Management Science and Research December 2013, Volume 2, Issue 4, PP.35-37
The Study on the Strategies for Improving the City’s Cultural Soft Power Yanhua Diao 1# , Siliang Guo 2 , Laisheng Li 1. Shandong Xiehe University, Jinan, 250107, China 2. Qilu Normal University, Jinan, 250200, China #Email: diaodarling@163.com
Abstract This paper starts from explaining the meanings of the cultural soft power and by unfolding the five key elements of the city’s cultural soft power, strategies and suggestions are offered in this paper. Keywords: City’s Cultural Soft Power; Improvement; Strategies
1 THE MEANINGS OF THE CITY’S CULTURAL SOFT POWER According to the seventeenth session of the Sixth Plenary Session in October 2011, nowadays, the world is undergoing tremendous developments, essential changes as well as major adjustments, and the world multipolarization and economic globalization have ushered in a profound stage of development. Science and technology update with each passing day. The exchanges between a variety of ideologies and cultures become more and more frequent. Culture has played a growing important role in the competition of comprehensive national strength. Thus, the task of safeguarding national culture’s safety is more arduous, and the need to enhance the soft power of national culture and the international influence of Chinese culture is more urgent. The cultural soft power refers to the competitiveness and influences generated from a nation’s or certain region’s cultural force of communication, cohesion, absorption, innovation, and propagation. Since the current world faces with white-hot regional competitions, the cultural soft power is becoming not only an inexhaustible motive force and vital resource for the stabilization, prosperity and constant development of a region, but also important yardstick to measure the comprehensive strength and competitiveness. The nowadays soft power of city culture, however, means the power to inherit, innovate, protect and cohere and the power to radiate and influence in exchanges with foreign counties, resulting from city’s material, institutional and ideological cultures. This kind of soft power provides spiritual dynamism, intellectual support and ideological guarantee for the city’s prosperity and progress, which in turn will enhance the city’s image, competitiveness and attraction.
2 THE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE SOFT POWER OF CITY CULTURE 2.1 The City’s Spirit The city’s spirit refers to the core values reflected by the citizen’s spiritual temperament, moral quality, lifestyle, rules and regulations as well as city image and so on. The city’s spirit is the soul of a city, and the character of a city, shown by its citizen-the presenters. To be more specific, it embodies the identification by its citizens of the city’s culture and institutions. Based on this identification, people form a strong sense of cohesion, and be encouraged and guided to love their city, to concern about their city’s development, to protect the city’s honorable reputation, also, to contribute to their intelligence and endeavor for their city. Like a strong bond, city’s spirit connects people from all walks of life tightly shapes vigorous centripetal force and cohesive force.
2.2 The City’s Historical and Cultural Heritage Historical and cultural heritage is the witness to the city’s history, and the carrier of the city’s cultural deposits, - 35 www.ivypub.org/msr
which mainly includes places of historical interest, celebrities’ poetry, folk traditions and customs. In addition, it reflects cultural concepts, code of conducts, and manners and customs that are formed after a longtime practice of a people living in a specific region. It is the cultural code that helps people to better understand history, and it has significant values in cultural resources. It can cultivate the citizen’s sense of cohesion and spirit of a modern city by playing the crucial role of encouraging people.
2.3 The Cultural Industry Innovation is the inexhaustible motive force for a country’s flourish and development, the source of strength for a city’s pioneering progress and prosperity, and the carrier of a city’s cultural innovation lies in its cultural industry which belongs to the tertiary industry, and can also be called the creative industry. For a city, the creative industry can not only bring wealth and job opportunities, but also improve aesthetic quality and innovation capacity of the public. Thus, the cultural industry, based on creation and innovation, has already become the innovative motive force for a city’s economic development.
2.4 The Fine Literature and Art and the Cultural Brands The radiant power of a city’s culture refers to the influence and attraction of a city’s culture for certain region or even the whole world. Through the fine literature and art and cultural brands, the radiant power plays its role. The fine literature and art are the profound, exquisite and qualified products that have broad impact and long-lasting vitality. As for the city, the fine literature and art can show the spirit and image it preserves; demonstrate the cultural customs and fashions it advertises; stand for the taste it possesses. The quantity of these fine literature and art will directly represent the soft power of a city’s culture and level of cultural development and radiant power. The cultural brands are the products of branding cultural industry. They are the cards to propagandize a city’s image, and shouldered with the mission to exchange the city’s culture. Besides, they combine the spiritual and economic values, and can boost not only the popularity and reputation of a city, but also the influence and emotional appeal . It will shape the good international image for the city and improve its comprehensive competitiveness.
2.5 Public Cultural Service System The public cultural service system is a system that offers cultural products and services to protect the citizens’ basic cultural rights and satisfy their basic cultural needs; mainly including the systems to produce cultural goods, to broadcast culture, to invest in security and infrastructure construction and so on. By building the systems, every citizen will be guaranteed to have opportunity to enjoy the fruits of cultural development, absorb the nutrient of cultural products. The systems will raise the overall quality of the citizens.
3 THE STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE CITY’S CULTURAL SOFT POWER 3.1 Emphasis on the Role of City’s Cultural Soft Power The city’s cultural soft power as an important part of a country’s soft power plays an irreplaceable role in the national strategies such as the sustainable development, the establishment of an innovative country, and the change of economic development mode. Therefore, we need to deepen our understanding towards the city’s cultural soft power, accelerate the building of the cultural soft power that in line with the national development and constantly promote the comprehensive, balanced, and sustainable development of our country’s economy and society.
3.2 Protection of the Carrier of the City’s Cultural Resource The cultural resource reflects a city’s ebbs and flows as well as its glory and shame; records the tremendous changes of the city, and showcases the spiritual quality of the city. Fully exploring and carefully protecting the city’s cultural resource can enhance the cultural deposits and make the city’s culture easier to be passed on generation after generation. Also, it can let people taste the fragrance of the city’s history while cherish the hard-won fruits of development. It can foster citizen’s humanistic feelings and sense of being master. Therefore, it is of huge significance. Protecting the city’s cultural resource requires protecting cultural heritage and promoting traditional customs of the city. It also needs to be started from integrating the tourism resource that shows the city’s characters. - 36 www.ivypub.org/msr
3.3 Boosting the City’s Cultural Innovative Capacity The source for city’s innovation has many kinds, such as important events and festivals, libraries, museums, universities, capital markets, knowledge-intensified industrial park and scientific park, the digital infrastructure and so on. Thus, it needs to be considered from many angels to boost the city’s cultural innovation. The creating and guiding role of university for the development of culture should be brought into full play. The capital market needs strengthening and perfecting. We should build the real knowledge innovation zone, and utilize the functions of those important festivals and events such as the World Expo, the World Cup, the Olympic Games, the Masters Tennis Tournament, summit forum, arts festivals and so on as windows to open up to others.
3.4 Perfecting the City’s Public Cultural Service System Urban governance is a new kind of management philosophy, and has changed the traditional pattern of managers governing the city; making the government become the ruler of the market. The government should give way to market, enterprises and society where these factors can play their roles. Government should be a macro-controller in terms of maintaining the equality and justice of social service, establishing strategies for cultural development, perfecting the system of laws and regulations, expediting the knowledge-sharing channels, accelerating the cultivation of cultural industry, in order to give strong protection for the establishing of city’s cultural soft power.
3.5 Implementing Talent Strategy and Promoting the City’s Cultural Sustainable Development Talents are the core resource in city’s competition and the guarantee of the sustainable development of city’s cultural competitiveness. Therefore, the talent strategy needs to be actively carried forward. More attention should be given to introduce and train the talents, accelerate a scientific and reasonable group of talents, and reserve the resources of talents. The talent strategy needs to be based on the market, and the preferential policy needs to be offered to absorb qualified talents, especially the overseas students, in order to boost the exchanges between eastern and western cultures. Large enterprises also should be encouraged to draw outstanding talents from aboard with a high pay and take advantage of their international view and advanced knowledge to promote the enterprises’ innovation and farther push forward the establishment of the city.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This paper is the research findings of the present stage of Shandong Province Statistical Research Project (project number: KT13016) and Ji'nan Municipal Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (project number: 13CJW12).
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Liu Gaobin. Research on the behaviour of government promotion of the soft power of culture in the city [D]. Guangzhou University, 2012.
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AUTHORS 1Diao
Yanhua, (1983- ), female, lecturer,
mainly engaged in industrial economy, regional economy. Email: diaodarling@ 126.com.
2Guo
Siliang, (1981- ), male, lecturer, mainly engaged in
technical and economic evaluation, econometrics. Email: GSL200601@ 126.com. 3
Li Laisheng, (1954- ), male, doctor, Professor, mainly engaged
in regional economic. Email: lls1954@sohu.com.
- 37 www.ivypub.org/msr