NATIONAL MEDIA AS A PROMOTIONAL TOOL OF CHINA'S SOFT POWER
This paper analyzes the use of Chinese national media as one of the tools for promoting soft power. The author examines the origin of soft power theory, its Chinese interpretation and emphasizes the differences from Anglo-Saxon and American understanding of this term. The author argues that this theory has become especially popular in the country because it matches the world outlook of the Chinese nation. Modern Chinese media prove to be a key tool in this policy's implementation. Drawing on new technologies, they are quite successful in performing the tasks at hand. In particular, many large Chinese media produce content in English and increase their web presence, thus expanding the scale of distribution. Another powerful tool is Chinese cinema, which progressively focuses on promoting its own content in Western markets. The author comes to the conclusion that Chinese media effectively pursue soft power policy advancing and disseminating Chinese values and culture throughout the world, thereby shaping the positive image of the country.