Josipa Mijoč

Ivana Jobst

After three successful research studies and three scientific books, the EU-China International Literary Festival international project team focused on testing and applying the international festival research methodology. Based on previous research studies, reports and scientific books, the authors had sufficient knowledge of the methodological guidelines for conducting demanding multilingual and cross-cultural research. The research and methodological definition of the scientific book is the EU-China literary festival conceived as the interaction of European and Chinese authors with Chinese audiences and the promotion of European culture in Chinese cities. This book focuses on the analysis of the 4th EU-China International Literary Festival organised by the Delegation of the European Union to China. The goal of the Festival is to bring distant cultures closer by virtue of literature as a medium, and the Festival has been held twice a year in China since 2017. The audience could attend Festival events either at the venue (n = 6,914) or online (n = 377,098). The number of online attendees far exceeded the number of visitors who attended live events, which strongly popularised EU-China cooperation, cross-cultural differences, new media monitoring literary events, literature itself and the authors. The research methodology was used to measure the views of three groups of stakeholders in the EU-China International Literary Festival (n = 70), i.e. 1. Festival visitors, 2. European authors (international participants), and 3. Chinese authors (national participants). By analysing the views of the three groups of respondents, the book analyses the measure of both the success of the EU-China International Literary Festival and the level of satisfaction with the Festival. Comparison and identification of similarities and differences among the three groups of respondents is one of the research goals. Based on a large number of media releases and live streamings, the Festival can be seen as a highly successful promotional product where the culture of the European Union was presented to the Chinese visitors. In addition to the research methodology, the scientific book also provides the design of research procedures applied in multilingual research by international research teams. An enviable longitudinal series of data collected from the three groups of stakeholders was created by the fourth measurement of Festival success. The tested international festival research methodology can be used by future researchers of festival phenomena for developing an instrument for gathering the views of festival participants (authors, visitors and organisers) of literary and all other related festivals. The efforts of this research study are ultimately aimed at a systematic increase in the quality of festivals, ensuring continued funding, and laying the groundwork for related festivals funded by the EU Delegation to China.

Ivana Jobst

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