K-Pop, Interacción Parasocial y Fantropología

It would be a fundamental misconception to see shopping centers (like the two case study examples) as truly public and representative spaces in which public life takes place, since these centers are not accessible by all members of the society. However, they admit a certain part of the public and there are certain kinds of public activity that take place in these centers. It should also be remembered that public life is partially migrating to shopping centers as they become more and more popular. This section concludes the examination of the publicness of shopping centers with reference to Forum Bornova Life and Shopping Center and Agora Shopping Center. The statistical analysis have indicated the following results:

Shopping centers undertake many functions that public spaces serve or used to serve. This study corroborates the argument that the shopping center, by its new spatial form, as a synthesis of public life and retail, gained new meanings besides economic exchange, as a gathering space for social exchange, and as a site of communication and interaction.²¹⁴ As the age group distribution of this study shows, especially among the

214 See especially Shields, Lifestyle Shopping.

younger generation shopping centers have become attractive places of congregation and entertainment, venues that they are accustomed to meet with friends and to spend time with family. This is probably one of the important findings of the study since it points to the emergence of generations that live most of their lives in public, not in the truly public spaces of the city but in the restricted ―publicness‖ of shopping centers. The major threat for the society is that in the collective memory of this younger generation the sense of public space, that is its virtues and meanings for the public, will remain incomplete. One important aspect of public space is its ability to outlast a generation and to take its place in the collective memory of the people, as Arendt and others have argued. Collective memory is something that is transferred to younger generations only by means of experience and if this trend is not overcome future generations‘ perception of public space will inevitably be different from ours or urban public spaces will not be within its scope.

The sense of lack of security attributed to public spaces and the argument that people prefer shopping centers due to their being more secure places was not strongly corroborated by the statistical analysis. Only 35.5% of all respondents indicated that they perceive the centers as more secure spaces. A comparison with an urban public space would shed further light on this issue and should help resolve whether security is a major factor in the migration from urban public spaces to shopping centers.

Shopping centers are not in the least open to the modification of their event structure by visitors. As direct observation and statistical analysis indicate, user-centered modifications of the publicly-used spaces of shopping centers are not possible.

In contrast public spaces are usually open for functional transformation by users, as they are more flexible. A playground can easily be turned into a gathering space by neighborhood residents or into a party venue, teenagers can use it for their amateur dance shows, street performers use them for their acts, a group of protesters might claim any public space to demonstrate in order to make their voices heard, etc. Even an act of simple photography needs to be granted permission from managers. For instance, sitting on the ground due to the lack of street furniture within Agora was prohibited by the management in order to direct visitors to the cafes and restaurants within, and security personnel is used to strictly enforce such regulations. We should remember here that among Carr, et. al.‘s five kinds of spatial rights are: (1) ―the right of access‖ meaning to enter and stay, (2) ―freedom of action,‖ to carry on activities (3) ―claim,‖ to take over the space and resources in it and to appropriate space (4) ―change,‖ the ability to modify

the environment and change a setting for any purpose‖, (5) ―ownership and disposition‖

as the ultimate form of control.²¹⁵ All of these are only possible to the degree that the management of a center allows, and very limited. Looking at the research findings one can argue that the public are aware of such restrictions since violations of center regulations were not at all recorded during direct observation.

In shopping centers a different public life is lived. Shopping centers themselves are ―becoming a way of life‖ in contrast with the totality of the urban life that takes place in the urban center‘s public spaces. The life that takes place in these shopping centers have started to create its own rituals and its own public performances. People hold birthday parties for little children in food courts, weekly gatherings for elderly women, virtual reality safaris for teenagers, etc. However almost all of these rituals and performances are attached to acts of consumption which later turn into habits of consumption. Ultimately these become daily rituals for the shopping center‘s visitors.

Of course habits of consumption are directly related to income levels and the class structure of society. These centers lack key characteristics of urbanity in which public life takes place which are access, freedom of choice, density, and the coming together of people and activities from diverse backgrounds. Although Forum Bornova has no physical boundaries and seems to allow the access of all, the findings of the study shows that the access of certain groups were many times restricted. This way the social homogeneity of the ―public‖ that visits the center is secured. Instead of the ―public man‖ the flanéur takes center stage in these spaces of consumption, as anticipated by Richard Sennett.²¹⁶ Therefore this new public life comes with the heavy price of social segregation and it further reinforces social segregation.

The common good of the public can only be arrived at via universal access to public space as the emergence of public interest is only possible within public space.

Departing from this conviction shared by Arendt and Habermas, Madanipour states that shopping centers make up an important part of the private spaces that serve only for the

―interest of particular sections of the population,‖ corroborated by the case study.²¹⁷ According to its manager, the entrepreneurs that invested in Agora were recommended

215 Francis, ―Control as a Dimension of Public Space Quality,‖ 158.

216 Sennett, Public Man.

217 Madanipour, ―Why Are The Design And Development of Public Spaces Significant for Cities?‖ 888.

to invite a supermarket chain. However this recommendation was refused due to the agreement that a supermarket would ―lower‖ the customer profile of the center. It would also discourage those ―high profile‖ customers that were desired by the centers‘

investors. Pointing to the economical success of the shopping center without a supermarket chain, Agora‘s manager takes pride on this decision, but at the same time reveals the success of social segregation embedded in this decision.

Although Agora is the better-connected center of the two in terms of mass transportation and location, the percentage of preferring car travel in coming to Agora is higher than the percentage of those of Forum Bornova. This is a striking finding of the study which means that whether public transportation is available or not, people like to visit these centers with their cars. This means that car ownership is more valued regarding social status than the advantage of physical and easy access to these centers.

This is another evidence of social segregation within mass consumerism and car ownership is an important outlet of its visibility.

Another important finding of the study, which is as striking, is that people do not see the shopping centers as spaces of adult-centered activities or children-centered activities in addition to consumption-related activities. This means several things. First of all when it comes to adult-centered activities, people have a difficult time in naming other adult-centered activities except for consumption-related activities. Recreation and consumption is almost synonymous within the shopping center as people struggle to find what else they can do within these spaces. There seems to be a strong separation between shopping centers and public spaces in the mind of visitors in terms of the activities that they perform in these respective venues. Although Forum Bornova creates a provocative slogan by calling itself a ―life center‖ its respondents seem to be unaware of any activity supposed to sustain their lives apart from consumption-related activities.

While there is the perception that shopping centers are places which are comfortable to visit with children due to certain security and climate-related concerns, it is interesting that the majority of respondents do not see the centers as places of children-centered activities. Children are accessories to acts of consumption dragged along with their elders in the relative safety of these traffic- and climate-proof venues.

The traditional image of public life comes with a ―citizen of commerce and pleasure‖ which was very different than the visitor of contemporary shopping centers.

This citizen used to participate in the public by attending to festivals, bazaars, market places and the ceremonial plaza due to his/her commercial interests and stood alongside

others in touch with the rest of the public. Today‘s ―citizen of commerce and pleasure‖

serves a categorized public made up of A-type, B-type or C-type consumers and acts accordingly. Depending on the type of consumers they target and attract, shopping centers create their own culture of consumership as thematic environments. Sharon Zukin refers to Disneyworld as a place that ―creates a new public culture of consumership.‖ Shopping centers, depending on their specific physical arrangements and regulations are not that different from Disneyworld, as they create different public cultures of consumption in themselves. Interview with Agora‘s managers has revealed that there is a distinct customer identity that Agora favors and wants to create in order to distinguish its ambiance from other shopping centers regarding motto, spatial quality and consumer choices.

Only a small fraction of the respondents that took part in the study saw the centers as places to interact with strangers from any possible background. This gives a hint about the qualities of public life in the centers. People prefer to spend time with their like or those that they prefer to spend time with in these places, instead of those that they might likely run into in public spaces. The popularity of shopping centers therefore mean that people prefer a more introverted life in terms of public space. In contrast, public life serves as a forum where people are aware of the larger public and its problems. The educative purposes that public life serves and the opportunities it provides to meet those who are beyond the limits of our private domains are not present in shopping centers.²¹⁸

All the political activities attributed to public spaces are visibly absent from shopping centers which makes them depoliticized spaces contrary in nature to urban public space and this study has proved no exception. These centers are ―places from which anything controversial or troubling, spontaneous or unpredictable is removed [as they] enshrine consumption as the only legitimate urban activity.‖²¹⁹ Consequently social segregation threatens the future of the city as the conflict between the public and private becomes increasingly sensitive.

218 Brill, ―Transformation, Nostalgia, and Illusion in Public Life and Public Place,‖ 20.

219 Sorkin, ed. ‖Introduction,‖ xv.