The utilisation of soft power in japanese public diplomacy and an example: Cyberspace phenomenon in anime

The nature of political communication and power specifications has started to change with technological accumulation and the globalisation process in the 21st century. The soft power concept of Joseph Nye added the tools of the attraction into the definition of power. The interest fields of diplomacy have broadened and new power specifications, new actors, and implementations have emerged. Public diplomacy places the public as the target group during international policymaking. Consistent and well-planned public diplomacy implementations will shape the image in the international arena at will, which provides support to obtain soft power. Being marginalised due to historical and cultural reasons, Japan changed their focus of power to economy and culture, following the limitation of its military power after World War II. Cultural industry products are given importance in the public diplomacy practices of Japan with the aim of making the colourfulness and diversity of Japanese cultural elements an advantage. Japanese animation productions, namely anime, are actively used in the overseas promotion of the country. This study assesses Japan's public diplomacy through approaches in the historical process, actors, and tools. The examination focuses on which policies and actions are applied to Japanese animations in the context of public diplomacy and how messages emerge in these productions. To research the contributions of Japanese animation productions to the acquisition of soft power, the cyberspace phenomenon in the film "Summer Wars'' is evaluated through the Critical Discourse Analysis method. It has been observed that the Japanese family and society structure, which is given as "we" in terms of utterance characteristics, as well as plot, space, music and drawing techniques in the anime, are presented with aspects that will provide gains in the field of soft power in cyberspace.