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Database consumption

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Database consumption (Template:Lang-ja) refers to a way of content consumption in which people do not consume a narrative itself, but rather consume the constituent elements of the narrative.[1]: 240  The concept was coined by the Japanese critic Hiroki Azuma in the early 2000s.

Overview

The background to Azuma's presentation of this theory is the concept of narrative consumption by the critic and writer Eiji Ōtsuka.

In his A Theory of Narrative Consumption, Ōtsuka cites franchises like Bikkuriman stickers and Sylvanian Families as examples, pointing out that people are not consuming the items but the "grand narratives" (Template:Lang-ja, worldviews and setting) behind them. He called the paradigm of consumption mainly found since the 1980s "narrative consumption". It is also referred to as "worldview consumption" (世界観消費) to avoid the ambiguity of "narrative" which specifically means "grand narrative (worldview and setting)" in this theory.[2][note 1]

Based on Ōtsuka's work, Azuma replaces "grand narrative (worldview and setting)" in the theory of narrative consumption with "grand non-narrative (stacks of information)" (大きな非物語（情報の集積）) and use the term "database consumption" to describe the new paradigm of consuming huge "databases" shared within a community. This form of consumption is particularly prominent in Japanese otaku culture since the late 1990s.

The new consumption paradigm is closely related to the advent of postmodernism. In essence, otaku culture and the postmodern condition are thought to have the following points in common: 1) As stated by Jean Baudrillard, it is no longer possible to distinguish between the original and the simulated, and thereby the in-between simulacra prevail in hyperreality, which parallels the difficulty to distinguish derivative works and media mix from the original works in otaku culture; 2) Jean-François Lyotard defined postmodernism as the decline of grand narratives (norms shared by society as a whole) and the emergence of many localized, little narratives (norms shared only within small communities), which corresponds to otaku culture's value norm that the fictional world rather than the real world is paid more attention to.[4]: 40–47 

While narrative consumption could be seen as fabricating pseudo-grand narratives with worldviews behind works to compensate for the lost grand narrative (partial postmodernism), in database consumption, however, even fabrication is abandoned (full postmodernism).[4]: 131  Therefore, in (full) postmodern otaku culture, by accessing various types of databases (stacks of information) that vary depending on personal interpretations, various settings are extracted by different people to create different original and derivative works (indistinguishable between originals and copies).

In Lacanian terminology, "grand narrative" could be seen as "the Symbolic", "little narrative" as "the Imaginary", and "databases" as "the Real".[5] However, psychiatrist Tamaki Saito, while acknowledging such correspondence is understandable as a metaphor, believes the equivalent to databases should be more appropriately the Symbolic, stating that the Symbolic with autonomy is what promotes the "genesis of characters".[6] The "database turn" of the world can be considered a manifestation of postmodernization in the cultural aspect (shift towards database consumption), globalization in the economic aspect, and digitalization in the technological aspect.[7]

Azuma did not mention which type of databases is involved in database consumption. Informatics engineering expert Naohiko Yamaguchi[8] and art critic Takemi Kuresawa[9] believe they the concept corresponds to relational databases.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Sonoko Azuma used the term "worldview consumption" to describe a specific type of narrative consumption that involves imaging a worldview as a "grand narrative".[3]

References

  1. ^ 東浩紀 (2007). ゲーム的リアリズムの誕生~動物化するポストモダン (in Japanese). 講談社. ISBN 978-4061498839.
  2. ^ 前島賢 (2010). セカイ系とは何か ポスト・エヴァのオタク史 (in Japanese). ソフトバンククリエイティブ. pp. 111–112. ISBN 978-4797357165.
  3. ^ 「妄想の共同体――「やおい」コミュニティにおける恋愛コードの機能」『思想地図〈vol.5〉特集・社会の批評』 252頁。
  4. ^ a b 東浩紀 (2001). 動物化するポストモダン オタクから見た日本社会 [Otaku: Japan's Database Animals] (in Japanese). 講談社. ISBN 9784061495753.
  5. ^ 東浩紀; 大澤真幸 (2007年). "虚構から動物へ". 批評の精神分析 東浩紀コレクションD. 講談社. p. 65. ISBN 978-4062836296.
  6. ^ 斎藤環 (2011年). キャラクター精神分析　マンガ・文学・日本人. 筑摩書房. pp. 214–215. ISBN 978-4480842954.
  7. ^ 「動物化するオタク系文化」『網状言論F改―ポストモダン・オタク・セクシュアリティ 』28頁。
  8. ^ 山口「情報工学とライトノベル」『ライトノベル研究序説』青弓社、2009年、207頁。ISBN 978-4787291882。
  9. ^ 暮沢剛巳 『キャラクター文化入門』 エヌ・ティ・ティ出版、2010年、18-19頁。ISBN 978-4757142565。

Bibliography

  • 大塚英志 『物語消費論』 新曜社、1989年。
  • 東浩紀 『動物化するポストモダン　オタクから見た日本社会』 講談社、2001年。ISBN 978-4061495753。
  • 東浩紀 『ゲーム的リアリズムの誕生』 講談社、2007年。ISBN 978-4061498839。
  • 東浩紀「動物化するオタク系文化」『網状言論F改―ポストモダン・オタク・セクシュアリティ 』青土社、2003年。ISBN 978-4791760091。
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