Social media, space and leisure in small cities

ABSTRACT

This special issue focus on the trends, problems, solutions and experiences relating to development, marketing and sustainability in small cities. By comparison with large cities, small cities and towns have smaller populations supported by less extensive infrastructure. Nevertheless, they serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural centers for their surrounding areas. Because of their smaller physical and population scales, and more limited social and environmental carrying capacities, it is important to identify how these destinations engage in tourism development activities and how the public sector and consumers determine their sustainability. In particular, this research note focuses on the development of small cities in the social media era. Examination of social media dissemination mechanisms contributes to the understanding of changes in the behavior patterns and the planning of real spaces in mid-sized urban destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism development
• small cities
• social media
• leisure behavior
• urban residents
• leisure space

Introduction

Major cities usually contain numerous tourism attractions and they are also concentrations of demand for tourism and recreation opportunities. Transportation networks focus on primate cities so that travelers often pass through them even if they are not their final destinations. They are also places with major universities and research institutions and, for these reasons, they have received much research attention. Although possessing somewhat similar attributes, but to a lesser extent, mid-sized cities and smaller towns have received less attention. It is not our intention to define such places according to population, area or other attributes, for these vary with jurisdiction and have changed over time. Rather, it is our intention to present an eclectic set of cases, influenced by the availability of manuscript offerings rather than any pre-determined criteria, that address aspects of tourism in mid-sized cities and towns.

Tourism has often been described as a fragmented sector and communication and networking among stakeholders are vital for its successful development. Furthermore, by definition, tourists come from elsewhere, so that for marketing and investment purposes among others, communication commonly extends beyond the limits of the destination. Thus, it is not surprising that information and communication technologies have been among the most important influences on almost all aspects of tourism in recent decades. It influences how tourists make decisions about where to go, what do, where to stay and enables them to gather and share information during their trip and to communicate with others about destinations and experiences on their return. It has become fundamental to modern marketing, facilitates contact between suppliers and potential clients, and is used to make bookings and transfer money. It is an increasingly important source of data for tourism researchers, with implications for the questions that can be asked and how they can be answered. As such, there are very few aspects of tourism that have not been impacted by information technology.

Within this rapidly changing area, social media are of growing prominence. Social media are a new type of online media, based on the real-time transmission of digital signals, that promote interpersonal communication through the interpersonal and mass communication of information. They shorten the space-time distance between people, changing the mode of information dissemination and corresponding social power structures in contemporary societies (Ganley & Lampe, 2009). User-generated content and a user's independent (though linked) communication of information play important roles in forming a person’s own social identity and social consciousness. Collectively, they have far-reaching implications for the formation of groups and the nature of society.

The rise of social media has changed the mode of communication in the information age, with profound consequences for almost all aspects of society. Social media, with their unique characteristics of relationships, individuality, efficiency, sharing, agglomeration, integration and openness (Zhao, 2010), are rapidly displacing traditional media in which resources are highly specialized (Levinson, 1998). The relatively monopolized and unitary media information dissemination path and the flat social media communication mode make information dissemination in contemporary society more divergent, thus reconstructing interpersonal communication (Kietzmann et al., 2011). This affects the behavior of people, including their leisure behavior.

In the social media era, unique and novel information dissemination mechanisms impact the information reception of people concerning and during their leisure, resulting in changes in their leisure choices (Tang, 2010). The changes in demand have resulted in modified behavior patterns and changes in the use of real space (Whyte, 2001). At the same time, use of social media can itself be regarded as a leisure behavior. Leisure and entertainment activities based on social media can substitute for leisure behavior in real space, thus directly changing people's time allocations and their choices of leisure behavior. Thus, social media are bringing about changes in leisure behavior that require research and documentation.

At the same time, rapid urbanization is occurring that is not confined to the largest cities but is seen in all but the smallest places in the urban hierarchy. As mentioned above, definitions of urban and urbanization have varied from time to time and place to place, that frustrate precise comparisons. For example, in China, the published populations of cities usually incorporate the surrounding rural areas. Accordingly, it is not our purpose here to define a small or mid-sized city or town. Rather, it is our intention to draw attention to those places that are not at the top of the urban hierarchy but that are changing as a result of urbanization.

China’s new urbanization strategy is causing many industries and large numbers of rural people to move to small cities and towns, resulting in the formation of agglomerations of small cities and towns, often with inadequate services and facilities to support adequately the growing population (Johnson & Glover, 2013). This trend is not confined to China but is occurring in many parts of the developing world. The processes of urbanization, industrialization and modernization are intertwined in such places and are associated with great social changes that have important impacts on residents’ way of life (Bray, 2005). It is of great value to investigate the lifestyles and behaviors of the residents of these geographical spaces, including their leisure. Analyses of their needs and behaviors have the potential to play a positive role in understanding and adjusting leisure provision at intermediate urban spatial scales, and to provide a reliable basis for the optimization of the economic, social and environmental attributes of small cities.

In small cities, the relatively small regional space and relatively simple social structure, when compared with large cities, make the social communication of residents more confined and less fluid (Whyte, 2001). However, with the rise of social media, the social communication patterns of urban residents changes. The unprecedented diversification of information dissemination channels and the expansion of the scope of communication expand options and increase the complexity of the social network structure (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). A new state of information dissemination and social communication is enabled with novel social group aggregations and consumptions. In the context of leisure behavior, more abundant and extroverted features appear with new requirements for leisure space.

While the needs and opportunities are evident, there are currently few researchers examining the social network and leisure behavior patterns and spaces of residents in small cities from social media perspectives. Stimulated in part by a desire to inform policies supporting the new trends in urbanization of small cities in China, the study of leisure behavior of residents in small cities could be beneficial in furthering understanding of the living conditions of residents of these geographical spaces. It is of great social and political significance to improve the quality of life of these people. In order to do so, it is necessary to investigate the major changes that have taken place and are occurring in the social network structure and leisure modes of residents of small cities during the information dissemination revolution.

Literature review

Social media

The mechanisms and social impacts of social media need to be analyzed systematically. Academic research on social media as a new channel of communication in interpersonal relationships has focused upon concepts, features, and technologies. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) suggested that social media have two key features: user-generated content and consumer autonomous media. Users participate in the process of information creation and dissemination, contribute spontaneously, extract and create news information, and then disseminate information through networks of people who are in contact with each other (Peng, 2013; Xie, 2013). The foundation of social media is social networking technology, which is embedded in individual and organizational social networks. Based on common interests and activities, users form a new type of social network through software architecture on the network platform (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Ma & Wang, 2018). Social media break the original communication logic and communication paradigm, by constantly building a new social communication model (Luo, 2013). According to Kietzmann et al. (2011), new social networks that incorporate personalization, networking and digitization have had, or are about to have, huge impacts on all aspects of society.

The research focus on social media is gradually turning to more comprehensive research on social impacts and social media networking (Levinson, 2012). New social tools impact social relations because change in the social intermediary often result in modified social relationships. Therefore, in the context of accelerated social change, it is particularly necessary to study the impacts of social media. Future research on social media should be closely integrated with examination of social groups and social interaction. Ideally, the complexity of social network communication requires that analyses should be undertaken from the viewpoint of systems theory.

Residents’ leisure behaviors

Urban residents’ leisure behaviors need to be studied systematically from a social perspective. Leisure activities, as a fundamental part of human life, are indispensable to well-being. The Charter of Athens (1933) puts forward that leisure activities and leisure spaces are an important part of the development of urban socialization. It is of great significance for residents’ lives to improve the quality of the urban living environment. With transformation of the social structure of small cities, the patterns of residents’ leisure behavior and the scale of their leisure space have changed greatly. The leisure activities of urban residents have become an increasingly important part of people's social life in cities (Sun, 2015).

Although not acting alone, the development of social media is having great impacts on the leisure behavior and leisure space of urban residents. First, social media has guided concentration upon residents’ leisure and promoted the development and use of flexible leisure spaces (Takayama, 2011). Second, with the development of more diverse urban economies, greater differentiation of the social strata of urban residents and their residential living spaces has promoted the gradual differentiation of urban leisure space, resulting in hierarchical aggregation. However, the former has modified the latter: the rise of social media has, to some extent, broken the spatial polarization brought about by social class differentiation. Information technology supports the theory of “social spatial unity” put forward by Harvey (2009) in Social Justice and the City, by promoting the development of more equal social space (Tonkiss, 2006).

In addition, to some extent, social media has broken the binary division of work and leisure in industrial society, resulting in the interweaving of work and leisure across time, activity and space (Yuan, 2017). This has greatly changed leisure behavior patterns, making them more specialized, individualized, enriched, interactive, timely and entertaining (Yuan & Li, 2012).

Thus, the structure of urban leisure spaces is changing, and concentric patterns based on living function such as home and work, and time-distance may be breaking down as travel rules are changed (Zhao, 2010). Indeed, the global coronavirus pandemic, which is raging as this manuscript is being written, is further complicating relationships between home and work, confounding travel patterns, and fracturing prior patterns of leisure participation. Zonal leisure space, based on shopping and other specific leisure functions of residents, has new characteristics reflecting the new demands. At the same time, urban residents now have dynamic virtual leisure spaces based on digital media information dissemination.

Social media and urban space

Stiglitz (2002) suggested that the “new technology revolution” and “urbanization in China” are two important forces that are having a profound impact on human society in the 21st Century. In a highly urbanized society, media technology is constantly changing to meet the information and communication needs of modern society, changing communication behavior and the mode of information dissemination, with impacts on the structure and layout of urban space. Urban civilization is rooted in urban space, in which the rapid development of media technology promotes urban development and the evolution of urban spaces (Chen, 2013).

Media technology and its applications are transforming urban space, with affects across multiple scales from individuals to groups, cities, countries, and human society as a whole. According to Soja (2006, p. 9),"People living in modern times seem to have entered a new urban hyperspace, invisible city, utopian geography, post-modern urban activity, virtual communities, electronic networks, computer-driven worlds, simulated cities, Internet cities and Bitcities”. The development form of the urban space pattern and the functional renewal of the new media influence each other; the separation between reality and fictitious is smaller and smaller as the complicated urban space and the new media's multi-form “two flows meet”. Since time immemorial, the needs as embedded in human genes and the dynamics of living spaces and places based on material needs have been changing dramatically, and the use of new technologies based on virtual networks has greatly changed and replaced many of the properties and functions of these physical spaces (Albrechtslund & Albrechtslund, 2014).

In small cities, with some functions of urban agglomerations, the physical space is relatively limited. But, the online expansion of social media produces extensive virtual social networks so, from this point of view, social media has reshaped and extended urban space (Luo, 2013). Social media has a two-fold impact on urban space: first, social media mobility reconstructs residents’ leisure behavior and needs, thus creating new space needs (Soja, 2006); second, the industrial characteristics of social media provide a new opportunity for the development of urban space, giving birth to a new urban spatial economy, spatial culture and spatial perceptions (Huang & Dai, 2014)., The new media technology did not remove space, but changed it (Harvey, 2009). reshaping and renewing the urban spatial system. The framework of human society and the rhythm of life constituted by the new media have become the background of the today’s new urbanization and, to some extent, have evolved to become our living space and environment.

The vigorous development of the new media technology has had a great impact on the traditional media and has affected all aspects of social life. Small cities are affected especially, from their internal spatial structure to their external performance. Similarly, residents living in small cities have been influenced by the new media, which have introduced new ways of life and social interaction (Zeng, 2010).

Spatially, as an exogenous variable of information technology, new media has important spatial influences. By changing the mode and channel of regional spatial information dissemination, the power structure and interpersonal relationships in space are greatly influenced, and then the physical form of space is changed. Put succinctly, media characteristics affect people's behavior, promote new behaviors and demands, thus changing the uses of physical space.

The influences of social media on urban leisure space

The influence mechanism

As a new means of information dissemination, social media have impacted social communication and the uses of urban space. Spatially, social media creates and strengthens communication experiences, while the interacting bodies are separate, located in different spaces. The influence mechanism can be divided into two stages: the influence of social media on residents’ leisure behavior and urban space; and the influence of time on residents’ leisure behavior, leisure patterns and spatial requirements.

In the first stage, spatially, social space is constructed in a situation of physical absence, where interest and other elements are strengthened in the social interaction process. Paradoxically, the separation and interaction are occurring at the same time. In the second stage, social media changes the urban form. Social transitions from acquaintances to strangers and convergence in the behavior of residents causes changes in urban space functions and regionalization. The breadth and depth of residents’ social and leisure spaces, and their psychological needs evolve, placing new demands urban public space promoting changes in the social spatial structure and the form of business.

Social media and urban social networks

Traditional media gradually give way to the vigorous development of the new media, which have affected all aspects of social life, as well as the internal spatial structure and external appearance of cities. The population, which is both a constituent and expression of the social and geographical outcomes, has also been influenced by social media, resulting in new patterns of social interaction and ways of life. Thus, new social interpersonal networks are formed. However, social elements are weakened in the face of strengthened personal demands.

Surprisingly, in the case of social media, technology elevates the human content. Temporally, it weakens the demand for centralized information dissemination. Spatially, it reduces the constraints of distance. It assists the urban residents to turn their social needs into behavior, thus making social communication more humanized. With new demands brought by the use of social media, new expectations for urban social spaces appear. The resulting social network space reflects both online and offline social models constructed by a combination of real and social media.

Also, social intercourse has diversified as a result of the transformation of social units from family to individual network terminals, further influencing urban spatial structure. Online and offline social interaction together bring a more complex internal structure to public space. Social media impact the physical spaces created by the original social model and, at the same time, reinforce traditional ways of socializing.

The influence of social media on urban leisure space

Urban space is of great importance to modern urban civilization. The rapid development of media technology has promoted the further development of cities and towns, as well as the evolution of space. Its influence occurs at all scales, from the individual to the the whole of human society and, thus, to all spatial scales.

Spatially, social media is influencing the shape of cyberspace, which directly affects human behavior, especially for the urban residents with high network coverage and utilization rates. The network society constructed by social media was born from real society at the structural level, but has morphed as social media have become more pervasive. In the process of transition from the real society to the network society, the forms and characteristics of the existence of individuals in real society may change, with implications for the determination of social strata, social rights, the distribution of social resources and so on. Such changes are often strongly unequal within the real society: an individual with limited status in the real society may enjoy high status in the network society and vice versa. As a result, the communication characteristics differ between the network and real society. The social interaction habits that individuals have formed under the long-term historical conditions are rooted in the real society so, to some extent, this environment is still a strong influence on the uses of social media and on the communication behavior of urban residents.

Social communication in the shaping of cyberspace

The social impact of network society, as a new communication experience, influences many aspects of behavior for individuals can access many opportunities that are difficult to obtain through traditional communication in real society. In traditional societies, the expansion of social communication has long been restricted by geographical, consanguinity and employment limitations. However, the wider social space constructed by social media has broken these restrictions and the experience of communication with body absence has expanded massively. Distance is a less important inhibiter of communication, and communication space has become more flat. Regardless of the geographical location and the environment of the individual, the network space constructed by the new media can enable communication. Each individual has a more similar technical capacity to communicate and geographical position is less significant. This kind of virtual experience is not only convenient, expanding communication which no longer relies as much on the kinship, geographical and business relationships, changes to the social significance of communication. Specifically, the virtual both separates and integrates communication settings.

As more and more urban residents are influenced by social media in their daily communication, a new communication situation is established. This social change based on the behavior of urban residents is the most important influence of social media in the social communication model.

Social concentration in the shaping of cyberspace

The cyberspace created by social media not only breaks away from the traditional network, but also reconstructs and even strengthens it. In traditional communication, geography limits business and kin relationships to a great extent. Geographical inconvenience reduces contacts among relatives and classmates. Social media provide more space for social interaction.

Human society itself exhibits concentrations of diversity at the level of social interaction. Social needs can be reflected in the building of social circles, with common interests, purposes and business interests. The formation of these circles is greatly restricted in traditional society because of the physical constraints of social settings, but in the network social space constructed by new media, this restriction is basically eliminated. The rise of group social services, represented by BBS and various SNS, publicizes needs and interests in ways that are not possible in the traditional communication model. More attention is being paid to the need for a greater range of subdivisions of “geo-business-kinship” relationships, such as through hobbies, purposes, business interests, and so on, as geographical elements become less important. The construction of these groups can occur in cyberspace.

At the level of human behavior, the concentrations that occur in social circles leads to the convergence of interests. In modern urban residents’ social communication, interests are becoming more important. Activities dominated by interests are easier to obtain and to contact, At the same time, the demand is itself stimulated and strengthened by the communication mode.

The influence of social media on social communication time

Nonlinear information processing

Temporally, the influence of social media on the social communication model is based on information transmission itself. In the traditional social communication model, information transmission between is mainly based on the social situation and its physical attributes. However, new media is not similarly restricted. Social information does not have to be compiled, transmitted, received and decoded in a circumscribed period of time. This leads to a non-linear model, in which the transmission of social information is not constrained by the transmission time, but by the needs of the communicator. It penetrates every level of social information transmission, from the compilation, issuance, transmission, reception and decoding of social signals. Thus, social media introduces a new way that allows residents to use a nonlinear information processing model.

Nonlinear information processing mechanism

Superficial nonlinear processing introduces a tendency towards of fragmentation, which disrupts the continuity of social intercourse and result in the possibility of a decline in the quality of social interaction. But, in reality, social media allow individuals to expand the dimensions of social interaction. By using communication software, social interaction can be scattered over several periods of time, thus expanding the continuity of communication.

At the behavioral level, real-time online communication is the main state of social interaction constructed by social media, and the communicating subject can achieve continuity without worrying about the accessibility of social information. Centralized time allocation in social information dissemination is weakened.

The influence of social media on spatial demands

Besides information, media and the social model, it is necessary to bring the needs of urban residents into consideration in examination of the mechanism of spatial development. Demand is constructed on the changed communication mode, and those who adopt the new model as a group have new needs because of the characteristics of the new communication tools. From this point, therefore, change in leisure spaces is based on the new needs of the residents.

Spatial demand influence mechanism

At the spatial level, social media has shaped the network communication space and strengthened the interpersonal communication experience and concentrated social circles in virtual space, bringing about both the separation and conformity of social settings and interest convergence. The influence of these communication modes on urban space is influenced by the demands of urban residents. The influence of social settings has two main aspects: strengthening of social subjects and replacement of an acquaintance society by a stranger society.

Because the social space constructed by social media breaks through geographical limitations, a social scene without traditional social connections has been constructed. In this new social scene, individuals in the social relationship have to face some new problems because they are not in the same geographical space, which makes the social relationship more uncertain. Although social media itself is a kind of aggrandizement of social relationships, the reinforcement structure differs: psychological elements embodied in social interaction have always played a very important role in social activities. In the cyberspace created by social media, there are many changes in the combinations of these elements.

Being in the same physical space can give social participants a sense of trust, a psychological element is important to social development. But social media dissolves this and, similarly, weakens many other psychological elements. When social participants are in different spaces, constructing and maintaining social relations through the means of social media, each has a self-shaping tendency which is difficult to acquire in actual space. Thus, images that deviate from their own existences are likely to be incorporated into the communication space. This is a manifestation of social deviation at the individual level created by new media. Interestingly, the reduction of trust results from the enhancement of individual initiative, itself generated by social media.

Another possibility is the emergence of multiple personalities. Individuals in cyberspace can shape their images according to their desires. On the one hand, the two sides of a relationship may have concerns about the image of each other but, on the other hand, they also have a tendency towards multiplicity in shaping their own image. For individuals, this may results in different social images in different social relationships, and social relationships themselves become more complex.

Transformation of social space

Social subject strengthening and multiple personalities change the social space. First, the elements of the traditional public social space begin to change. While social media build a social space based on the real world, the concept of public social space is a blend of the real and the virtual. Public social spaces such as park coffee shops, online chat rooms and BBS, are changing based on the changing needs of users. Public social space is readily divided into “online” or “offline” characteristics. Superimposed social mechanisms produce diversified social space demands. Therefore, the distribution and structure of social space and the link to urban spatial form can be influenced and changed.

The demands of urban residents for social space are actually a synthesis of various social dimensions. The new social model generated by social media and the traditional social model cannot completely meet the complex needs of all levels of social space. In fact, the new media social space is based on traditional media and reinforced in depth and content, and cannot replace the traditional social space completely, especially the physical characteristics of the latter.

Although physical absence in social network space promotes the communication across geographical constraints, traditional face-to-face contacts in physical space are an irreplaceable dimension of social life. Thus, on the one hand, urban residents need new social experiences that surmount the constraints of traditional social methods and, at the same time, they do not want to lose the traditional social means. Thus, a need for complex social space is constructed and, of course, the need for the constructed space is further reinforced by the multiple personalities that exist at the individual level.

Conclusions

In conclusion, social media have changed leisure behavior in both time and space. In the time dimension, social media brings about non-linear information transmission, integrates fragmentary time, reduces social costs, and promotes the virtual realization of leisure behavior and needs. In the space dimension, social media generates cyberspace, leading to both the separation and integration of social settings. Interests and hobbies become important driving forces in the social process. Leisure behavior and needs become more diverse and personalized. Changes in leisure behavior and needs lead to changes in physical elements and space in cities, and strengthen the self-reliance of individuals.

Changes in leisure behaviors and pattern are changing leisure business in the material space of small cities. Leisure space has changed into two modes, online and offline. The key unit of leisure activity is changed from the family to the individual, and leisure business is becoming more diverse. The two parallel communication and leisure modes result in a more complex structure of leisure spaces in the city. The leisure and social space structures of small cities are evolving, as lifestyles, businesses and social structure adjust. These adjustments are further complicated by the coronavirus pandemic which has constrained in-person exchanges and given further impetus to electronic communication. The broad outlines of the mechanism of change, i.e. social media, have been discussed. However, the ways in which these play out in patterns of leisure behavior and the spatial structure of towns and cities await further research, including the documentation of specific examples at the local level.