This abstract discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an expanded critical research agenda on this topic. It begins with an extensive overview of scholarly writing on nation branding, based on 186 sources across disciplines. The discussion organizes the sources in three categories, teasing out key themes within and across them.
By Nadia Kaneva
This abstract discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an
expanded critical research agenda on this topic. It begins with an extensive
overview of scholarly writing on nation branding, based on 186 sources across
disciplines. The discussion organizes the sources in three categories, teasing
out key themes within and across them.
Second, it proposes a reflexive
conceptual map which identifies four types of research orientations across
disciplines. Finally, some directions for future critical research on nation
branding and its implications are outlined. The ultimate goal of this mapping
exercise is to stimulate more work informed by critical theories on the global
phenomenon of nation branding.
In its 2005
“Year in Ideas” issue, The New York Times Magazine listed nation branding among
the year’s most notable ideas. The article featured British brand consultant
Simon Anholt and summed up his position in this way: “Just as companies have
learned to ‘live the brand,’ countries should consider their reputations
carefully—because . . . in the interconnected world, that’s what statecraft is
all about” (Risen, 2005).[1] At first glance, this claim seems hardly
revolutionary. Nation-states have historically used various forms of persuasion
to advance their political, economic, and cultural agendas. Indeed, one could
argue that the American field of mass communication research has its roots in
the study of propaganda and its imputed effects (e.g., Lasswell, 1927, 1936),
as evident in early work on development communication (e.g., Lerner, 1951,
1958), public relations (e.g., Bernays, 1923, 1955), and public opinion (e.g.,
Lippmann, 1922, 1925; Lazarsfeld et al., 1944).
Nation
branding, however, is not a mere synonym for propaganda, nor are its suggested
applications limited to influencing public opinion through advertising or
public relations. Despite nation branding’s growing popularity, there is much
disagreement about its meaning and scope (see, for example, Dinnie, 2008; Fan,
2009). Conceptual debates are discussed in more detail later in the paper, but
at the outset, I offer a working definition of nation branding as a compendium
of discourses and practices aimed at reconstituting nationhood through
marketing and branding paradigms. In terms of practical manifestations, nation
branding includes a wide variety of activities, ranging from “cosmetic”
operations, such as the creation of national logos and slogans, to efforts to
institutionalize branding within state structures by creating governmental and
quasi-governmental bodies that oversee long-term nation branding efforts.[2] The
most ambitious architects of nation branding envision it as “a component of
national policy, never as a ‘campaign’ that is separate from planning,
governance or economic development” (Anholt, 2008, p. 23, emphasis in
original). In addition, nation branding programs can be directed at both
domestic and international audiences, and they are often funded with public
money. In short, nation branding seeks to reconstitute nations both at the
levels of ideology, and of praxis, whereby the meaning and experiential reality
of nationhood itself is transformed in ways that are yet to be fully
understood.
In light of
this, communication scholars should be particularly interested in developing a
critique of nation branding because efforts to rethink nations as brands relate
to theoretical debates central to critical scholarship of culture and
communication. These debates include the problems of cultural imperialism and
commodification (e.g., Mosco, 1996; Schiller, 1976, 1989), the perils of
capitalist (neoliberal) globalization (e.g., Beck, 2000; Sassen, 1998), the
state of public spheres and civil society in a globalizing world (e.g.,
Calabrese, 1999; Habermas, 2001), and the centrality of identities in
contemporary experience (e.g., Castells, 1997; Hall & du Gay, 1996; Laclau,
1994). Critical theorizations of the transformation of space and place in
post-modernity (e.g., Appadurai, 1996; Harvey, 1990, 2001, 2006; Lefebvre 1991)
are also relevant and should be brought to bear in discussing the implications
of nation branding. Finally, a growing body of recent critical work investigates
brands and branding as distinctive phenomena of late capitalism that transcend
the economic realm (e.g., Arvidsson, 2006; Einstein, 2007; Lury, 2004; Moor,
2007), but it mentions nation branding only in passing.
Research on
nation branding has been the focus of a number of literature reviews from
marketing (e.g., Kavaratzis, 2005; Papadopoulos, 2004) or public relations
perspectives (e.g., Wang, 2006b). Some scholars have also conducted partial
cross-disciplinary reviews with the goal of clarifying the relationship between
nation branding and public diplomacy (e.g., Gilboa, 2008; Szondi, 2008). While
these sources offer helpful insights into the growing literature on nation
branding, the intended contributions of this paper are different. First, the
present review offers a synthetic reading across disciplines as a way to
illustrate the relative weight of different disciplinary approaches on nation
branding research as a whole. Second, it teases out themes and assumptions that
cut across disciplines, and it does so from a critical vantage point. Finally,
this review is intended to stimulate interest in nation branding among media
and communication scholars, and it hopes to encourage a new wave of research on
this topic that is informed by critical theories. The paper’s interest in
critical theoretical approaches is, admittedly, in line with the author’s own
critical research agenda. It is also motivated by the fact that critical
scholarship is currently a minority voice in debates about nation branding.
For the
purposes of this review, 186 sources on nation branding were examined. These
sources were all published between 1997 and August 2009, and they range from
scholarly articles to book-length studies. The sample comprises 140 articles
published in academic journals (including theoretical and empirical studies),
17 books or chapters in edited volumes, 8 graduate theses, 15 reports or essays
published by think tanks and private branding agencies, and 6 academic papers
presented at conferences or available on academic websites. Brief opinion
pieces and commentary, even if appearing in academic publications, were
excluded from the count of sources, although they were examined by the author.
Also excluded were publications in trade journals (such as Advertising Age) or
general interest media (such as The Economist), although the topic of nation
branding is often discussed by such sources.[3] Although the sample includes an
extensive collection of sources, it likely does not contain every publication
on the topic, due to the limitations of electronic search methods and the
author’s lack of access to some materials.[4]
The discussion
organizes the sources into three categories which, borrowing from Bell (1976),
are labeled: technical-economic, political, and cultural approaches.[5] Technical-economic approaches include studies from disciplines that concern
themselves with conditions for economic growth, efficiency, and capital
accumulation. These include marketing, management, and tourism studies.
Political approaches include studies primarily interested in the impact of
national images on nation-states’ participation in a global system of
international relations. These studies come from the fields of international
relations, public relations, and international communication. Cultural
approaches include studies from the fields of media and cultural studies, which
tend to focus on the implications of nation branding for national and cultural
identities. A limitation of this categorization derives from the fact that some
sources raise questions pertinent to more than one of the three categories.[6] Overall, most studies demonstrated a clear predisposition toward one conceptual
approach. Nevertheless, the three categories proposed in this review should be
viewed as a heuristic, rather than as a strict classification.
The discussion
that follows unfolds in three steps. First, it offers an extensive overview of
the current terrain of scholarly writing on nation branding and teases out key
themes within and across the three approaches outlined above.[7] Second, it
suggests a reflexive conceptual map which identifies four existing orientations
that relate to the ontological assumptions of research and cut across
disciplines. Finally, the paper outlines the beginnings of an agenda for
further critical cultural scholarship on nation branding. By engaging in this
mapping exercise, the paper’s ultimate purpose is to show that critically
informed research from media and communication scholars can contribute
significantly to the understanding of nation branding and its multiple
implications for nationhood.
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About The Author:
Nadia Kaneva is an Associate Professor in the Department
of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at the University of
Denver. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from the University of Colorado
at Boulder, an MA in Advertising from Syracuse University, and a BA in
Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Bulgaria.
Nadia's research
draws on critical theories of communication and culture and explores the
construction of identities in various contexts. She is particularly interested
in critical perspectives on consumer culture. Much of her research
focuses on the cultural transformations of post-communist countries in Central
and Eastern Europe.
At DU, Nadia
teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in media theory and history, public
relations, and advertising.
Before
becoming a college professor, Nadia has worked in advertising and public
relations in the United States and in her native country, Bulgaria.
Endnotes:
[1] Anholt claims
that he coined the term “nation branding” in 1996 (earthspeak.com, n.d.). He is
undoubtedly the most prolific author on the subject (e.g., Anholt, 1998, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006a, 2007, 2008), and he has played a key role in
establishing nation branding through consulting practice, speaking engagements,
and efforts to institutionalize it as an academic field with scientific
legitimacy. Another “founding father” of nation branding is Wally Olins, also a
British brand consultant, whose work for governments, speaking engagements, and
publications (e.g., Olins, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2005) are commonly referenced.
[2] Examples of
such bodies include the following: UK’s Public Diplomacy Board, established in
2002, and of which Simon Anholt is a member; the International Marketing
Council of South Africa, also established in 2002; and South Korea’s
Presidential Council on Nation Branding, founded in 2009.
While not
included in this review, several online blogs compile information on nation
branding and present commentary by practitioners. See, for example,
http://nation-branding.info and http://www.brandchannel.com.
[3] Studies were
located through searches in academic databases, online searches, and by
following the topic in academic publications, conference presentations, and
media reports. When mining electronic sources, the following search terms were
used: nation(al) brand(ing), country brand(ing), public diplomacy, place
brand(ing), destination brand(ing), and reputation management. Not all of the
identified sources are cited in this article, but all have informed its claims.
The selection of sources was also limited by the fact that only
English-language publications were considered. However, because the biggest
proponents of nation branding are based in the UK and the United States, and as
English is considered the universal business language, this selection is likely
to be fairly comprehensive. Bell (1976) outlines a tri-partite “ideal type”
structural model of the capitalist social order and proposes that capitalism’s
contradictions can be understood by recognizing the “antagonistic principles
that underlie the technical-economic, political, and cultural structures of the
society” (p. xvi). The technical-economic realm is based on principles of
efficiency, specialization, and hierarchy where the ultimate goal is to
maximize profit (pp. xvi-xvii). The political realm is governed by the
principle of equality, where the ultimate goal is to ensure equal
representation and participation (p. xvii). The cultural realm is one of “self-expression
and self-gratification” (p. xvii). Because branding is a uniquely capitalist
tool for producing value through rationalizing meaning, Bell’s conceptual
framework seems particularly fitting.
[4] This is
especially true for studies from the technical-economic and political
approaches. In such cases, studies were categorized based on the reviewer’s
subjective assessment of a study’s main argument and its orientation.
[5] Although some
comments are made on common methodologies within each approach, a systematic
discussion of methods is beyond the scope of the present review.
Copyright ©
2016 (Nadia Kaneva). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution
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