The term “soft power”, which describes the exercise of political power based on cultural attractiveness, is currently on everyone’s lips. But what function and significance does this concept have in various national and international contexts – and how does it work? The Asia Forum 2023, which took place on July 6 and 7 in the “Normative Orders” building on the Westend campus of Goethe University, was dedicated to these questions. Under the title “In Hallyu We Trust? Revisiting ‘Soft Power’ in the New World Order of Cultural Production”, the research initiative ConTrust, together with the Interdisciplinary Center for East Asian Studies (IZO) and the joint project CEDITRAA (Cultural Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation in Africa and Asia), invited a group of high-ranking academics from Europe, the USA, Nigeria, East Asia, Australia and New Zealand to a two-day workshop at Goethe University to critically examine the connections between a country’s cultural appeal and its political power.
Hallyu, the so-called “Korean wave”, which describes the rising international popularity of Korean pop culture, provided the starting point for an intensive program of lectures and panel discussions dedicated to a range of international contexts from Japan to Taiwan and Nigeria to China. The invited academics approached the question of the function of soft power from different perspectives and disciplines in lively discussions. Following the workshop, a large audience gathered in the Renate von Metzler Hall for the public evening lecture to listen to the producer and CEO of “Realies Pictures”, Dong Yeong Won, give a keynote speech on the present and future of Korean film and television formats.
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