When will Chinese TV dramas play their part?

While Chinese people have started recognizing the value of soft power in expanding national interests, our neighbor to east, South Korea, has been using its TV plays to further its image for quite some time now.

正当中国才开始意识到文化软实力在扩大国家利益方面所体现的价值时，身处我们东面的邻居，韩国，很早就已经通过韩剧来一步步提升他们的国家形象。

With the Descendants of the Sun, a new South Korean series on KBS2, being a big hit with TV viewers on the Chinese mainland, people cannot but ask: Why cannot China, a country with a much larger audience, make such popular TV dramas? What’s wrong with China’s film and television plays and directors?

随着由韩国广播电视公司KBS2出品的韩剧“太阳的后裔”的播出，给中国大陆的电视迷们带来了前所未有的震撼，人们不禁发问：为什么像中国这样一个有着如此庞大的观众群体的国家却不能拍出这样火的电视剧呢？中国的电影电视剧还有导演还存在着哪些问题呢？

Some people attribute the popularity of South Korean TV series to their love-oriented stories, overflowing aestheticism, and romantic, sympathetic and suspenseful scenarios that seem to fit in with young women’s fantasies. The pleasing personalities of the male and female protagonists, their vivaciousness, as well as the zigzagging plots and marvelous music, which meet young viewers’ psychological demands, are also believed to be strong points of South Korean TV dramas.

一些人将韩剧的成功归功于他们以爱为主打元素的故事，充满唯美主义、浪漫、让人怜悯和充满悬疑的剧情，这些都恰好对年轻女性的口味。男女主角惹人喜欢的角色特点，他们活泼的性格，还有曲折的情节再配上美妙的音乐，这些因素无不满足年轻观众的心理需求，也足以算作韩国电视剧的一大亮点。

In my view, South Korean TV dramas have been successful because they benefit from the positive image of the country and its eagerness to integrate itself with the outside world. After all, a country’s film and TV productions should be analyzed in the context of its broader national image.

在我看来，韩剧之所以如此成功是因为得益于这个国家的积极形象以及对与世界连成整体的渴望。毕竟，一个国家的电影和电视剧产出应该在他整个广泛的国际形象的大环境下来分析。

According to Simon Anholt, a national brand expert, a country’s reputation can be neither forged nor changed through communication. He says the national image can be lifted 80 percent by creative work, 15 percent with systematic coordination, and only 5 percent through communication.

根据国际知名形象专家Simon Anholt的观点，一个国家的荣誉既不能通过交流而建立也不能通过交流而改变。他还说，创造性的作品可以让国家形象提高80%，15%靠系统合作，只有5%是通过交流。

In this sense, South Korean TV dramas also owe their success to the effective implementation of Seoul’s "culturally-oriented" national strategy. On the one hand, the South Korean government has implemented policies and pumped in funds for the development of the cultural sector. On the other, it has taken measures to introduce non-governmental capital to the sector.

在这个层面上，韩剧也将他们的成功归功于首尔“文化导向”战略的有效运用。一方面，韩国政府落实政策，给文化领域的发展注入资金；另一方面，也在采取措施争取引进非政府的资金投资。

The Chinese government, too, attaches great importance to the development of the cultural industry, but some outdated concepts of decision-makers in China’s TV play section, their conservative management style and the generation gap between them and the audience at large, especially youths, prevent the vitality and energy of Chinese TV plays from being fully released. And TV dramas made under obsolete concepts cannot gain market favor.

中国政府也加大了对文化产业发展的重视，但是在中国电视剧这块儿，决策者的一些落后的观念，保守的管理风格以及在他们和观众，特别是年轻人之间普遍存在的代沟阻碍了国产电视剧生机与活力的充分释放。陈旧观念下的电视剧是不能获得市场青睐的。

TV dramas have become a special cultural commodity in these times of ever-deepening market segmentation. To engage with and influence the specific groups in different countries or regions, TV plays must base their contents and marketing tactics specifically on subjects the targeted audiences like. This gives hope to Chinese people who love South Korean TV dramas that Chinese TV plays can also play a similar role in improving our national image among the international community.

在这个市场细分不断深化的时代，电视剧已经成为一种特殊的文化商品。为了参与并影响不同国家和地区的特殊领域，电视剧必须以其内容和营销策略为基础，特别是要选取目标受众中意的题材。这给了热衷于韩剧的中国观众一丝希望，中国的国产剧在改善中国在国际社会中的形象方面也能发挥相同的作用。

The author is a professor in communication studies at Hainan Tropical Ocean University, China.

作者是中国海南热带海洋大学，传播学研究的教授。

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来源:China Daily爱语吧作者:Kathy