Interpretive incompleteness in global cultural flows: Ne Zha 2 and Labubu between visibility and decentralization

Abstract

This study examines the structural asymmetry between cultural visibility and interpretive power. Through a critical discourse analysis of 349 media articles focusing on two Chinese cultural icons—Ne Zha 2 and Labubu—the study identifies a layered discursive defense system with selective visibility as its filtering precondition, followed by three core strategies: economic narrative strategies that erase cultural subjecthood, political narrative strategies that construct symbolic boundaries, and security narrative strategies that recode popularity as social risk. These layers operate as a structured mechanism of selection, evaluation, and management, collectively ensuring that Chinese icons remain subordinate to Western epistemic frameworks despite their market visibility. The study introduces the concept of interpretive incompleteness as a structural condition of global cultural flows, emphasizing that incomplete understanding persists as an inherent feature of cultural exchange, where cultural plurality is preserved through persistent negotiation and co-presence amid asymmetry.