关键词: 网络消费, 消费空间, 空间生产, 社会空间, 关系性空间

Abstract:

This article focuses on the newly emerging online consumption practices, which is suggested to be a kind of social space, and is established on the underlying social relations. Based on the theory of the production of spaces, especially used the concepts of triad spaces, namely the spatial practice, the representation of space, and the representational spaces, taking cases of 10 designer women costumes stores on Taobao, which is the largest C2C e-commerce platform in China, with the method of text analysis and in-depth interviews, this article explored traits and the triad processes of production of online stores. Conclusions are as below: 1) It is necessary to judge whether online spaces share the similar social qualities with physical spaces, before applying existing spatial theories and approaches on the exploring of online spaces. Based on briefre views of philosophy concepts of online spaces and the social spaces theories, online spaces, for instance, online stores, are deemed as social spaces decided by certain social relations. 2) The conceptual triad in production of spaces is proved to be a worthy frame of exploring the online consumption spaces, which are emerging as highly overlapping, complex and social relevant spaces.The practice of online consumption spaces supports, as well as is decided by the consumption relationship. Consumption relations, which are contained in online consuming spaces,should be deemed as multi-subject and multi-scale networks. Online store sfurther help derivingmany other social relations beyond consumption,which makes online stores very places for sharing experiences and daily lives among customers and store keepers, and arousing people’sfeelings of traditional everyday lives, and sense of belonging to communities. Representations of online consuming spaces,which are mainly achieved by operating with codes, signs and symbols, are co-productions of techniques, structural powers of society, creative ideas and resistances of everyday lives. The mutual process of coding and decoding reveals the dominated up-down construction and the bottom-up powers of deciphering, such ason the stores’ style forming and branding. The perform ativity of models and scenes presenting on online stores often acts as an effective strategy to arouse consumers’ identity. The representational spaces of online consuming spaces are expressions of contradictions and imbalances of the society, the obedience and resistanceto mainstream social culture, which accumulates as powers to promote the development and redevelopment of online consuming spaces. 3) The underlying structures of the production of online consuming spaces are composed of multiple dialectical relations and complex interactionsin context of certain society. The mainly triad processes of production of online consuming spaces can be concluded as the consumption relationship, the symbolic manipulation, and the cultural expression, respectively corresponding to the spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces, which expresses and interacts with the social structure, real worlds of everyday lives and symbol systems.

Key words: online consumption, consuming space, production of space, social space, relational space