| Some mainstream views of international relations argue that popular culture is not worth studying.Popular culture is often seen as low politics,domestic politics,and even sometimes as incapable of being associated with politics.But in the information age,where the role of soft power has become more prominent,the role of popular culture in this will also become more and more apparent.Compared to other forms of culture,such as high culture or traditional culture,popular culture,because of its popularity,is more likely to be more widely disseminated nationally and even worldwide.Because of its inclusive nature,it allows different kinds of people to share a common group identity and gives a special sense of identity.This can break down the barriers that arise from cultural divides in traditional ways of constructing a national image.The use of popular cultural resources as a site for the occurrence of world politics is therefore a natural consequence of this trend.There have been many foreign studies that have examined the links between popular culture and politics,but these have tended to focus on the ’why’,i.e.why the concept of popular culture can be interconnected with the concept of politics;other studies have tended to examine the impact of a particular work of popular culture on national politics.Other studies have tended to examine the impact of a particular piece of popular culture on national politics.In contrast,domestic studies often focus on the role of a particular cultural symbol in cross-cultural communication,but lack the ability to subsume the path of this cultural symbol into a theory of popular culture communication.By applying Robert Keohane’s theory of three communication paths in which ideas influence politics to the communication paths of popular culture,it is possible to analyse the specific paths through which popular culture is involved in the construction of the nation’s image:the first is as a route map to participate in the construction of the nation’s image,i.e.popular culture can influence the cultural environment to which audience groups are exposed,and thus influence their policy preferences as well as their emotional bias towards the nation’s image.The second is to participate in the construction of a nation’s image as a focal point and adhesive,which can create a pop culture consensus for people from different traditional cultural backgrounds,which in turn can further influence people’s perception of a country’s national image.A concrete manifestation of these two paths can be seen in the specific case of superhero characters influencing the national image of the United States.The superhero characters were first created with a narrative style that was extremely relevant to the current social context,giving them a pop-culture typology.Later,the superhero characters first act as a roadmap to influence the American public’s policy preferences towards the US government and their emotional bias towards the image of the American nation.They then gradually act as focal points and adhesives,aggregating people of different ages,classes and ethnicities to create a pop-cultural focus and consensus for them.By examining the specific pathways by which popular culture influences the shaping of the nation’s image,it is possible to take a more proactive position in this shaping process in order to maximise the benefits of popular culture and build a more positive image of the nation. |
