GNC :: Gross National Cool (2002)
2009/4/14The term “gross national cool” was coined by Journalist Douglas McGray.
In a June/July 2002 article in Foreign Policy magazine, he argued that as Japan’s economic juggernaut took a wrong turn into a ten-year slump, and with military power made impossible by a pacifist constitution, the nation had quietly emerged as a cultural powerhouse: “From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence now than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower.”
The notion of Asian ‘cool’ applied to Asian consumer electronics is borrowed from the cultural media theorist Eric McLuhan who described ‘cool’ or ‘cold’ media as stimulating participants to complete auditive or visual media content, in sharp contrast to ‘hot’ media that degrades the viewer to a merely passive or non-interactive receiver.
(wikipedia “Cool” East Asia)
- Foreign Policy
- Japan’s Gross National Cool (PDF)
- GNC by JETRO
NHK東京カワイイTVが激しく国際展開しているように、どうやら“外から見た日本”がStylishでCoolである、という潮流は本流のようです。中から見ると相変わらず分からないんだけど
いつこの流れが始まったのか？という問いに対してWikipedia教授が答えているように、Douglas McGrayの「GNC」指数で２００２年に日本が１位になったことが契機みたいです
“Japan as No 1“が発売されてからはや３０年。No1になった対象は少々違うけれども、今後の日本が注力すべきポイントが明確になってきたんじゃないかな
