Chic Branding and Cultural Inheritance: Multimodal Construction of Chinese Brand Identity on New Media of Creative Tourism

This study examines how a cultural and creative tourism institution in China, namely the Palace Museum, represents and brands itself through the digital discourse (i.e. WeChat, Weibo and website). The multimodal resources presented in the web-mediated discourse were analyzed by drawing upon a social semiotics approach. The findings elaborate on how creative tourism’s branding is communicated in accordance with the semiotic modes. The symbolic and multifaceted brand identity that embraces market-driven value while fulfilling a patriotic ideology was constructed through an interdiscursive combination of linguistic and visual resources. By examining branding strategies from a social semiotic perspective, this study contributes to existing research by extending the multimodal focus to digital discourse. The findings could be valuable to domestic practitioners who intend to communicate unique brand identity strategically.