The Appropriation and (Re)Invention of ‘Soft Power’ in China: A Discourse Analysis

• In Event: BRICS Building a New World Communication Order?

Abstract

Since being introduced to China in 1990s, ‘soft power’ has proliferated into the discourse of academia, mass media and politicians. This is such a sophisticated process that soft power has been localized as a concept with Chinese characteristics, ‘Cultural soft power’. This research collects and analyzes data from academic, media and government discourse, and finds that they share a similar track of diffusion. The government discourse sets the tone, while scholars and mass media develop its connotation and implication. It can be explained with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of ‘polyphony’. This paper develops a typology to describe the appropriation of soft power in China, as the soft power fundamentalism, the metaphor of soft power and the metonymy of soft power. The paper discusses the ideological underpinnings behind soft power discourse, and calls for alternative concepts in international communication.

Authors

• Zhengrong Hu, Communication U of China

• Lei Zhang, Communication U of China