Foreignness as a double-edged sword for internationalizing cultural goods: deep learning–based semiotic analysis of Hollywood movies in China

Qian Cecilia Gu (), Yanqing Wang () and Jiamin Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Qian Cecilia Gu: Georgia State University
Yanqing Wang: Georgia State University
Jiamin Zhang: Peking University

Journal of International Business Studies, 2025, vol. 56, issue 8, No 5, 1029-1049

Abstract: Abstract Globalization of cultural goods has grown substantively over the past decade. Rooted in the home-country social context, cultural goods are inherently “foreign” when traded in a host country. However, how foreignness is manifested in cultural goods, and how the associated liability and asset of foreignness jointly affect their host-country market performance remain unclear. We address these questions by examining 304 Hollywood movies in China from 2011 to 2018, focusing on semiotic foreignness – the differences in movie synopses and posters between Hollywood and Chinese movies. We utilize Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) to analyze synopses and Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) for posters, which allow us to understand how audiences interpret and perceive foreignness in texts and images. The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between poster foreignness and Hollywood movie box office sales in China, indicating that moderate poster foreignness drives optimal sales. In comparison, box office performance is insensitive to synopsis foreignness. Our study provides valuable insights into the divided views of foreignness and its role in host-country performance. It also addresses the criticism of the poorly specified and operationalized foreignness construct and makes a first attempt to bridge the literature of international business and optimal distinctiveness.

Keywords: Foreignness; Cultural industry; Deep learning; BERT; Natural language processing; SSIM; Semiotics; Hollywood movie; China; Optimal distinctiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41267-024-00762-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:56:y:2025:i:8:d:10.1057_s41267-024-00762-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41267-024-00762-y

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().