Dissemination of water-amenity to social discourse: a proposal for utilizing mass media

As the pictures in section 3.1 show, we can understand water-amenity activities and river construction 200 years ago from the paintings of Utagawa Hiroshige, one of the most influential painters from Japan. In the past, paintings played the role of journalism and media; nowadays, through a variety of mass media, water-amenity is able to be disseminated into a kind of social

People often make deeply personal and importantattachments to ‘sightseeing,’ such looking at rivers and green landscapes. Such attachments reflect the value that ‘sightseeing’ has in our lives, and often are based on cultural or spiritual meanings. However, there has been relatively little discussion of environmental services that are symbolic, cultural, or spiritual.

3.4.1 Dissemination of water-amenity through journalism and advertisement

The journalism and advertisement of water-amenity and water-amenity landscapes belongs to the broad field of tourism journalism. Although most mass media news and journalism focuses largely on hard news, in the diversification of journalism expenses, soft news takes the field of tourism journalism. Tourism journalism’s position at the intersection between information and entertainment, journalism and advertising, as well as its increasingly significant role in the representation of different cultures, makes it a significant resource for reader satisfaction.

(Fürsich, 2003)

As Fürsich noted, tourism journalism, as with international news, draws on and helps perpetuate the identity of the original place, as well as its place in the collective imagination of different parts of the world. As such, it is an important site for the study of trans-cultural encounters (Fürsich, 2012). For decades, there has been an increasing ‘‘softening’’ of journalism away from hard news to more consumer-driven formats that blur the boundaries between information and entertainment. Besides the impact of digitalization and technological convergence, and its related breakdown of established business models, it is the growing demand for popular journalism such as human interest stories and infotainment formats that experts name when they lament the end of journalism.

Advertising is one of the main elements of tourism marketing. It involves using paid media to communicate persuasive information about a destination, product, or service. Advertising is used to provide information and influence attitudes amongst customers, and it can be directed at customers in either a targeted narrow way, or in broad geographic applications.

In contrast to common tourism destinations, water-amenity landscapes do not put particular emphasis on unique famous sights and local specialties, because the main population of their visitors are local residents. As such, water-amenity landscapes usually do not have boarding facilities like hotels for visitors from other areas. Therefore, the main objection to water-amenity landscape advertisement is local residents. Moreover, most water-amenity parks are built by local authorities and are not aiming for profitability. The cost of advertisement is not negligent;

Therefore, the main characteristics of water-amenity landscape can be observed as follows:

1. Advertising through soft news: as shown before, most water-amenity parks are public and non-profitable; thus news reports are the best cost-performance ratio method to advertise water-amenity landscapes. The news in Fig. 3-18 and Fig. 3-19 are typical news reports for advertising water-amenity parks.

2. Advertising through events and activities: this is another significant style of soft advertisement. It disseminates the popularity of water-amenity parks.

3. Real-estate advertisement: In recent years, some real-estates disseminate and stress the nearby water-amenity landscape as advertisements to potential buyers. In another way, real estate nearby water-amenity landscapes is beneficial for collecting more potential and real local residents. This is especially effective in countries of national land tenure, such as China. Residents are not able to attend the construction of water-amenity reclamation, but they are able to decide to if they want to live near a water-amenity landscape and enjoy recreational activities.

Real estate advertisement is a new negotiable method to dissemination of water-amenity landscapes even in water-amenity theory, because real-estate companies are eager to promote each advantage of their properties. There is no doubt that properties neighboring water-amenity parks can attract more potential buyers and long-time residents. However, real estate advertisements are managed by companies, whose main aim is to advertise commercial properties, and thus they are unable to disseminate water-amenity landscapes as their main content. The role of water-amenity landscapes in real estate advertisements is simply to polish up the selling points of properties

Fig. 3 - 18 Local news report of events in water-amenity park

Shizuoka News report in Nov. 2013, introduced the information about red leaves festival of Wappazawa water-amenity park in Shimata City, Shizuoka, Japan.

http://www.at-s.com/facilities/detail/206983.html

Fig. 3 - 19 National news report to introduce landscape and festival of water-amenity park

Asahi News in Nov. 2013 introduced the autumn sightseeing of Kurosonkeiko Creek water-amenity park in Shimanto City, Kochi, Japan.

http://www.asahi.com/articles/OSK201311060176.html

Fig. 3 - 20 Local news report of residents activity in water-amenity park, Edogawa ward, Tokyo, Japan

Edogawa Residents News posted this video news to report the cleaning activity organized by local residents in Aug. 2013.

http://www.news.city.edogawa.tokyo.jp/movie/movie1667.h tml

Fig. 3 - 21 Local news report of water way reconstruction to amenity park, Takasaki city, Gunma, Japan

Takasaki News reported the opening ceremony of Mitsudera park in Apr. 2010. The news report introduced the structure and construction method of Mitsudera park, stressed the park is reconstructed from former spring waterway to water-amenity park. The speech of vice-governor general of Gumna prefecture was cited: “The park makes more residents happy; we are also expecting to welcome more visitors from other places.”

Fig. 3 - 22 An advertisement of mansion property near Ichinoe water-amenity park in Edogawa ward, Tokyo, Japan. The mansion’s name is “Kurio Ichinoe Water-amenity Park”. The advertisement particularly emphasizes the “landscape area” created by water-amenity park.

http://new.realestate.yahoo.co.jp/mansion/03/dtl/00082111/

Fig. 3 - 23 An advertisement of mansion property near Shinkoiwa water-amenity park, Edogawa ward, Tokyo, Japan. The mansion’s name is “Shinkoiwa Water-amenity Park Homes”.

http://stock.home4u.jp/detail/view/0003433

Fig. 3 - 24 A high-class mansion named “Park Axis Kinshicho Water-amenity Park” (Sumida ward, Tokyo, Japan) adopts the landscape picture of water-amenity park on its official webpage.

http://www.mitsui-chintai.co.jp/resident/original/pax_kinshi

Fig. 3 - 25

In China, water-amenity landscapes also become a significant element for real-estate companies. From this news essay in Changchun, Jilin, China, the price of mansions which have

water-amenity landscape is on average 1000 CNY higher than the mansions in the same area which don’t have

water-amenity landscape.

3-19

MotivationConfirmtheissueAnalyzethe informationInvestigation,collect information Analyzeotherconditions (e.g.limitation,adaptation) MakethedisseminationplanAssessment

Negotiation

Agreement

StayinthecoursePassageoftime Determinationof localresidents

n t

Yes

No YesYes Yes No

No No

socialconscious changes Fig.3-26Processtoformadisseminationplan

3.4.2 Discussion: to disseminate water amenity as lifestyle measurement

Fig. 3-26 shows the progress of a dissemination plan, including both mass media journalism and advertisements. Each step requires a sufficient exchange of information and communication.

Especially for the determination of local residents, making local residents understood and calling for their attendance is the most significant role for communication organizations – the media. Moreover, mass media and advertisements provide strong support for domains and collection of affective words, which will be further discussed in Chapter 4.

Nowadays, consumer satisfaction is also increasing in the aspect of landscape maintenance.

Together with an increasing demand for higher product quality, the situation becomes even more complicated. Products must have a higher performance and better function, even so as far as being multi-functional. The requirement for landscapes is also as the same. Therefore, the emotional needs of customers must be carefully considered. In the industrial design area, variety of methods exist for integrating the voice of customers of industrial use.

However, landscapes are different for the following reasons: firstly, the requirement of visitors (customers) trend to similar indexes such as water quality, vegetation, and convenience. Their attitude is that they can directly pay back through visiting, earlier than industrial design.

Secondly, to the present day, most water amenity parks have been non-profitable; visitors do not need to pay for visiting. Therefore, it is possible to adopt the “lifestyle” measurement, which can be recognized as a combination of environmental discourse and psychological requirement of life, instead of a beneficial purpose in the dissemination of water-amenity landscapes. Media publication is an effective tool for dissemination and social relation. Exerting the use of these to publicize environmental thought and activity is an effective issue in the publication chain of environment discourses.

Discerning consumers’ requirements today anticipates the delivery of any type of lifestyle association in the context of the actual good effect. Similarly, water-amenity landscapes can also suffice to associate the cultural and psychological requirements of public life with a lifestyle target group through branding and positioning.

The aim for dissemination water-amenity consciousness and measurement is to construct a good relationship between people and landscapes (Fürsich 2001). How this relates to lifestyle aspirations such as originality or surprise can be summarized in four relevant areas. Customers expect an upscale lifestyle to deliver:

and advertisements usually provide useful information. In addition to the financial expenditure, the living environment has already become a significant element for new residents when choosing a living place. The advertisements of properties in Fig. 3-22 to Fig. 3-25 sufficiently proves this. Moreover, traditional culture such as Fengshui also provides some cultural information in countries where the influence of traditional culture is strong.

2) Psychological fulfilment: by attracting visitors with psychological desires and interests in enjoying sightseeing and activities in a water-amenity landscape. The functions of iyashi, emotional therapy, sports, and more, facilitate interests and interaction for visitors.

3) Locality and communication: as a well-known position, the landscape has a close-knit relationship with the local community. It has become a relevant factor for today’s lifestyles.

Visitors also expect to get more local information and/or information related to the location during their visit. In this aspect, traditional landscape styles, localized activities and markets, and related areas are expected to offer the locality service to visitors.

4) Surprise: to flatter the self-consciousness of visitors. Landscapes can affirm their understanding. By entertaining visitors with smart, unexpected details in management or construction/vegetation arrangements, the landscape is able to create an association with the client’s value system. Examples of these details are regular or irregular public events, photo galleries, special botanic vegetation, and cherry blossom sightseeing.

These needs also correspond to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” published in 1943. Maslow described five needs from low to high which are in terms of Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence, to describe the pattern ofhuman motivations. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is one of the most popular psychological theories at present. This research also applies Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to analyze the visitor’s psychological and emotional needs to water-amenity in Chapter 4.

Generally, the four needs of lifestyle also correspond to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: the needs of a good living environment correspond to “physiological” and “safety”; the psychological needs correspond to both “belongingness and love” and “esteem”; the locality and communication needs correspond to “belongingness and love”; and surprise needs correspond to

self-esteem to visitors.