Theorising the role of cultural products in cultural diplomacy from a Cultural Studies perspective

Abstract

Cultural diplomacy continues to attract significant interest as a potential means for states to exercise ‘soft power’. However, policy-makers and academics who assert the efficacy of cultural diplomacy in terms of influencing foreign publics and states rarely consider how cultural products are actually received abroad. This article proposes that this process of reception can be better understood with reference to the theoretical approaches of Cultural Studies, which encourage us to recognise the extent to which audiences are implicated in processes of meaning-making, processes which are closely associated with the articulation of identity. By applying these approaches to cultural diplomacy, policy-makers and researchers could shift their focus to an exploration of realities of the reception cultural products abroad, which would better inform their assumptions about how to achieve successful cultural diplomacy.

Keywords:

• cultural diplomacy
• Cultural Studies
• cultural products
• soft power

Acknowledgements

Many of the ideas in this article were developed in the context of the AHRC-funded project ‘Developing a New Framework for Understanding the Role of Cultural Products in Cultural Diplomacy’ (AH/J012564/1). I am grateful to the colleagues who participated in the project events for sharing their insights and expertise. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the AHRC for this project, and to thank my co-investigator, Professor David Galbreath, for his comments on this article.