The popular news media is obsessing over Michael Jackson today with non-stop coverage of the memorial service in Los Angeles. I’ve never devoted any attention to celebrity news in this space and had not planned to consider it at all until I saw this Associated Press report. The report has me thinking about this in the context of soft power and the role of pop culture as a national export. As you know, soft power is defined by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, as:
[Soft power] is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced.
Now compare that with the following from the AP report:
“Which was the bigger step for mankind — Apollo 11 or Michael’s moonwalk?” asked Yoshiaki Sato, who studies American fiction and music, in an opinion piece in Monday’s editions of the Yomiuri nationwide newspaper […] The U.S. won the Cold War not through military might but through the charm of artists like Jackson, he said, with his sound winning over people in the former Soviet states, the Middle East and China to the greatness of American culture.
Although I’m reluctant to go that far and credit Michael Jackson with winning the Cold War, he may have contributed to the U.S. role in the world by making American pop culture more attractive abroad. As an application of soft power, the export of American celebrity culture showcasing the creative energy of a free people may indeed be a prime weapon in our arsenal of democracy.
Photo Credit: The Associated Press
