Business, soft power, and whitewashing: Three themes in the US media coverage of “The Great Wall” film:

摘要

Applying the grounded theory approach, this study identified three major themes–business, soft power, and whitewashing–in the US media coverage of “The Great Wall” film, which is the biggest co-production between Hollywood and China in history. It also discussed the interconnections among the three themes and the implications of these interconnections. The connection between business and soft power revealed China’s strategy of enhancing its soft power through business collaborations with Hollywood. The connections between whitewashing and business, and between whitewashing and soft power, suggested the dialectical dynamics among them. This complex dynamics would influence the soft power of both China and the United States.