What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Guopian? A Netnographic Analysis of Film-focused PTT Forums as Digital Cinephilic Publics

This article examines guopian-related discourses on film-focused PTT forums through a netnographic lens, situating these discourses within the term’s geopolitical contingencies, conceptual ambiguities, and the entanglements of the Cold War and its aftermath. Founded in 1995, PTT is Taiwan’s largest terminal-based bulletin board system (BBS). By the early 2000s, forums such as Ourmovies (Guopian ban 國片板) had become vital sites of cinematic exchange, as Taiwan cinema confronted intensified competition from unrestricted Hollywood imports while renegotiating its relations with Hong Kong and PRC cinemas amid shifting cross-Strait geopolitics. A netnographic discourse analysis elucidates how guopian has been debated, revisited, and reconfigured within these forums, which have functioned as affective publics sustained through diverse modes of cinephilic articulations and exchanges. Shaped by the platform’s sociotechnical infrastructure and ethos of sharing, film-focused PTT forums epitomise a locally specific cinephile culture in transition.