What Is Soft Power and How Does It Affect the Development of the Economy and a Country’s Image?

What are the most popular languages to learn in the world right now? In one of the most popular language-learning apps, English speakers most often study Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Korean [1]. Isn’t it surprising that two very local languages are in the top 5, and why is that so important?

To answer this question, we need to think about what factors influence a country’s economic development. The first things that come to mind are industry, technology and education. But the result of all this is a product (goods and services), by selling which a country earns money. Yet in the conditions of the world market this product is very rarely unique, and it has competitors. So what must be done for people to buy our product? There are many factors, but the decisive ones are quality, price and image. And the last of these is more important than it seems at first glance.

South Korea, one of the poorest countries in the world 70 years ago with a GDP of $150 per capita, became the tenth-largest economy in the world in 2022 with a GDP of $35,000 per capita [2]. Millions of people around the world learn the Korean language and culture and prefer Korean-made products over others. Just 20 years ago few people could point to the Republic of Korea on a map, but now it is hard to find a person who does not know what Korea is. And for most people, mentioning Korea brings to mind not Samsung, Hyundai or LG, which are Korea’s largest companies and exporters, but K-POP, BTS or dramas. Millions of people learn the Korean language and culture and buy goods only because they are Made in Korea.

K-POP is a music industry made up mostly of single-sex groups of young boys or girls who sing and dance. A distinctive feature of K-POP is close interaction with fans and the maintenance of the singers’ proper image. The best-known phenomenon of K-POP is the group BTS, which over 10 years of activity has become the most famous boy band in the industry. The group’s Instagram page has 74 million followers, and total physical album sales exceed 40 million [3]. It is K-POP and dramas that have become the main reasons for the popularity of the Korean language, culture and Korean goods in the world. The revenue of just one company in the music industry, Hybe, was about $1.4 billion, which is 0.08% of Korea’s GDP, or about 1% of Ukraine’s GDP for 2022 [4, 5, 6]. A large number of people go to Korea to travel and study; from 2020 to 2023 alone the number of international students almost doubled [7].

All the data given above show that the popularisation of culture has a great influence on a country’s economy and its overall image. This phenomenon of improving international image is called soft power.

Using Korea as an example, we can understand why it is so important to develop one’s own contemporary culture and the music and film industries. I hope that the development of contemporary Ukrainian culture will improve Ukraine’s image in the world and have a positive effect on our country’s economy.

Sources:

1. Duolingo Language List. Retrieved from https://duoplanet.com/duolingo-languages-list/
2. World Bank. GDP per capita, current prices (CD). Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=KR
3. Korean Sales. BTS: The Unstoppable K-Pop Juggernaut. Retrieved from https://koreansalestwt.blogspot.com/2020/09/bts.html
4. Companies Market Cap. HYBE Revenue. Retrieved from https://companiesmarketcap.com/hybe/revenue/
5. Statista. South Korea: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 1960 to 2022. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/263579/gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-south-korea/
6. Macrotrends. Ukraine GDP per capita. Retrieved from https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/ukraine/gdp-gross-domestic-product
7. JoongAng Ilbo. “BTS’s Economic Effect is Estimated to be Over 3.9 Trillion Won per Year”. Retrieved from https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25160711#home