Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

International Journal of Communication

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

This study analyzes cultural mediation in international exchange participant blogs, exploring their significance for relational public diplomacy. We recognize exchange participant blogs as a site of public diplomacy at work. Moving beyond the dominant assumption guiding exchange programs as exporting values and ideas to foreign publics, we consider the extent to which the public engages in the processes of meaning making. Narrative inquiry of blogs written by participants of German and Japanese government exchange programs finds that the participants negotiate their everyday encounters with the host by personalizing, translating, and coproducing their experiences for and with the audience. The narratives convey a complicated and nuanced understanding of the host country that is interpreted through the lens of cultural and social identity embodied by the participants. The sequential and the fiction-like storytelling quality of the blogs transport audiences into the narrative world, resulting in enjoyment, emotional attachment, and identification with bloggers from their audience. © 2020 (Kyung Sun Lee and Diana Ingenhoff). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). All Rights Reserved.

ISSN

1932-8036

Publisher

University of Southern California

Volume

14

First Page

4343

Last Page

4363

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

cultural mediation, international exchange programs, narrative analysis, public diplomacy, soft power

Scopus ID

85099473905

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series

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