Developing a New Framework for Understanding the Role of Cultural Products in Cultural Diplomacy

各国经常进行“文化外交”，以改善其在外国民众中的形象，并推动其外交政策目标。这可能涉及到在国外推广文化产品，如文学、艺术、电影、戏剧等。各国历来愿意在这类活动上投入大量资金。此外，在最近一段时间，为了实现外交政策目标而更愿意诉诸军事干预(例如伊拉克和阿富汗)之后，许多国家的政府现在正在重新考虑它们如何在不诉诸军事手段的情况下影响其他国家。国际关系专家谈到了文化交流，即对其他国家及其人民施加“软实力”。然而，这种研究没有充分考虑到作为文化外交的一部分而推广的文化产品在国外是如何被接受的，以及外国观众是如何接触这些产品的。该项目旨在开发新的方法来理解这一过程。它寻求通过将文化研究专家和国际关系研究人员聚集在一起来发展这些方法。长期以来，文化研究一直对受众与他们所遇到的文化产品的接受和互动问题感兴趣。从这个意义上说，国际关系可以借鉴文化研究，把文化研究的理论应用到文化外交的研究中。然而，同样，文化研究的研究人员传统上并不容易调整他们的方法来解决文化外交领域中对政策制定者重要的问题。通过促进国际关系和文化研究的研究人员之间的互动，这两个学科对这一领域的政策制定者的价值将得到提高。该项目还将为未来研究的发展提供理论基础，重点是文化研究的见解在文化外交领域的实际应用。

States often undertake 'cultural diplomacy' to improve their image with foreign populations and further their foreign policy aims. This can involve the promotion of cultural products abroad, such as literature, art, film, theatre and so on. States have traditionally been willing to invest considerable sums of money in such activity. Furthermore, following a recent period of greater willingness to resort to military intervention in order to further foreign policy aims (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan), many governments are now considering again how they might influence other countries without resorting to military means.International Relations experts have talked about cultural exchange in terms of exerting 'soft power' over other countries and their populations. However, such research has not adequately taken into account how cultural products promoted as part of cultural diplomacy are received abroad and how foreign audiences engage with those products. This project aims to developin new methodologies for understanding this process. It seeks to develop those methodologies by bringing together specialists in Cultural Studies with researchers in International Relations. Cultural Studies has long been interested in questions of reception and the interaction of audiences with the cultural products they encounter. In this sense, International Relations can learn from Cultural Studies by applying Cultural Studies theories to its study of cultural diplomacy. Equally, however, Cultural Studies researchers have not traditionally found it easy to adapt their approaches to address questions of importance to policymakers in the field of cultural diplomacy.By facilitating an interaction between researchers from International Relations and Cultural Studies, the value of both disciplines to policymakers in this area will be enhanced. The project will also provide the theoretical underpinning for the development of future research, which will focus on the practical application of insights from Cultural Studies in the field of cultural diplomacy.