"Good movie cannot be successfully done in present day Nigeria without informed and selfless co-operation between the corporate world, which constantly stands in need of the best and cost friendly ways to mobilise its top marketing millions, and the idea driven, highly credible world of entertainment.

Soft power and diplomacy, particularly in entertainment, is something that America excels at. One of America’s greatest talents is the ability create something universal, but that can also be adapted and accommodate different interests and cultures.9

Beijing isn't satisfied simply with controlling domestic TV news and the Internet. It wants to control the Chinese cultural diet. And the appetite goes outside China's borders, as well. Beijing wants more "soft power."

Senior party members agreed at their annual meeting in October to boost the nation's cultural soft power, a move analysts said was partly to ensure the media galvanised patriotic sentiment ahead of a leadership transition in 2012.

Called Viki, the Singapore-based web startup pools the linguistic talents of thousands of its users to help push world television content into markets historically impenetrable to all but a handful of foreign-language productions. The service relies on an active community of translators proficient in 158 languages to caption the footage.

"Cool Japan" hasn't succeeded in spreading Japanese pop music very far. AKB48 seems poised to change that. AKB48 isn't blazing a new path forward for Japanese culture; it's an extension of what has been selling but applied to music.

Seoul is exploring whether the Korean Wave culture that has captured the hearts and minds of the young generation across the globe, Asia in particular, could be the newest powerful diplomatic tool in community building within East Asia.

Hallyu or the Korean Wave, which refers to the fast-growing popularity of Korean entertainment and culture through TV dramas, movies, pop music and food around the world, particularly in Japan, China and Southeast Asia, could be a valuable soft-power asset to improve better understanding of Korea and its national brand value.