Being looked but not passively: reflections on the cross-cultural joint-shaping of China’s national image

Based on the study of “Looking China - Youth Film Project”, this article puts forward the concept of “joint-shaping” in cross-cultural national image building. The research methods of participatory observation and in-depth interviews are taken to explore the connotation, characteristics, and practice modes of “joint-shaping”. The paper holds that “joint-shaping” is a process in which participants from different cultural backgrounds work together in the same field to shape a country's image on the basis of intercultural exchange and jointly influence the outcome of the country’s image building. To a certain extent, joint-shaping helps to strike a balance between “what China wants to tell” and “what the world wants to hear”.