The soft power of commercialised nationalist symbols: Using media analysis to understand nation branding campaigns

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, nation branding has attracted a lot of attention from academics, professional consultants and government actors. The ideas and practices of nation branding are frequently presented by branding advocates as necessary and even inevitable in the light of changing dynamics of political power and influence in a globalised and media-saturated world. In this context, some have argued that nation branding is a way to reduce international conflict and supplant ethno-nationalism with a new form of market-based, national image management. However, a growing body of critical studies has documented that branding campaigns tend to produce ahistorical and exclusionary representations of the nation and advance a form of ‘commercial nationalism’ that is problematic. Importantly, the critical scholarship on nation branding has relied primarily on sociological and anthropological theories of nationhood, identities and markets. By contrast, the role of the media – as institutions, systems and societal storytellers – has been undertheorised in relation to nation branding. The majority of the existing literature tends to treat the media as ‘neutral’ vehicles for the delivery of branding messages to various audiences. This is the guest editors’ introduction to the Special Issue ‘Theorizing Media in Nation Branding’, which seeks to problematise this overly simplistic view of ‘the media’ and aims to articulate the various ways in which specific media are an integral part of nation branding. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach and problematises both the enabling and the inhibiting potentialities of different types of media as they perpetuate nation branding ideas, images, ideologies, discourses and practices.

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“…There has been little engagement with how the audiences – often theorised as the ‘targets’ of soft power initiatives – actually interpret and feel about them, as audiences and users are either seen as passive targets or homogeneous masses who receive state messages uncritically (Gillespie and Nieto McAvoy, 2016: 204–206). Media are viewed as either ‘neutral platforms’ (Bolin and Miazhevich, 2018: 8), or empty vessels for the communication of state messages as studies often do not take into account ‘the agency of the media as organisations’ (Bolin and Miazhevich, 2018: 12) or of audiences themselves.…”

The ideological work of the daily visual representations of nations

“…These forms of branding often lack elaborate representations. Like nation‐branding practices, this simplicity fits their main purpose, which is to sell commodities rather than form communities (Bolin and Miazhevich ). Consequently, the nation appears as a simple, self‐explanatory and clear‐cut sign (see Figure ).…”

Nation Branding Strategy for Zimbabwe: Towards an Integrated Nation Branding Framework

“…Nation branding is attracting a lot of interest from academics, professional consultants, governments and non-state actors. The notion of nation branding is presented by branding experts as a strategic imperative useful to deal with the dynamics of geo-politics, international economics and the influence of international media (Bolin & Miazhevich, 2018).…”

“…People get information about events from the media. According to Bolin and Miazhevich (2018) the stories from the media, especially the "frontpage" reports and the news headlines influence the behaviour of people. A simple issue can be reported on the front page and in news" headlines and this would make it a big issue.…”