Abstract:

[Purpose/Significance] New rural public cultural spaces represents an innovative approach to advancing rural revitalization and the high-quality development of public cultural services in the new era. They also serve as a key vehicle for promoting the integrated development of urban and rural public cultural services. This study aims to systematically analyze the development models and operational logic of new rural public cultural spaces and to explore pathways for their high-quality advancement. [Method/Process] Based on field investigations and interviews conducted between September 2024 and March 2025 at more than 40 new rural public cultural spaces in Beijing, Shandong, Zhejiang and other regions, this study employs case induction and comparative analysis to systematically examine their major types, construction and operational models, and development pathways, and to distill their common operational mechanisms. [Results/Conclusions] The findings indicate that new rural public cultural spaces encompass diverse types, including public reading spaces, art promotion spaces, local cultural exhibition spaces, culture-tourism integration spaces and digital cultural experience spaces. In terms of construction and operational models, three main governance structures have emerged: government-led construction with diversified operation, society-led construction and operation, and multi-stakeholder collaborative co-construction and co-management. These models exhibit significant differences in the allocation of responsibilities and rights, resource distribution and operational approaches. Regarding development pathways, due to variations in resource endowments, development motivations and target service groups, new rural public cultural spaces demonstrate diversified development patterns, including local culture-based, industry-driven, scenic-area-embedded, eco-integrated and community-oriented models. Despite differences in construction models and development pathways, new rural public cultural spaces have gradually formed several common operational mechanisms in practice, mainly including embedded operation, localized integration, activity-driven development, multi-stakeholder collaboration, emotional narrative construction and light-asset operation. The pathways for promoting the high-quality development of new rural public cultural spaces during the 15th Five-Year Plan period mainly include the following: 1) Optimizing spatial layout. This involves strengthening the integration and functional coupling of existing public cultural facilities, promoting the cultural regeneration of idle rural buildings, and building a symbiotic matrix linking cultural spaces with cultural and tourism industry nodes, thereby embedding new rural public cultural spaces more effectively into the overall rural development system. 2) Enhancing content provision. By deeply exploring local cultural resources, distinctive cultural brands with strong local identity can be developed. At the same time, professional teams should be introduced to design themed cultural activities, forming a content ecosystem that integrates local cultural resources with modern creativity. 3) Promoting differentiated development. Functional configurations should be determined according to local cultural resource endowments and actual service needs, encouraging new rural public cultural spaces to develop differentiated positioning and complementary functions. 4) Advancing socialized operation. By further developing the "space curator" mechanism for rural cultural spaces and establishing an institutional support system aligned with socialized operation, the vitality of social participation can be effectively stimulated.

Key words: new rural public cultural space, rural revitalization, public cultural service