When you’re a country with great food, creative fashion, the newest technology, popular product brands, and anime… how do you focus public diplomacy efforts?? Do you focus them on these cultural and popular aspects at all? With so many possible angles, how does the Japan Foundation and Ministry of Foreign Affairs decide which ones to take? While clout has definitely been attained through the popularity of Japanese fashion and pop culture, I do not agree that pd efforts should be focused on these aspects of their culture.
Upon hearing the word Japan, I’d think that they’d feel better knowing that people’s first thoughts are of economic and technological success, not Pokemon and Hello Kitty. Then again, with such an interesting pop culture that caters to people of all ages, it is almost as if they have a step up on the rest of the world. Foreign audiences are almost conditioned to like and be interested in Japan if they grew up watching anime, reading comics or taking karate classes. Having put it in that perspective, perhaps it is not a bad thing to have a plethora of ways to gain soft power via cultural exportation.
Moreover, it may be that these cultural aspects translate into place branding moreso than public diplomacy. If pop culture gets people interested in your country and wanting to learn more about it, that doesn’t directly transform into solidarity or soft power. And again the burning question becomes, ‘well, what really is pd then?’…. perhaps the world will never know…
No comments:
Post a Comment