关键词: 数字技术, 公共文化服务, 高质量发展, 影响效应, 作用机制

Abstract:

[Purpose/Significance] The accelerated digital transformation of public cultural services has fundamentally reshaped modes of service delivery, governance frameworks, and citizen engagement. Exploring how digital technologies empower the high-quality development of public cultural services is essential for designing a modern, equitable, and efficient service system. This study contributes to the existing literature by systematically investigating not only the direct effects of digital technologies but also threshold, regional heterogeneity, spatial spillovers, and mediating mechanisms. This clarifies how digital innovation interacts with governance capacity and institutional environments. Unlike previous research, which relied mainly on descriptive or single-method analyses, this study employs an integrated empirical framework. This framework captures the dynamic and multidimensional nature of digital empowerment within the context of public service. It enriches the theoretical and practical understanding of digital governance. [Method/Process] This study employs panel data from 31 Chinese provinces over the period 2015-2023 to systematically investigate how digital technologies influence the high-quality development of public cultural services. A combination of fixed-effects models, mediating-effects models, threshold regression models, and spatial econometric models was used to capture direct, nonlinear, regional, spatial, and mediating effects. To control for potential confounding factors, fiscal expenditure, population density, and cultural literacy were incorporated as covariates. The analysis drew on theoretical foundations conceptualizing digital technology as a new productive force and was supported by empirical data from national statistical yearbooks, digital finance indices, and governance performance indicators, ensuring both methodological rigor and contextual relevance. [Results/Conclusions] Digital technology significantly promotes the high-quality development of public cultural services, with measurable positive effects for each incremental increase in the digital technology development index. The influence exhibits a nonlinear threshold pattern, reflecting a "promotion-weakening-enhancement" trajectory, highlighting the necessity of integrating technological applications with governance structures, resource allocation, service design, and public digital literacy. Regional analyses reveal stronger effects in the central and western provinces, suggesting that digital technologies can help mitigate service disparities under supportive policy frameworks. The spatial econometric results indicate positive spillover effects on neighboring regions, while the mediation analysis identifies government governance capacity as a key mechanism through which technological inputs translate into service outcomes. Policy implications include reinforcing digital infrastructure, enhancing institutional support, implementing region-specific strategies, fostering inter-provincial coordination, and strengthening government-led service integration. The study has limitations, including the possibility of potential unobserved concurrent causal pathways, Future research should adopt configurational methods such as qualitative comparative analysis in future research to further elucidate the complex, multicausal dynamics of digital technology empowerment in public cultural services.

Key words: digital technology, public cultural services, high-quality development, impact effects, influencing mechanism