Public Diplomacy, Gentle and Long Lasting Fragrance : What Cultural Boom and Its Sustainability Are Telling Us

Public diplomacy, gentle and long lasting fragrance : What cultural boom and its sustainability are telling us. Boyon Kim 김 보 연 Opening The definition of the term ‘Culture’ fluctuates across fields and people. It may refer to the appreciation and understanding of literature, art, and music. However, it may even refer to grow- ing bacteria for a study. Therefore, brief definition for national culture should be shared before starting this essay. The culture of a nation is said to be the expression of the characteristics that a nation connotes. It is shaped and molded by its people, their languages and beliefs. It includes numerous ways that people express themselves in words, movement or music. These expressions shape the value which is shared in a nation and establishes its identity and image. Recently culture has been gaining its importance as country’s sustainable competency. Its importance is becoming more explicitly observable across the industries from tourism and even to manufacturing. This thus elevates its importance as an agenda for diplomacy. Simply put, this is because once certain amount of cultural interest is situated in one’s mind its influence tends to be projected through one’s lifestyle(; opinion, interest, activity) sustainably. However, this is not the same for every national culture. The sustainability of cultural impact varies across its origin. Furthermore, this can be controlled, if not absolutely, by government’s action. This turns the spot light on ‘Public Diplomacy’. Country’s public diplomacy can help maintain the continuous impact that its culture has on people. This essay starts with development of culture as country’s competency and an explanation of its ‘sustainability’. This leads to the importance of public diplomacy as a way of building up its durable and positive influence on people’s mind. Examples of distinctive public diplomacy model of France, Germany will be followed. In conclusion these models will guide to the insight for Ko- rean Public Diplomacy model. 40｜Yonsei European Studies Vol.1 Issue 2 Culture, as national competency Once there was a time when people using products of our proud MNCs (Multi National Company) assumed that Samsung and LG are either American or Japanese companies. While this is still the case in some regions, there have been some changes since then. It became hard to miss articles, and news about these companies phrased as “South Korea’s giant Samsung..”, “..South Korea’s global conglomerate LG..”. Most smartphone users, if they have at least some interest about technology that smartphone accompanies, know where Galaxy series come from. This is not limited to Korea. Huge companies from developing countries such as China or India is increasingly gaining its power. As Charles A. Kupchan said in his book ‘No One’s World’, 1the world we live in is not run by a single country. Number of groups which vary in size and nationality col- laborates across the industry at least in certain level. In result, everything from human resources, product and even to culture flow in multi direction. In this context, country’s image is becoming more and more crucial for its companies since it plays a big role in building successful network, not to mention successful promotion in commercial market. Countries image starts from its culture. Therefore communicating country’s strong and positive culture became pivotal for its national competency. Another reason why culture gained its power is due to the development of media. Media works as a powerful distributional channel since its influence is instant, broad and deeply nestled within everyday lives. As it overcame limitations in time and space, culture is now ubiquitously consumed around the world. Increasing tourists in Korea are one of the explicit proves of media’s impact. With expected annual tourists of 10million people in 2012, Korea has been increasingly charmed tourists especially from neighboring countries. K-pop and Korean drama that flew to these countries via media are said to be the biggest trigger for this phenomenon. Korea’s image made by these contents generated lucrative results not only in tourist industry but also in overall entertainment, cosmetic and fashion industry. Another recent example that shows power of media is the ‘Psy sensation’. With some exaggeration, the world spotted huge whirlpool that Psy cre- ated. To the world, he came out of nowhere but ‘you tube’. As shocking the speed and scope of his impact was, it suddenly became a significant milestone in the era of digital media. 723,556,061 you tube hits of Psy’s music video brought massive and unexpected success to Psy. His pandemic impact rolled out faster than any other contents even than the ones that were deliberately made to spread out to promote Korea. Media is now, without a doubt, the most influential distribution 1 ‘No One’s World’ Charles A. Kupchan 연세유럽연구 제1권 제2호｜41 channel that the whole world has to pay attention to. In result, it has surely empowered culture to generate tremendous competency to pose impact on people around the world. Sustainability Despite this unbelievable phenomenon, many critics, showed concerns about Korean culture’s sustainability as the country’s competency in the world we are facing. ‘How long can he keep the world interested?’ The concerns are not of course limited to Psy sensation or boom of the Korean wave. It is also about the overall presence of Korean culture and country’s image that it forms. Director of Korean cultural center Lee Jong Soo points out2 that Korea lacks well orga- nized and approachable contents both in and out of the country. To keep foreigners fascinated for longer period of time, it has to be fully prepared to satisfy their interest in deeper level. In fact, this is not a question thrown very recently; Choi Jun Ho, former director of Korean cultural center in France, also had similar concerns3. His worries originated from his own experience in France. The mega events such as big K-pop concerts triggered foreigners’ interest in Korea but they easily lost their interest because it was hard to keep in touch with Korea’s culture. Partly, it is also related with poor investment from government. In just one month, they had to turn down more than 100 people who wanted to learn Korean simply because they lacked enough room in the center. In most major cities around the world, in contrast, people have easy access to language institute of France, operating in close relationship with French cultural center. At least for the moment, Korea seems to be losing its chance to have a concrete ground to earn hospital sentiment from foreigner, not to mention a chance to leverage their affection to build national competency. This leads to the necessity of Public Diplomacy. Public Diplomacy To start with the definition, Public Diplomacy is defined by the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs4 as a way of diplomacy that approaches the people not the government of the partner country. This approach extensively takes advantage of intangible medium such as art, knowledge, media or language that can be bundled under the category of ‘culture’. The core goals of Public Diplomacy is to generate active communication with the mass in other countries, promote 2 Interview: Director of Korean cultural center Lee Jong Soo , Korea National Tourist Organization http://kto.visitkorea.or.kr/kor/notice/news/tnew/tourNews/view.kto?artNo=AKR2012100104070005 3 Interview: Choi Jun Ho, former director of Korean cultural center in France, http://blog.naver.com/korea_ brand?Redirect=Log&logNo=10129495523 4 Public Diplomacy is defined by the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.mofat.go.kr/trade/ cultural/public/index.jsp?mofat=001&menu=m_30_170_100 42｜Yonsei European Studies Vol.1 Issue 2 mutual understanding and enforcing country’s positive image as so called the ‘Soft Power.’ The emphasis is on laying down the cornerstone, prospecting its sustainable impact in the long run. Therefore it is a steep out of previous diplomacy where large amount of capital was invested to throw sporadic events that generates merely ostensible result. In order to make the culture of one country viable in another country, it needs to be melted in people’s lives. It should be easy to find access to explore the culture. Needless to mention its literal excellence, works of Shakespeare have significant presence until now because people easily heard about it and could easily have access to it. In terms of sustainability, forced form of ‘government to government’ strategy only have limited and short term effect comparing to voluntary network formed by the people on the basis of shared interest. As no culture can be transferred over a night, Korean government should focus more on long term investment for basic infra- structure to touch the mass, which is again, why public diplomacy is necessary. Different models of Public Diplomacy; France, Germany Public Diplomacy relies heavily on the cultural context, industrial structure, global power of the nation. It is therefore never possible to bench mark one model from another country. Espe- cially Korea has unique strengths and weaknesses in terms of such factors. Considering this situ- ation, Korea should assemble only suitable and viable features from models of other countries. This will help construct concrete Public Diplomacy model that will generate sustainable strategy for Korea. Thus, here it introduces two comparable models from representative EU members; France and Germany. Each model helped the countries to keep its own strengths sustainable in its own way. Starting with France, public diplomacy model of France can be largely characterized by strong network within each department of French government and also between government of France and foreign partner.

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