Cultural diplomacy in mass culture since the beginning of the 21st century: The case of China

Abstract

Cultural diplomacy is a type of diplomacy with cultural means to help with creating and maintaining "soft power" of a certain nation in relations with the others or in international relations in general, in addition to "hard power" of military means. This type of diplomacy has been widely recognized since the 1970s with Joseph Nye’s works and has been an important part of practical activities of many nations in both the West and the East, including China, although the academia and government in every country usually have their own definitions and strategies which are developed from the original by Nye. In almost the same time, the world has witnessed the rise of what called "popular culture" (or "mass culture"). Radically different from "high culture" (or "culture culture") related to the high class kept in textbooks, classrooms and libraries, mass culture is based on the industrial means to meet with the demand of mass consumption. From the beginning of the 21st century, the development of mass culture has even more rapidly thanks to the rise of information technology, mass media and social networks, setting a new theme to every cultural movement including cultural diplomacy. In this essay, we are supposed to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of cultural diplomacy, which deeply relates to political power in the theme of mass culture, which aims to mass consumption in order to make mass profit in the first 20 years of this century, especially with Chinese cultural diplomacy as a typical case. This very beginning discussion may draw attention to the relations between mass culture and cultural diplomacy in the world nowadays and to putting forward to further solutions to this relation.