In recent years, short dramas with tight stories, strong conflicts, and short length have become a popular audio-visual style. As a typical media form in the era of streaming media and short videos, micro dramas rely on media platforms for traffic delivery and data analysis, firmly capturing the audience's attention with high-frequency conflicts, suspense, reversals, and so on. While the industry is rapidly expanding, micro dramas are selling well overseas. According to relevant data statistics, the total revenue of overseas short drama platforms has exceeded 230 million US dollars in the first half of 2024, and is expected to reach over 400 million US dollars for the whole year. The overseas dissemination of micro dramas has become a remarkable cross-cultural communication phenomenon. From translation to self production, exploring new paths for Chinese culture to go global has always been an important issue for cultural workers to consider. In recent years, relevant national departments have actively promoted the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture through a series of measures. In this context, the overseas dissemination of various audiovisual products in China has achieved good results and become an important business card for spreading Chinese culture. In the trend of various audiovisual products competing to go global, micro dramas have emerged as a rising force. This is not only because it meets the consumer demand for fast food culture in the fragmented era of reading, telling stories of "pleasure" that are easily accepted by audiences from all over the world, but also related to the continuous expansion and increasing influence of China's online literature and other literary products overseas. Online literature is popular among overseas audiences, especially young people, and has cultivated a considerable potential audience and market soil for micro dramas. It also provides rich content reserves for micro drama creation that can be adapted. In addition, the scale of the micro drama industry has rapidly expanded, gradually forming a unique market operation model of mass production, advertising and drainage, and paid viewing, which has also laid an economic foundation for the overseas expansion of micro dramas. The overseas expansion of Chinese micro dramas began in 2022, and many domestic companies have successively launched micro drama applications overseas. As of June this year, more than 100 micro drama apps have been launched overseas. With the platform going global, Chinese micro drama content has gradually entered the field of view of overseas audiences and become popular. At present, Chinese micro dramas going abroad are mainly divided into two forms: translated and self-made. Translating short dramas refers to the process of translating, dubbing, or subtitling domestic short dramas for dissemination on overseas platforms. The advantage of this approach is that the initial investment cost is relatively low, and only simple language processing is required to upload the work to overseas applications or third-party video platforms. Micro dramas can be broadcasted on various streaming platforms, which can accumulate a certain number of early users and original fans. Most of the micro drama application platforms launched by domestic companies overseas adopt this strategy in the early stages of development, acting as the "movers" of domestic micro dramas. The disadvantage of this model is that the content is not adjusted, and there may be a large communication discount in other countries or regions. Data shows that translated micro dramas have a higher acceptance rate in East Asia, which is closely related to Chinese culture, while their acceptance rate in the European and American markets is relatively limited. After going through the stage of translating and spreading dramas, many overseas micro drama platforms have tried to create their own micro dramas. Homemade micro dramas mainly refer to building content production teams overseas, attracting foreign screenwriters, directors, performers, and other talents to produce works that meet the viewing needs of local audiences. At the same time, it is necessary to transplant the established production, distribution, and profit models of domestic micro dramas overseas and package them locally in terms of theme content. Compared to translation, the themes, content, and visual styles of self-made micro dramas are more closely related to the lives of overseas audiences, making them more likely to resonate emotionally and enhance audience stickiness. But this also means higher capital investment and longer profit cycles, with greater market risk. In response to this situation, self-made micro dramas have introduced a new mode of filming on exotic sets in China, inviting foreign actors to participate. Compared to overseas shooting, this mode has lower costs and more controllable shooting cycles. Chinese micro dramas have achieved remarkable results in going global, but there is still room for improvement and enhancement. From the perspective of content production, due to limited creative funds, both translated and self-produced micro dramas have relatively short production cycles, and the content presentation is not exquisite enough. The artistic level still needs to be improved, and the problems caused by cultural differences should be addressed with great efforts. Due to significant differences in audience preferences among different countries and regions, some translated micro dramas that have become popular in China have encountered situations where they are not adapted to the local conditions in other countries or regions. Some self-made micro dramas also have the problem of simple transplantation. Although these works incorporate familiar life elements for overseas audiences and use actor faces that make them feel familiar, the core still revolves around common domestic micro dramas such as counterattacks, revenge, and sadomasochistic stories. A creative team that is well versed in local cultural history, familiar with the aesthetic tastes of overseas audiences, and works with high artistic quality and ideological connotations are still relatively scarce. In addition to the homogenization of themes and forms, current overseas micro dramas also face the problem of superficiality, mainly reflected in the lack of ideological core in some stories. Cultural dissemination aims to convey meaning and build identity through excellent works, and then subtly influence people. However, at present, the vast majority of overseas micro dramas still focus on creating conflicts, stimulating emotions, and releasing individual desires, lacking deep meaning expression and making it difficult to evoke a sense of identity among overseas audiences. The main reason for these problems is that the cultural identity of micro dramas is unique - it is a product of the era of deep media. German media researcher Andreas Hepp pointed out that society has entered an advanced stage of deep media from media, in which all elements of society are closely related to digital media and its infrastructure. Algorithms, data, and artificial intelligence are crucial for us to understand society. The storytelling of micro dramas born in this media environment is constrained by media technology and digital platforms. For example, most of the current overseas micro dramas are operated through independent apps. The production company places advertisements through overseas social media channels to guide users to download. Although this is different from the domestic micro drama model that relies on video websites, short video platforms, or mini programs for operation, it follows the logic of traffic and uses investment to create popular products and generate revenue. Driven by profit, some practitioners regard micro drama works as "financial products", significantly reducing production costs and allocating more funds for investment. It is difficult to accurately count whether the micro dramas that appear to have impressive data on foreign platforms have truly achieved cultural dissemination and whether they have been truly seen and emotionally resonated by local audiences. The true effectiveness is often overshadowed by surface traffic, which may be a cross-cultural communication challenge in the era of deep media. Interpreting China and Moving the World in Differentiated Production: With the gradual improvement of the industrial chain and the entry of more production and platform companies into the market, we need to continue to make efforts in telling Chinese stories and spreading Chinese culture well. From a content perspective, creators should recognize the differences in market demand across different countries and regions. Looking at the current hot list of micro dramas, audiences from different countries have a special preference for different themes and genres. For example, in the European and American markets, genres rich in supernatural elements and themes related to heroism and personal struggle can provide a thrilling viewing experience, satisfying people's exploration and imagination of the mysterious and unknown world, and making it easier to win the love of local audiences. Viewers in Southeast Asia are more concerned with family emotions, and family ethics themes that depict complex relationships and emotional entanglements among family members can easily touch on their emotional resonance points. The production team should have a deep understanding of the social and cultural characteristics of specific regions, fully consider the cultural characteristics of different countries, especially the particularities of historical traditions, social norms, conceptual systems, ways of thinking, aesthetic habits, etc., and carry out differentiated production. For example, "Tianya Little Nyonya" was filmed in Singapore and starred Singaporean actors. The drama revolves around the process of finding old objects together between Nyonya Tianya and Ahong, a descendant of Singaporean Chinese. It connects the emotional stories of a mother passing on her Nyonya cooking skills to her son and grandchildren helping her grandfather find his former lover. After the drama was launched on overseas video platforms, it triggered emotional resonance among Southeast Asian audiences. While adapting to local conditions and understanding the viewing needs of audiences in different countries, micro dramas going abroad should also take the "greatest common denominator" among the diverse "acceptance preferences" of overseas audiences, consciously writing themes that can reflect the common values of all humanity. For example, the TV series "One Dream Pillow on the Star River" that sparked a craze for binge watching in Singapore, although showcasing China's Su fan skills and ancient city protection, actually explores the common issue of inheritance and development faced by the whole world. The game 'Clear Stream with a Flavor', which has been launched in countries and regions such as Singapore and Malaysia, takes the perspective of love and friendship to explore how to realize the value of life, a life issue that everyone will think about. These works not only vividly interpret the core values of Chinese culture such as patriotism, dedication, integrity, friendliness, and harmony, but also create psychological identification for audiences from other countries, allowing them to feel the confident, independent, open-minded, and inclusive image of China, and to understand and get closer to Chinese civilization from the bottom of their hearts. Of course, cross-cultural communication inevitably encounters cultural barriers. This requires creators to further explore the advantages and potential of micro dramas in emotional mobilization, and enhance the international community's understanding and recognition of Chinese culture through sincere emotional stories. Interpreting China and inspiring the world should be the goal that micro dramas strive to achieve in overseas dissemination. (New Society)