The Great Cultural Power Competition: Tensions and Gaps in the EU’s Global Audiovisual Actorness

Culture is an important tool to strengthen global influence – as is demonstrated by evidence focused on China (Vlassis, 2016), the United States/Hollywood (Nelson, 2021) South Korea (Shik Kim, 2016) or Japan (Lovric, 2018) and accumulated scholarship about soft power and nation branding (Pamment, 2014). Similarly, the European Union includes culture as an official dimension of its foreign action. This work is framed by the Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council: Towards an EU Strategy for International Cultural Relations (ICR; European Commission, 2016). Reflecting the multilevel and participatory governance that underlies ICR, combined with its normative basis, research confirms the gradual emergence of the EU as a global enabler in global cultural governance (Dâmaso, 2025). Although scholarship has discussed the multiple paradigms that guide the work of the EEAS (world order and multilateralism, security, neighbours, and climate change; Jørgensen et al, 2022), to which the recent shift to strategic autonomy (Beaucillon, 2023) and defence adds further complexity (Beaucillon, 2023), the extent to which these tensions are reflected in the EU’s global cultural action hasn’t yet been analysed. In fact, the EU’s global cultural action remains a profoundly underexamined policy arena. Considering the return of great power competition and the importance of cultural elements therein – evidenced by references to European culture in the most recent American National Security Strategy (White House, 2025) – a more thorough understanding of this dimension of the EU’s global action is needed. This paper contributes to addressing this knowledge gap. Moreover, in light of the ability of audiovisual works to circulate internationally and to have an impact at scale (Vlassis 2022), a tailored analysis focused on the EU’s global audiovisual policies and practices is justified. The paper begins by summarising recent debates and trends regarding the ways culture and the audiovisual sector are embedded in today’s foreign policies of the US and China. Then, it presents the legal basis and the institutional logic surrounding the EU’s global cultural/audiovisual action. Subsequently, based on a combination of policy mapping, literature review, and interviews with policymakers and professionals in the audiovisual sector, the paper maps the main narratives surrounding the EU’s policies and initiatives to support the European audiovisual sector internationally. These findings are triangulated against Jørgensen et al’s (2022) typology of EEAS paradigms. The analysis uncovers strategic tensions and gaps – for example, between the EEAS’s renewed discursive focus on EU–Africa relations and the de facto virtual absence of audiovisual policy initiatives that would reflect such a concern, or the operational tension between the sustainability transition and growth imperatives. The analysis suggests that the EU’s global audiovisual actorness is characterised by tensions and gaps that limit its chances in the great cultural power competition. Altogether, using the audiovisual sector as a case study, the paper advances discussions of what kind of global actor the EU is – whether normative, market, and/or geopolitical. This analysis is based on preliminary findings from ANIMA MUNDI and StreamSCAPES, two Horizon projects.