Two dimensions of these processes will be more precisely developed in this paper: A discourse analysis of the symbolic conflicts between traditional cultural “gatekeepers” and fans, which led to different forms of cultural acknowledgement of manga and anime.
1
-
See Rafoni Béatrice, « Le néo-japonisme