Five paradoxes of soft power in a post globalization era
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The document discusses several paradoxes of soft power in the current era: 1) While media globalization enables soft power strategies, theories of active audiences reject the transmission model of culture assumed by soft power. 2) Nation-states are leading soft power initiatives even as globalization is thought to weaken states. 3) Media seen as distant from governments may have more influence, but governments fund such media as cultural diplomacy. 4) Popular entertainment arguably has more soft power but governments invest in news and high culture. 5) Most soft power discussions focus on traditional media, but digital media may enable the most effective strategies.
Five paradoxes of soft power in a post globalization era
- 2. Five Paradoxes of Soft Power in a Post-Globalization Era Presentation to Communication With Power, 66th International Communications Association Annual Conference, Fukuoka, Japan, 9-13 June, 2016 Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
- 3. Joseph Nye’s Concept of soft power ‘Ability to shape the preferences of others’ based on: – Culture (in places where it is attractive to others) – Political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad) – Foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority)
- 4. Nye on soft power and partners ‘Whether potential soft power resources translate into the behaviour of attraction that can influence others toward favourable outcomes … With soft power, what the target thinks is particularly important, and the targets matter as much as the agents. Attraction and persuasion are socially constructed. Soft power is a dance that requires partners’ (Nye, 2011, p. 84).
- 5. Use of the term ‘soft power’
- 6. Three dimensions of cultural soft power MEDIA PRIMARY AGENT CULTURAL FOCUS Information/News Media State led High culture Entertainment Media Commercially led Popular culture
- 7. Soft power debates in China • ‘If a country has an admirable culture and ideological system, other countries will tend to follow it … It does not have to use its hard power which is expensive and less efficient’ (Wang Huning, 1993) • ‘The Chinese culture belongs not only to the Chinese, but to the whole world.’ (Hu Jintao, address to the Australian Federal Parliament, October 2003). • ‘The overall strength of China’s culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China’s international status’ (Hu Jintao, 2007) • ‘To strengthen our cultural soft power, we should disseminate the values of modern China … More work should be done to refine and explain our ideas, and extend the platform for overseas publicity, so as to make our culture known through international communication and dissemination’ (Xi Jinping, 2015)
- 8. China’s Soft Power Initiatives • Hosting global events (Beijing Olympics 2008, Shanghai World Expo 2010) • Promoting scholarly exchanges (China Scholarships Council) • Confucius Institutes • CCTV International, international expansion of Xinhua News Agency and China Radio International • Co-production arrangements in films, TV programs and online games
- 9. Five paradoxes of soft power 1. Media globalization provides the context for soft power strategies, but rests upon understandings of audiences that most globalization theorists reject; 2. It is nation-states that are leading soft power initiatives, at a time when it is widely assumed that globalization weakens the power of nation-states; 3. Media content is most likely to have soft power influence when it is perceived to be distanced from governments, yet national governments invest in such content as part of their cultural diplomacy initiatives; 4. Popular entertainment media arguably has the most soft power influence, but governments invest primarily in international news services and “high culture; 5. Most discussions about soft power focus on traditional media (newspapers, films, television), but the most effective strategies may be those that operate through digital media.
- 10. Paradox #1 • Media globalization provides the context for soft power strategies, but rests upon understandings of audiences that most globalization theorists reject
- 11. ‘Soft power’ and ‘cultural imperialism” • Cultural imperialism as ‘the sum of the processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system’ (Schiller, 1976, p. 9). • Nye and Schiller both see: – American culture as globally pervasive – Media having direct behavioral effects – Culture as defined around its distribution
- 12. ‘Active audience’ debate in communication and cultural studies ‘The field of Cultural Studies has perpetually oscillated between an emphasis on ‘power’ in terms of the imposition of ideology through culture, on the one hand, and ‘agency’ in terms of the relatively freedom of the consumer, on the other’. (Gibson, 2007, p. 167)
- 13. Issues with ‘soft power’ from a communications/cultural studies perspective • Transmission model of culture – distributional bias • Culture as things/artefacts rather than as connected to human processes • Behavioral conception of power • Where does media/cultural power reside? – producers, distributors, audiences? • ‘there is no guarantee that the audience for international programming will decode the meaning of messages in a way the source would prefer, since interpretation occurs according to the prevailing cultural, social and political beliefs, attitudes and norms among individual audience members’. (Rawnsley, 2015, p. 280)
- 14. Paradox #2 • It is nation-states that are leading soft power initiatives, at a time when it is widely assumed that globalization weakens the power of nation-states;
- 15. Globalisation and the ‘digital turn’: weakening nation states? • End of ‘methodological nationalism’ (Ulrich Beck) • Shift to cosmopolitan/diasporic media and identities (Hepp & Couldry) • ‘the state becomes just a node … of a particular network’ (Manuel Castells) • State institutions as ‘shell institutions’ (Anthony Giddens) • ‘TNCs have effectively surpassed the … nation-state’ (Hardt & Negri) • ‘The nation-state is becoming too small for the big problems of life, and too big for the small problems of life’ (Daniel Bell, 1987)
- 16. Drivers of change 1. Economic globalisation has shifted power away from nation-states 2. Political ideologies of neo-liberalism have been used to weaken nation-states 3. Globally networked internet cannot be regulated at the national level 4. Media scarcity assumptions that underpinned regulation no longer hold 5. Locus of influence has shifted to non-state actors (corporations, NGOs, digital activists)
- 17. Paradox #3 • Media content is most likely to have soft power influence when it is perceived to be distanced from governments, yet national governments invest in such content as part of their cultural diplomacy initiatives;
- 18. US and UK as problematic exemplars for China • US = entertainment/commercial = Global Hollywood? • UK = information/state-led = BBC World? • Governments connected to both ostensibly “independent” entities
- 19. Issues with ‘soft power’ theories • Tendency to conflate cultural diplomacy (intentionally-driven governmental practice) with cultural relations (primarily driven by non-state actors) • What is ‘cultural’ in this concept? – ‘high culture’ or mass media? – Information or entertainment? – Commercial culture or state-supported culture? – Culture as things or processes?
- 20. Communication and cultural understanding ‘The Chinese have an abiding faith in the ability of international broadcasting to shape the global conversation about China, and an unshakeable belief that the Chinese must explain themselves and their behavior to an international audience that allegedly misunderstands them. Hence public diplomacy activities are designed around the principle ‘To know us is to love us’ … the intangibles of public diplomacy can be converted via communication and international broadcasting into tangible foreign policy benefits’. (Rawnsley, 2015: 274-75)
- 21. Paradox #4 • Popular entertainment media arguably has the most soft power influence, but governments invest primarily in international news services and “high culture;
- 25. Sherlock
- 26. Blockbusters • The Hollywood blockbuster has had great cultural influence in China • Appeal of Chinese blockbusters has declined over time – mid-budget films more popular with local audiences (e.g. Lost in … series) • Chinese interest in co-productions – Outlet for investment capital – Access to knowledge and soft skills • US interest in co-productions – Access to Chinese finance – Access to Chinese domestic market
- 28. Vernacular power: If You Are The One • If You Are The One (Fei Cheng Wu Rao (非诚 勿扰) – dating show on Jiangsu TV – commenced in 2010 – est. audience 36m. • Based on unsuccessful Australian TV format (Taken Out) – now very popular in Australia on SBS 2 • Contentious program – SARFT warned in 2011 against conspicuous displays of wealth and “wrong values” – “I’d rather cry in a BMW”
- 29. Paradox #5 • Most discussions about soft power focus on traditional media (newspapers, films, television), but the most effective strategies may be those that operate through digital media.