Journal of Public Diplomacy

The Korean Association for Public Diplomacy (한국공공외교학회)
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Nation branding and international media coverage of domestic conflict: An agenda-setting study

  • Jami Fullerton (School of Global Studies, Oklahoma State University) ;
  • John P. Schoeneman Jr (School of Global Studies, Oklahoma State University) ;
  • Alice Kendrick (Temerlin Advertising Institute, Southern Methodist University)
  • Received : 2023.04.01
  • Accepted : 2023.08.21
  • Published : 2023.12.31
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Abstract

Agenda-setting theory of the media describes the relationships between how news media present issues and how important those issues are to news consumers. Applying agenda setting theory, we ask, does media coverage of international political events relate to a nation's brand? We leverage a domestic conflict index variable from the Cross National Time-Series (CNTS) dataset of New York Times articles, which are considered influencers of global news content. Our dependent variable is Anholt's NBI index from consumer surveys from 2005 through 2007, whose data include an aggregate nation brand index score as well as a disaggregated score for different categories such as tourism and exports. To investigate these relationships, we employ general additive models (GAM), which account for non-linearity using cubic splines, finding generally a negative relationship between media coverage of conflict and consumer sentiment of a country. To confirm our findings, we compare the results with both the Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) dataset of political events and the Upsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) measure of reported conflict fatalities in a country.

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