Current international communication efforts have moved from simply “going out” to a new stage of “going in”. How to carry out precise communication for different regions, countries, groups and even individuals, satisfy the diversified information needs of the international community for China's story, provide China's thinking and solutions to all kinds of international problems, and thus create a new mechanism for multilateral communication among multiple subjects and explore new paths for shaping international consensus have become the new requirements for international communication to go deeper and deeper into the realm of reality. In this context, international communication capacity building needs to make full use of the knowledge base of regional and country studies to explore new theoretical and practical paradigms of one policy for one region, one policy for one country and even one policy for one group of countries; at the same time, regional and country studies should also make full use of the research results of the international communication field on transnational media and global public opinion, so as to incorporate the ever-accelerating process of mediatization into the research agenda. The “bidirectional running” of international communication and regional country studies should become an interdisciplinary support for telling China's story well, enhancing international discourse and building a community of human destiny.
What is the intrinsic link between international communication and regional country studies? How can international communication scholars draw on, and even enter, regional country studies? How do regional country scholars view media and communication? How can scholars in the two fields cross-collaborate to promote the theory and practice of international communication? In response to these questions, the Research Group on Practical Issues and Localized Theoretical Innovation of International Communication in China in the New Era of the Communication University of China (CUC), together with the Institute of Contemporary China and World Studies of the Foreign Languages Bureau of China (FBOC), has organized a discussion among experts on the potential and challenges of this “two-way street”. The discussion will also provide a cross-disciplinary perspective for the construction of an autonomous knowledge system of international communication in the new era.
Relevance and intersection of international communication studies and regional country studies
Ji DeQiang：Although the disciplinary attributes of the two fields are different and the degree of institutionalization varies, they have an inescapable intrinsic connection and a high degree of intersectionality in terms of theories, knowledge genealogy and research topics. At a time when the study of international accurate communication has become a strategic need, we should re-examine the relationship between regional country studies and international communication, go beyond the research perspective of “you are you and I am me”, and enter into the logical system of cross-fertilization of “you have me and I have you”. Deepening the interaction between the basic theories of the two and constructing a more complete and self-consistent research paradigm will not only help regional national studies to extend the logic of mediatized thinking, but also enable international communication studies to keenly perceive the communication and media ecology of different regional countries, and to seek a new concept and new pattern of international communication that is “harmonious and different, beautiful and common” under the premise of respecting and observing regional differences. The new concepts and patterns of international communication should be pursued with respect for and observation of regional differences.
Driven by the combination of policy agendas and practical processes, international communication research has become the most cutting-edge applied cross-cutting field. However, in terms of its academic history, the long Cold War background and the post-Cold War transition have made international communication a potential for interdisciplinary intellectual innovation; for China nowadays, international communication has become an important position for positional awakening, academic self-consciousness, and practical self-sufficiency, laden with the imagination of the transition from theory to practice. For China nowadays, international communication has also become an important position for self-awareness, academic consciousness and self-reliance in practice, loaded with imagination from theory to practice. How to shift from the linear thinking of “going out” to the non-linear thinking of “going in”, from the egocentrism of image construction to the interlocking logic of relationship construction, and from purely serving the national interest to promoting the overall interest of building a community of human destiny, the establishment and development of regional country studies provides an important opportunity for the development of international communication in China. From merely serving national interests to promoting the overall interests of building a community of human destiny, the establishment and development of regional country studies has provided important theoretical and methodological support. It is important to note that as another cross-cutting and integrative field of study, regional country studies is not linked to international communication studies as a whole, but rather has a greater potential for cross-fertilization of the most relevant aspects of media, communication, public opinion, culture, etc. In other words, those aspects that have a direct impact on international communication studies are not necessarily the same as those of international communication studies. In other words, those dimensions of knowledge that have a direct impact on the ecology of public opinion, the decoding of meaning, and ideological encounters are more relevant to the theory and practice of international communication. In this sense, the intersection of international communication and regional country studies needs to be based on specific issues to find the closest relevance, otherwise it will easily fall into blind or even instrumental mutual utilization, which is even more detrimental to the growth and development of each.
Chen Xulong：Both can be categorized in the field of international studies, both have a prominent foreign dimension, and both cover the political, security, economic, cultural and ecological aspects of international relations, which require multidisciplinary intersections in order to bear academic fruit. It is important to note that the two disciplines are intrinsically linked and that their interrelationships can be positively constructed as a matter of course, in an effort to enhance the interconnectedness and intersectionality of the two disciplines, so as to make the two disciplines mutually reinforcing and complementary, and to promote their respective development and common progress.
Guo Jinyue：Both international communication and regional country studies are concerned with foreign countries as opposed to domestic ones. Theoretically speaking, regional country studies divide the world into “chunks”. The United Nations has 193 Member States, and the world can be divided into a varying number of regions according to different criteria, which are the object of study of regional country studies. International communication studies, on the other hand, divides the world into “strips”. In addition to international communication, there are also international trade, international education and international history, etc. Transnational information transfer issues are the focus of international communication studies. In today's era of unprecedentedly close links between countries and regions, and high-speed transnational flow of information, the boundaries between country-specific and international studies are becoming increasingly blurred. In order to balance local specificity and global consistency, and to recognize and transform the external world more comprehensively and effectively, the disciplines must be cross-fertilized and “integrated”. Specifically in China, international communication research and regional and country-specific research are both aimed at promoting exchanges and mutual understanding between Chinese and foreign civilizations, and promoting the building of a community of human destiny. Good regional and country studies can lay the knowledge foundation for effective international communication, while good international communication studies can help to promote and deepen understanding of the countries and regions concerned, and they complement each other in a mutually beneficial way.
Zhang Qi：My professional background is in sociology and anthropology, and my field of practice is in the international news media, so I have a deep appreciation for this issue. In my opinion, international communication and regional country studies are both disciplines born for application, and their relevance lies firstly in the consistency of purpose, and secondly in the difference of focus. The subject of both international communication and regional country studies is “I” (or China), and the object of study involves the “other” (or other countries), with the same purpose of establishing a better connection between the subject and the other, or a connection that is favorable to me. The purpose is the same, but due to changes in the general environment and the needs of the subjects, there is a shift in the frontiers of academic concern from international communication to regional country studies. The difference between the two centers of gravity is reflected in the research perspective, the former to me as the main, the latter to him as the main; the second is reflected in the object of research, the former to information dissemination as the main, the latter to the social form as the main. Only from the point of view of the research object, in the current information age, the intersection between international communication and regional country studies is also obvious and indisputable. The more highly developed the region or country is in terms of information technology and social life, the deeper the overlap between the two. On the contrary, in regions or countries where IT is less developed, the difference between the two is more obvious. In my cross-country surveys, I pay close attention to a country's Internet penetration rate, and if it is below 67%, I am cautious about using online methods or analyzing online sample data. In addition, some anthropological research that is oriented towards other cultures has relevance and intersections with the two disciplines mentioned above, but the disciplinary aims and research interests are different. Anthropological research focuses on understanding the Other to the greatest extent possible, and does not hesitate to use the costly and long-term field research method of becoming the Other. Both the methodology of anthropological research itself and the results already available can be of great help to international communication and regional country studies.
Communication in the perspective of regional country studies
Chen Xulong：This begins with the necessity and importance of international dissemination for regional country studies. First, international dissemination of knowledge and information is needed for regional country studies to understand facts and truths and as one of the necessary means to build a relevant knowledge system; second, international dissemination is indispensable for regional country studies to have an international impact and to increase their international utility; third, international dissemination, both positive and negative, can have both positive and negative effects on regional country studies, thus affecting the process and results of the studies. Thus, it can be considered that the most important and urgent issue facing regional and country studies is to take the initiative to effectively combine and actively integrate with international communication, make good use of traditional mass media, but also keep up with the pace of the times in the development of communication, make good use of new media such as the Internet, social media and artificial intelligence to carry out research, and strengthen the international dissemination of the research results, so as to magnify their positive effects.
Guo JinYue：In a communication sense, regional country studies face at least two problems. The first is access to information. The goal of the study is to gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the overall situation in the target country, and the prerequisite is to have information on all aspects of the target country. Since the research object is abroad, the basic source of information is also abroad, obtaining, screening and utilizing these research materials transmitted across the border is the key to good regional country studies. This involves not only language translation, but also cross-cultural communication and communication technology, etc. Secondly, it is the external expression. The conduct of regional country studies generally requires communication and interaction with research subjects, which is also the process of international communication. For example, when a researcher goes to the local area of the research object to conduct an investigation, his speech and behavior convey a certain attitude, and at this time, the researcher is also a disseminator. Some researchers' writings even influence the self-perception of the target country. For example, French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville's On Democracy in America and famous American cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Knife have attracted widespread attention in the United States and Japan respectively. In today's era of information explosion and emerging media, how to obtain more comprehensive information about the research object and express the research object more effectively in regional country studies is an issue that needs special attention.
Ji Deqiang：The study of media or media has always been the specialty of mass communication, and it is also the key to international communication research, which has mass communication as its core field, addressing the reach of communication and its multifaceted impact on the target audience. Of course, with the addition of multiple perspectives, international communication studies have also begun to deal with interpersonal, organizational, group and even human-computer interactions, with the enrichment of technological, cultural and power perspectives, and with dissemination, communication, negotiation and conflict all coming together to form the complex purpose of international communication.
From the perspective of communication studies, regional country studies need to deal with two aspects: first, the public opinion environment and media system in a given region and country, and analyze them in relation to the political system, cultural traditions, social structure, economic situation, geopolitical relations, etc., and the media, although not the most central element, is an important representational or discursive force; and second, the accelerating digitization process, especially the systemic impact of Internet-based social applications and artificial intelligence technologies on a given region and country, such as social movements triggered by the large-scale use of social media. Second, the accelerating digitalization process, especially the systematic impact of Internet-based social applications and artificial intelligence technologies on specific regions and countries, such as social movements triggered by the large-scale use of social media. In other words, regional country studies themselves are in need of a mediatization and digital transformation, fully recognizing that the media is no longer a separate and closed sector of industry, but rather a foundational and even reconfiguring force in society.
Of course, from the point of view of academic history, we need to be constantly alerted to the fact that both international communication and area studies are representative of the social sciences of the Cold War. Of these, the early forms of area studies can be traced back to Orientalism, which originated in Europe as an act of knowledge production in which the West constructed the East. As Orientalism could no longer meet the needs of the United States in its quest for global cultural hegemony in a completely different context after World War II, area studies came into being. It can be said that the regional studies centered on the United States after World War II was a kind of “study of great powers” with Cold War colors. By the same token, international communication played the role of the knowledge worker of the capitalist powers in the Cold War social sciences dominated by the United States, no matter whether it was the development communication paradigm in the early stage or the globalization paradigm in the later stage. Looking back at this academic history from China's historical perspective, international communication needs to transcend the relationship of simple games, and regional and national countries also need to transcend the role of a great power's weapon; the purpose of the intersection of the two is to better promote mutual understanding and to reach more consensus based on respect for difference and diversity, rather than to seek irrational feedback and control effects.
Zhang Qi：Cultural anthropology will make many fundamental contributions to regional country studies, the most typical case being The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. The study of international politics will add to the applied value of regional country studies, which are indispensable for foreign affairs-related departments. Communication concerns will play an increasingly important role in our regional and country studies, a conclusion based on the confidence that the changes of the information age will eventually sweep across the globe. I believe that the most pressing issue is the study of the characteristics of information dissemination in the target countries, and the most important issue is the study of the media audience in the target countries, both of which are, to some extent, mutually reinforcing.
If a comparison is made between traditional and emerging media, it must be that more emphasis needs to be placed on emerging media. The rapid development of emerging media has brought about constant changes in all countries at the level of society as a whole. To what extent is the public opinion environment in a given country or region dominated by which emerging media forces? Do and how do the issues disseminated in the emerging media space influence national political and social behavior? How do changes in media communication affect changes in socio-cultural and popular psychology? The answers to these questions are both enriching and instructive for regional country studies.
Zhang Qi: Regional country studies can make the study of international communication more concrete, tangible and viable. Concrete means that the concept of “international” in international communication research will have a defined scope, for example, it will be possible to differentiate more clearly between countries or regions that are the subject of international communication, and the similarities and differences between the results of communication research on these countries and on those countries. Relevance means that international communication research will have a greater sense of purpose and fulfillment, and will produce research results that can be more effectively applied in international communication practice. Vitality means that the roots and growth of international communication research in a given region and country are healthy and sustainable. To use an analogy from the perspective of the same disciplinary objective, regional and country studies are equivalent to analyzing the composition and environment of various soils, while international communication research is equivalent to analyzing the suitability of various soils for different crops, both with the same objective of growing well and producing fruit.
With regard to how international communication research can reach out to specific regions and countries, I suggest that it should be closely linked to the disciplines related to language and symbols, so that the content of intercultural communication can first be more accurately and in-depth decoded, recognized and utilized, and so that the relevant research resources in the social, cultural, political and economic fields in the specific regions and countries can be more effectively explored. The specificity of communication studies, as compared to other disciplines covering regions and countries, lies in the uniqueness of its object of study, i.e. the media and the message. The information age. The media and information are abundant or in the process of being abundant in any country or region. There are different “mines” and different “deposits”, and a great deal of mining is still needed in communication studies. In this context, the use of IT tools may also contribute to the uniqueness of international communication research. If so, this would be an important and unique contribution to the methodology of social science research.
Ji Deqiang：
Precise research targeting specific regions and countries is a sign that international communication has entered a new stage, representing the transition from reactive research to purposeful proactive research, and from “going out” centered on image building to “going in” with relationship building as the goal. It also represents the transition from “going out” centered on image building to “going in” aiming at relationship building. In this sense, China's international communication research has begun to be more conscious of itself in three ways: first, it is fully aware that the international community is complex, pluralistic and even volatile, rather than homogeneous, and that it is not simply Westernized, and that even the West needs to be deconstructed; second, it is fully aware that it is necessary to cultivate a deeper understanding of a region or a country in order to promote effective international communication, whether in the cybernetic sense or in the cultural sense; second, it is fully aware of the need to cultivate a region or a country in order to promote effective international communication, whether in the cybernetic sense or the cultural sense. Secondly, it is fully aware of the need to work deeply in a region or country in order to truly promote effective international communication, whether in the cybernetic or cultural sense; and thirdly, it is fully aware that the regional-country shift in international communication research needs to be linked to China's overseas interests and relations, which means that it is not necessary in the short and medium term to study all the countries in full scale, but to proceed in a step-by-step approach in accordance with the order of urgency and degree of significance. At the intersection of international communication and regional countries, there are two possible directions to consider: firstly, the traditional theory of media norms, which still needs to be expanded through empirical research, i.e. mapping the media systems of various countries and similar regions and their changes in processes such as digitization, with a deeper de-Westernization and a thorough de-colonization being the cornerstone for reshaping the legitimacy and explanatory power of the theory of media norms; and secondly, intercultural communication research, which is the basic theory. Secondly, there is the study of intercultural communication as a foundational theory, involving such constructs as language, ethnicity, identity, etc., and centering on the in-depth portrayal and internalization of the Other as an equal communicator.
Guo Jinyue：
At the theoretical level, there is a need for international communication to find more coherence, to maximize common denominators, and to distill relatively universal rules. However, as a branch of the social sciences, the so-called general rules summarized by modern international communication studies are mainly based on the experience of the local world. For theoretical research that seeks to discover universality, international communication needs to look at more countries and regions, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. At the practical level, the transmission of information from one country or region to another is unique due to the diversity of their cultural traditions, political systems, religious beliefs, ways of thinking and public opinion. In order to accurately decode the messages sent by the countries or regions concerned to one's own side, and to make targeted efforts to send messages to the target countries or regions, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the countries or regions concerned and to have a deep understanding of them. As Kissinger pointed out in his memoirs, in an era of rapid information flow, the main task of an embassy is no longer to deliver messages, but to carry out “political translation”. International communication should not be without a regional perspective, while at the same time taking an international view. Within the framework of international communication, it can be subdivided into more specific fields of study such as national or regional communication to the outside world, communication to countries or regions, and the characteristics of national and regional communication.
Chen Xulong： In order for international communication to be differentiated and precise, it is indispensable to have an in-depth understanding of the targets and destinations of communication, which inevitably requires that specific regional and country studies should be “deepened”, and this is precisely the significance and immense value of regional and country studies for international communication. Only through in-depth, detailed and systematic research on specific regions and countries can international communication be truly precise, tailored to local conditions and targeted, and can effectively promote one policy for each region, one policy for each country, one policy for each group of people, etc., so as to make the content and modes of communication more effective, and to enable a more scientific assessment of communication effects. In entering this cross-cutting area, one can start with typical targets and major issues of regional country studies that are of greatest significance in communication studies, such as the challenges of climate change faced by a small island State or the building of a regional community of destiny in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) region. At the crossroads of international communication and regional countries, in order to highlight the specificity of communication research, it is necessary to study the subject and object of communication, the construction of communication content and discourse, and the transmission and innovation of communication methods. In order to face up to major realities such as the communication divide, post-truth and cognitive warfare, it is necessary to tell the story of a specific region and country, and to strike a balance between the plurality and diversity of the narratives, on the one hand, and their unity and commonality, on the other hand, and to give full play to the conceptual leadership and the commonalities in international communication. In order to face major practical issues such as the communication gap and cognitive warfare, it is necessary to tell the stories of specific regions and countries well and strike a balance between narrative plurality and diversity on the one hand and unity and commonality on the other.
Discussants：
Chen Xulong Distinguished Professor, School of International Relations, University of International Business and Economics
Guo Jinyue Associate Researcher, Institute of American Studies, China Institute of International Studies
Zhang Qi Executive Director, Global Times Institute
Ji DeQiang Professor of Communication University of China, Researcher of State Key Laboratory of Media Convergence and Communication
Resources：
《External Communication》2024.02
