Nation Branding in Romania After 1989: A Cultural Semiotic Perspective
Journal Title: Revista Română de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice - Year 2017, Vol 19, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper discusses four nation branding post-communist campaigns initiated by the Romanian Government, from a cultural semiotic perspective, as developed by the Tartu-Moscow-Semiotic School. In so doing, it focuses on analyzing advertising and national identity discourses inside the semiospheres. Moreover, the paper investigates how elements of neoliberal ideology are addressed in the governmental campaigns, considering the “marketization of public discourse” (Fairclough, 1993). Nation branding in post-communist Romania is a distinctive phenomena, compared to other countries, especially from Western Europe. In transition countries, nation branding is often mentioned because of the constant need to reconfigure national identity by dissociating from the communist past (Kaneva, 2012). In Romania, nation branding is also a public issue discussed in the media, connected to the ways in which the international press portrays the country or to the migrants’ actions. In this context, Romania’s nation brand represents a cultural space and the campaigns mobilize cultural symbols as systems of signs necessary for the existence and functioning of advertising discourses. Using a semiotic analysis linked to the field of cultural semiotics (Lotman, 2005/1984), this article analyzes four nation branding campaigns initiated by the Romanian Government (Romania Simply Surprising – 2004, Romania Land of Choice – 2009, Explore the Carpathian Garden – 2010, and Discover the Place Where You Feel Reborn – 2014), considering elements such as semiotic borders, dual coding and symbols. The results show that the campaigns are part of four different semiospheres, integrating discursive practices both from advertising and public diplomacy when communicating the national image to the internal (citizens) or external (international) audiences.
Authors and Affiliations
Bianca Florentina Cheregi
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP180854
- DOI 10.21018/rjcpr.2017.1.229
- Views 109
- Downloads 0
The Social Representation of Feminism within the On-line Movement “Women Against Feminism”
The present paper aims to analyse the social representation of feminism within the “Women Against Feminism” (WAF) on-line movement that is based on a shared blog which gained significant coverage in the U.S. and U.K. med...
Left/Right Polarity in Gestures and Politics The Multimodal Behavior of Political Actors in TV Debates
In this article we investigate how political actors involved in TV debates during the 2009 and 2014 presidential elections in Romania manage the relationship between handedness (left/right polarity in hand gestures) and...
Experience in Design and Learning Approaches – Enhancing the Framework for Experience
In design and learning studies, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to experience. Many design approaches relate experience to embodiment and phenomenology. The growth in the number of applications that use t...
Review of The Age of Sharing by Nicholas A. John, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 2017, 200 pages
In the society we live today the concept of ‘sharing’ is at a common use, in multiple situations. People share houses, food, information, services, smiles, stories, photos, cars, pets, expertise and many other goods, ser...
Semiosis in Communication: Differences and Similarities
In a world of global communication, where everyone’s life depends increasingly on signs, language and communication, understanding how we relate to otherness, to differences in all their forms and aspects becomes more an...