(Source: "People's Daily" 2026-04-08)

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Continuously improve the country’s cultural soft power and the influence of Chinese culture” and “we must be more proactive in promoting China’s ideas, spreading Chinese culture, and displaying China’s image.” Rural culture is an important part of Chinese culture and an important carrier for the international dissemination of Chinese culture. The “15th Five-Year Plan” outline proposes “prosperous development of rural culture”, “enhancement of international communication effectiveness, and strengthening of foreign cultural exchanges and cooperation.” Efforts should be made to build a narrative system and communication pattern that integrates China and foreign countries, promote the rich connotation of rural culture to reach overseas audiences in a perceivable and shareable way through cultural exchanges and mutual learning, enhance the effectiveness of the international communication of Chinese civilization, and enhance the communication influence of Chinese civilization and the soft power of national culture.

In the current era of deep integration of globalization and digital media, rural culture, with its simple life atmosphere, distinctive regional characteristics and deep emotional tension, has increasingly become a unique window for telling Chinese stories and displaying China's image. In recent years, a number of "village brand" IPs have accelerated to the world. Guizhou's "Village Super", "Village BA" and "Village T" have used short video platforms to build a global communication matrix, allowing rural cultural activities to enter the world's perspective; Jiangxi Wanan peasant paintings, Sichuan Zigong lanterns, etc., have shown their unique charm on the world stage through digital means and international exhibitions. These practices provide a reference path for my country to display its rural image, tell rural stories, and improve its ability to communicate rural culture internationally. It is also important to realize that the overall effectiveness of the international dissemination of rural culture still needs to be improved. From the perspective of content presentation, some rural cultural products remain in the self-presentation stage, do not have in-depth research on the cultural psychology and acceptance habits of overseas audiences, and lack a grasp of the cultural context of the target market, resulting in poor communication effects. As far as communication channels are concerned, an independent and controllable communication matrix has not yet been formed. It is highly dependent on overseas platforms, and its ability to set issues and its discourse initiative need to be strengthened. From the perspective of talent support, there is a lack of comprehensive talents who are deeply familiar with the connotation of rural culture, familiar with international communication laws, and master modern communication technology. The grassroots communication team has problems such as weak cross-cultural awareness and insufficient digital skills. In terms of the overall situation, the international influence of rural culture is still insufficient, and there is an urgent need to form a cultural brand system that matches the profound heritage of Chinese civilization. Faced with these problems and challenges, collaborative efforts can be made from the three dimensions of narrative innovation, technological empowerment, and talent support to improve the quality and efficiency of the international communication influence of rural culture.

Innovative narrative activates emotional resonance. Improving the effectiveness of international communication not only depends on the appeal of cultural content itself, but also relies on the accurate fit of communication methods and discourse expression with the audience's psychology, so that people can generate and deepen identification in common emotions. We must persist in integrating user thinking into the entire process of rural cultural innovation, conduct in-depth research on the cultural psychology of audiences in different countries and regions, and adjust narratives according to different cultural preferences. Systematically build a narrative resource library covering multi-cultural forms, improve the tracking and feedback mechanism of narrative effects, and optimize narrative strategies through interactive behavior data of overseas audiences. In-depth exploration of the narrative transformation rules of different types of rural culture, using micro-narratives to present the true rural style and villagers' lives, transforming the cultural genes and lifestyles of Chinese rural areas into a discourse system that is easy for overseas users to understand and accept, and showing the world a picture of Chinese rural areas with prosperous industries, livable ecology, civilized rural customs, effective governance, and affluent life. Starting from the common emotional experience and emotional needs of human beings, we refine the common values ​​and cultural connotations in rural culture, use emotions as a bridge to break cultural barriers, promote the effective implementation of cross-cultural communication, and form high-quality content that has both cultural recognition and cross-cultural empathy. For example, Guizhou's "Village Super League" integrates Dong folk songs, Miao reed pipes and football to achieve cross-media translation of local cultural symbols in the common context of sports competition, allowing overseas audiences to perceive the unique charm of Chinese rural culture within a familiar event framework.

Technological empowerment improves communication efficiency. Digital technology breaks the geographical limitations of rural cultural communication, transforms folk skills, customs and customs with regional characteristics into visual symbols with global characteristics, and promotes rural culture to enter the international communication field. Strengthening technological empowerment will help improve the level of international communication capabilities of rural culture and optimize product form and user experience. It is necessary to vigorously strengthen the construction of digital cultural resources, promote the digital transformation and standardization of rural cultural resources, establish a multilingual, cross-media cultural content database, and provide continuous, stable, and callable content resource support for international communication. Actively expand the application scenarios of cutting-edge digital technology in the international dissemination of rural culture, and create a cultural experience space that integrates reality and reality through short videos, virtual reality, augmented reality and other technologies to further expand the audience's perception dimension. For example, the "Visit Yunnan with a Mobile Phone" platform relies on panoramic and slow live broadcast technology to push the scenery of Yuanyang Hani Rice Terraces to users' mobile phones, realizing the visual dissemination of cultural heritage and allowing overseas users to break through the limitations of physical space and gain an immersive cultural experience. It can accelerate the construction of an independent and controllable communication platform matrix, deepen content cooperation and channel co-construction with overseas mainstream platforms, and enhance the ability to set topics and the initiative of discourse. Use algorithm recommendation technology to build dynamic portraits of global users, achieve precise content distribution based on the cultural preferences of audiences in different regions, and effectively improve the reach and acceptance of communication. Guide overseas users to participate in the re-creation of cultural meaning through interactive technology, promote the international communication of rural culture from one-way transmission to value co-creation, deepen emotional identification in two-way interaction, and realize the leap of rural culture from "visible and sensible" to "credible and approachable".

Cultivate talents to lay a solid foundation for development. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Cultivation and exploration of local cultural talents." The size, structure and capabilities of the communication team directly determine the room for improvement in communication effectiveness. Efforts should be made to build a three-dimensional pattern for the international communication of rural culture, and promote the media, literary and art volunteers, villagers and other groups to become participants and contributors to the international communication of rural culture. For example, Xiayuan Village in Changping, Beijing, gathers many artists to form a cultural ecology of "art + folk customs", attracting many overseas tourists and showing the artistic vitality of rural China through self-media platforms. Another example is the rural video blogger "Xi Yunnan Xiao Ge" from Shidian County, Baoshan City, Yunnan Province, who uses food as a starting point to show the daily life and rural scenery of villagers, and has many fans on overseas social platforms. It is necessary to strengthen the cultivation of talents for the international communication of rural local culture, continue to broaden the horizons of talent selection, focus on discovering and cultivating rural intangible cultural inheritors, "new farmers", rural self-media bloggers and other emerging rural cultural communication forces, and enrich the talent pool. Increase the training of digital communication skills to help grassroots cultural talents master the production and operation capabilities of all-media content and adapt to the communication needs of the digital era. Accelerate the establishment of a cross-field talent collaboration network, promote in-depth cooperation among professional forces in fields such as international communication and cultural research, and digital technology, and vigorously cultivate interdisciplinary talents. Fully respect and stimulate the cultural subject consciousness of villagers, enhance the initiative of villagers to participate in international communication, transform villagers from being narrated into narrators, enhance cultural identity and cultural confidence in communication practice, and ultimately achieve a deep transformation from "talent support" to "subject consciousness".

(The author is a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Opening up, w88 casino)

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