Research that illustrates how different nations and places use branding strategies and image building to project their image to the world.
Related CPD Research Projects
Principal Investigator:
Diana Ingenhoff, CPD Research Fellow 2017-19
Principal Investigator:
Zahid Shahab Ahmed, CPD Research Fellow 2017-19
This research project studied how Twitter is being used in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries as a form of digital diplomacy.
The World Expo embodies nation branding in vivid ways. The fundamental goal of nation branding is to achieve differentiation and resonance in the field of national representations. National pavilions, a centerpiece of the World Expo, are branded spaces designed to craft a positive, distinctive identity about a country. They are hence a platform for nations to engage in public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy and nation branding, both rather new, practice-oriented disciplines, suffer from the lack of theory that is needed to optimize either teaching or researching in either component subject. To address this gap, this project will introduce, for the first time, Fullerton’s “Model of Country Concept.”
The USC Center on Public Diplomacy use the construct of “brand experience” to explore and examine how countries pursue nation branding at Expo Shanghai and how Chinese visitors experience the branded country pavilions.