(Source:《Science and Technology Daily》 2026-4-17）
Beijing is an ancient capital with a history of three thousand years. It is also the national cultural center and international exchange center. Letting rich historical and cultural resources rejuvenate in the digital age is an integral part of cultural construction in the new era.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the need to explore effective mechanisms for the integration of culture and science and technology, use Internet thinking and information technology to improve cultural creation and production processes, promote the comprehensive upgrade of "hardware" and "software", realize digital empowerment and informatization transformation of cultural construction, and transform cultural resource advantages into cultural development advantages.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" outline also clearly proposes strategic deployments such as "promoting digital empowerment and informatization transformation of cultural construction". In recent years, Beijing has continued to promote the in-depth integration of science and technology and culture, using digital technology to reconstruct the cultural communication scene, opening up new possibilities for the inheritance and communication of the ancient capital's heritage.
From physical presence to digital perceptibility
People’s perception of urban culture often requires personal visits. This communication method based on physical presence forms the basis of cultural identity, but its time and space barriers and language barriers have also become invisible thresholds that stand in front of more people. The intervention of digital technology has fundamentally changed this landscape.
Virtual reality, augmented reality, high-precision modeling and other means enable people thousands of miles away to enter the historical scenes of Beijing immersively. For example, the Beijing Central Axis Digital Preservation and Communication Project continues to advance, converting important buildings along the 7.8-kilometer central axis into accessible digital resources, creating a roamable immersive experience space, and opening it to the public through a multilingual platform. The audience can "travel" the central axis in the digital space and perceive the changes in the style of Beijing in different historical periods.
The change in the way of perception is the more essential dimension of this transformation. During on-site visits, people need to rely on tour guides or text introductions to understand what they see; in digital scenes, visual presentation, interactive experience, and multi-sensory immersion work together to allow cultural implications to be conveyed more directly. For example, the upcoming "Prayer Ceremony" XR digital space project in the Temple of Heaven Park will lead the audience to "travel" to the ancient sacrificial site through an immersive experience, and experience the rituals of neutralizing Shao music and three offerings and nine instruments at close range, transforming the philosophical concept of the unity of nature and man into perceptible audio-visual language.
The sense of presence created by digital technology is not a simple substitute for on-site visits, but a kind of pre-experience and in-depth extension, allowing people who are temporarily unable to reach Beijing to obtain a cultural perception close to the authenticity, providing new possibilities for the echelon advancement of cultural communication, and creating conditions for improving the international communication power of Beijing culture.
From one-way output to two-way dialogue
In the traditional communication pattern, the one-way "I speak and you listen" model easily ignores audience feedback and needs. Especially when facing audiences with different cultural backgrounds, the misunderstanding caused by the lack of interaction often greatly reduces the communication effect. The interactivity of digital technology provides an opportunity to break through this dilemma and turn cultural communication into a two-way dialogue.
The digital practice of cultural and museum institutions in Beijing is continuing to deepen in this direction. While serving local audiences, it is also quietly building a more dynamic new international communication scenario. For example, the interactive tour platform launched by the Capital Museum supports multi-language switching and personalized content customization, allowing audiences with different cultural backgrounds to find an acceptance path that suits their own cognitive habits.
At the same time, the introduction of generative participation mechanisms pushes this trend to a more imaginative dimension. With the help of artificial intelligence technology, every observation and question from the audience about cultural relics may trigger the system to generate a unique interpretation path, telling the story of cultural relics in a way that is closer to the audience's cognitive habits. For example, the "Listen to Baby Talk" AI interactive podcast project launched by the Palace Museum selects 30 cultural relics in the museum's collection. The audience only needs to read a few sentences to generate a cultural relic explanation video that incorporates their personal voice. They can also choose different narrative perspectives such as "little historian" or "little science popularizer" to allow the cultural relics story to be different for each person and answer questions based on the question.
When the audience can choose to learn about a cultural relic and participate in the interpretation of the cultural relic based on their own interests, a deeper emotional connection will be established between the audience and Beijing culture. This connection is the soil where cultural identity can grow. It also blurs the boundaries between the speaker and the listener, opening up a wider space for cross-cultural communication.
From grand narrative to microscopic slices
As a famous historical and cultural city, Beijing’s cultural communication has long focused on grand narratives, which is reflected in its long historical context and splendid civilization accumulation. This way of telling has irreplaceable value, but for audiences who lack background knowledge, highly condensed expressions sometimes seem distant and abstract, lacking emotional resonance and identification.
Digital technology provides new possibilities for narrative transformation. Through context conversion, content in a specific cultural context can be transformed into a more universal form of expression. For example, the lion has cross-cultural affinity and is generally endowed with the symbolic meaning of majesty and protection in multi-ethnic cultures around the world. Beijing Fengtai used 3D printing technology to transform the stone lions of Marco Polo Bridge into cultural and creative products. This product became the focus of attention of journalists and diplomats from various countries at the 2026 New Year reception for foreign journalists. This digital technology-driven cultural innovation path allows Beijing stories to reach more people in a lighter way.
In the digital scene, overseas audiences can also gradually form an understanding of the overall culture through specific and micro cultural slices. For example, the video series "Hello, Beijing - A Diplomat's Notes on Beijing" is a vivid practice of the international spread of Beijing culture. This series of videos invites diplomats from many countries stationed in China to appear. Through interviews and documentary follow-up, the impression of Beijing in the eyes of diplomats is transformed into a perceivable personal narrative and disseminated through digital platforms. This narration method from an individual perspective allows Beijing stories to enter the cognition of audiences from different backgrounds in a more friendly way.
Digital technology empowers cultural communication in Beijing, which essentially allows Beijing stories to find new forms of expression that are more suitable for the perception of contemporary audiences. From physical presence to digital perceptibility, from one-way output to two-way dialogue, and from grand narrative to micro-perception, the three changes jointly point to one direction - allowing cultural communication to truly return to people. Technology is the bridge and culture is the core. Beijing is endowed with unique cultural resources and scientific and technological resources. The deep integration of the two can make Beijing stories reach the public in a more adaptable way, and shine more brilliantly in keeping integrity and innovation.(Author: Sun Yu, researcher at Beijing Institute of Opening up, w88 casino)
