This thesis, as part of the one-year Master Programme in Social Science with specialization in Digital media, has taken up the concepts of nation branding and new public diplomacy and examined them from the perspective of the role that new, digital or even innovative – as some may call them – media play within them. It consists of five (5) chapters and is a little less than sixty (60) pages long. The concepts and fields above  are usually confused with each other, as people tend to use the one notion for naming the other and vice versa. However, what is common in those two fields is the involvement of new media, such as social media platforms or platforms that enable crowdsourcing activities. Especially, within the past few decades that the internet has invaded the most into the lifestyle of a large segment of this planet, it seems as things, thoughts, ideas and actions are driven by or with the internet. Thus, with the opportunity of this thesis, I wanted to examine the role that new media play when it comes to talking about nation branding or new public diplomacy acts. This work has attempted to achieve that by focusing on a recently run initiative in Greece, called “Up Greek Tourism”. The initiative’s goal was to promote Greek tourism abroad, in an attempt to help Greece from within. A group of Greek people formulated the group and intended to gather the money through a crowdsourcing platform, in order to advertise Greek tourism abroad. What I actually tried to do is investigate the way they handled their channels of communication and the reason they chose internet as being central to their communicational policy. My idea was to do that by discursively analyzing a TEDx talk of the initiator, conducting a semiotic analysis on the images they used in their advertisements and by a short content analysis from the early stages of their Facebook page, through which it became known. Last but not least, I tried to verify the results by using their own answers from an open-end questionnaire they answered for me.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this paper is to describe how a number of strategically selected employees at the Swedish Institute, with the purpose to promote Sweden in the world, look at the challenges facing Sweden concerning nation branding in the new era of cooperation within the European Union. I examine how these people look upon the work of public diplomacy and nation branding in order to actively participate and influence the EU's common communications platform. Material/Method: The method used in this thesis is qualitative interviews. The reason why I chose this method is because I consider it to be the most appropriate in order to collect information about how these selected employees at the Swedish institute regard the challenges that lay ahead in terms of nation branding within the European Union. Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained by dint of the analysis, it can be concluded that it is of utmost importance to take the societal changes, which are a result both of the worldwide globalization and the EU cooperation, into consideration when designing a future communication strategy for the Swedish Institute. The nation-state continues to play an important role in Sweden, but its importance is declining as the EU cooperation is progressing. The citizens’ identity plays a crucial role in designing a nation’s communications strategy, and from the analysis I conclude that we move not from a Swedish to a European identity, but towards a pluralistic union where multiple identities meet under one umbrella; the EU. / <p>Författaren heter numera Michelle Bornestad. 131003</p>

The general purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate the implications in regard to power, structure and control connected to the project Curators of Sweden. The study looks at nation branding through the use of social media. The idea with the project Curators of Sweden is to invite citizens to participate at the official Twitter platform to project a multi-faceted image of Sweden. Through granting citizens access to an official channel some power and control is relinquished.The empirical data is collected through ten semi-structured interviews with curators and stakeholders. In addition a netnography is conducted based on historic secondary data in the form of tweets from the @sweden Twitter account. The data is analyzed through qualitative content analysis with coding inspired by grounded theory. The thematic codes from the analysis of the Stakeholders and Curators are then compared in regard to concepts that could be related.The themes that emerge from the analysis of data generated from the interviews of stakeholders and curators include: invisible hand, asymmetry in relations, national identity, tied hands and crisis as defining moment, self-censorship, bias, empowerment, social control and self-establishing format.The findings suggest that in the context of building national identity through social media incidents prove both challenging and rewarding. The incidents test the project, attract a lot of attention and confirm the Swedish core values of progressivity. When inviting citizens to participate in creating the content a blurring of accountability is evident since ownership over channel and content is separated. The account becomes self-establishing when locus of control is unclear and no one has full ownership.

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This thesis is divided into theoretical and application part. The theoretical part includes an introduction to subject of country of origin and terminology. The application part implements the discovered findings in the context of the Czech Republic and chosen segment. The essential objective of this thesis is introducing the concept of Country of Origin as one of the key elements defining consumer behaviour. Another goal is to find an attractive segment for successful branding of the Czech Republic, while drawing benefits from the use of the country of origin by companies. This thesis also analyses the impact of country of origin on the marketing strategies of selected companies and the image of the Czech Republic as country of origin of products in chosen segment. The output of this theses are adjustments recommendations of communication of the Czech Republic, as the country of origin of the goods of the chosen segment.

The diploma thesis is focused on defining the place of cultural diplomacy and concepts of soft power and nation branding in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation, as since the end of the Cold War importance of culture and cultural diplomacy in international relations has started to grow. It analyses the question whether cultural diplomacy as part of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation contributes to increase attractiveness and positive image abroad. To determine positives, negatives and exploit the potential, SWOT analysis was applied. In the case study the position of Slovakia in the cultural diplomacy of the Russian Federation with regard to problem areas of cooperation is defined. It also includes analysis of the activity, its results and major projects of the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Bratislava.

The diploma thesis focuses on the concept of nation branding in foreign policy in general but especially in the context of two Central European countries - the Czech and Slovak Republic. It addresses the question of whether this relatively young discipline is a part of their foreign policy efforts and whether their approach to this tool vary. The comparison is performed through a view on the previous steps and development of the agenda, on the institutional framework and analyses of their nation brands. Nation brand analyses are performed by applying the theoretical apparatus of the concept of image and identity. The image analyses cover assessing the NBI and the CBI indexes, complemented by foreign media analyses and SWOT analyses. The analyses of brand identities are performed through a view on the identity components on the visual level and on the level of substance.

The Republic of Moldova is a relatively new state in Eastern Europe, formed as an independent country in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. While nation branding efforts in Moldova are still in their infancy, the country’s tensioned historical legacy, divided identity and current discursive struggles make it a valuable, albeit highly unexplored subject for nation branding research. This study draws of a transdisciplinary integrative approach to analyze the ways in which a governmental institution, Invest Moldova Agency, constructs and communicates the nation brand. The aim, as highlighted in the research question, was to identify the discourses employed by the government in the process of nation branding and their relationship to national identity, society, and social practice. Theoretically, the study is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and Keith Dinnie’s Category flow model of nation branding. Methodologically, I use Fairclough’s three-tier CDA model, additionally employing Multimodal CDA to extend my analysis to include visual alongside textual content. The qualitative study uses Facebook posts, official documents, and an in-depth interview as data. The findings show that discursive strategies on nation branding either focus on national identity or on the practice itself, and they are consistently shaping and being shaped by social practices. Moreover, five discourse categories were identified: critical, accountability, transformative, assessment, and cultural discourses, each of them responsible for creating a specific reality.

Reports of smear campaigns and manipulated narratives about Sweden unfolding online, following a few derogatory comments by US President Donald Trump (2017-21), provided this thesis with three research aims. (1) To investigate the framing of Sweden in some of the most influential US newspapers, (2) to examine the agenda-setting role and influence of the president through US foreign policy, (3) to construct a comprehensive US media image of Sweden. To be up-to-date and for comparative purposes, the period 2013-2022 was selected to accommodate the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. The chosen theories make sure a common thread is running through all parts of the thesis, and enhance our understanding of the environment in which this thesis takes place. Rooted in a positivist epistemology, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to systematically go through vast amounts of data. Although considering other external factors and explanations for the empirical data, this thesis successfully isolates US foreign policy as an independent variable. It finds that the interest in Sweden and tone more generally declined from Obama to Trump and then back to be more positive again during Biden. It seems that the way Sweden is framed – and that certain topics get politically activated – is indeed linked to how the US interacts with foreign nations. The thesis adds to a rather limited research field, and provides a platform for future studies. It, also, increases our knowledge of the role of US foreign policy in framing nations with which the US, for the most part, has a positive relationship. This study is relevant and of interest to people, not least scholars, that desire to learn more about determinants in US media, foreign policy, and international relations.

The Korean Wave has taken the world by storm and Korean beauty (K-beauty) has in extension to this become a global phenomena. K-beauty has reached this popularity with the help of authentic and natural ingredients and a combination between tradition and modernity creating a competitive advantage on the market. Despite this popularity a lack of research has been identified on how the “​Made in Korea”​ label affects consumer’s perception of Korean products and in specific K-beauty products. The current study addressed this opportunity in examining how consumers perceive K-beauty products in addition to country-of-origin affects their purchase intention. To examine this a qualitative approach was taken consisting of 11 email interviews with millennial women residing in Sweden. The empirical data derived from the interviews was divided into four themes (1) Made in Korea, (2) Image, (3) Quality and (4) Effect. The findings were then analyzed in regards to the country-of-origin effect (COE) and previous research on the topic. The results identify two main attributes as driving factors in consumer perception of K-beauty products on the Swedish market. These two attributes are image and quality. Korea was in this study found to carry a strong cognitive country image (CCI) and is as a result perceived to be on the forefront of the beauty industry creating an attraction towards Korean products. Although K-beauty is found to be driven by the CCI a connection to the Korean Wave and an affective country image (ACI) is found creating a separation in the country image. This was further found to suggest that the Korean Wave facilitates the spread of Korean culture through all Korean products. Future research directions are additionally discussed.