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

各国经常进行“文化外交”，以改善其在外国人民中的形象，促进其外交政策目标。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。各州历来愿意在这类活动中投入大量资金。此外，在最近一段时间内，为了进一步实现外交政策目标（例如伊拉克和阿富汗），许多政府更愿意诉诸军事干预，现在他们正在重新考虑如何在不诉诸军事手段的情况下影响其他国家。国际关系专家从对其他国家及其人民施加“软实力”的角度来讨论文化交流。然而，这些研究并没有充分考虑到作为文化外交一部分的文化产品在国外是如何被接受的，以及外国受众是如何与这些产品互动的。该项目旨在开发新的方法来理解这一过程。它试图通过将文化研究专家与国际关系研究人员聚集在一起来发展这些方法。文化研究长期以来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。在这个意义上，国际关系学可以借鉴文化研究，将文化研究的理论应用到其文化外交研究中。然而，同样地，文化研究人员传统上也不容易调整他们的方法来解决文化外交领域决策者的重要问题。通过促进国际关系和文化研究研究人员之间的互动，这两个学科对该领域决策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，这些研究将侧重于文化研究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.