Narrative of Exhibit Animals in the Digital Age : Focusing on the Panda Fu Bao

Eom, Soyeon (2026) “Narrative of Exhibit Animals in the Digital Age : Focusing on the Panda Fu Bao“

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This study aims to explore the implications of the narrative of zoo exhibit animals, focusing on the narrative of the panda Fu Bao, through image telling based on digital-age visual information within the macroscopic context of posthumanism, which reconstructs the relationship between human and non-human. The reason why Fu Bao was given attention is because, unlike other exhibit animals, during the COVID-19 period when physical viewing was restricted, a specific image of her went viral online, which in turn led to an increase in viewings; she spawned many nicknames, fandom, images, and narratives etc., it showed signs of being an exhibit animal in the digital age. First, in Chapter Ⅱ, in order to understand the modern visuality of the zoo and the visual image of exhibit animals, looked at the concept of ‘viewing animals’ in a zoo, and then examined the panda that appeared as an exhibit animal. Chapter III found out the narrative structure of Fu Bao through image telling of motif. Based on this, Chapter IV explored the meaning and problem of Fu Bao narrative in the digital age. As a result, the narrative structure of panda Fu Bao was a ‘farewell narrative’ based on the motifs of a ‘grand parent-grandchild family’ and a ‘cute baby’, which was expanded into an action narrative ‘Story-doing’ by a ‘reunion’ motif. The Fu Bao narrative worked with powerful force, but its hyper ‘cultural narrative’ and excessive personification brought to mind what a valid ‘human-animal relationship’ is.