Online and social media in times of migration and refugee movement: Nation branding strategies of Belgium and Sweden

As online media have become a highly important channel of promotion and reaching foreign audience, contemporary research in nation branding focuses on e-brand and digital country image. The current research lacks, however, the study on the impact of the latest large migration movement, which reached its pick in 2015, on European nation branding strategies. The aim of the research is to analyse online nation branding strategies of five European countries, namely Belgium (including Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia), France, Germany, Great Britain and Sweden in the 2010s. The objective is to investigate which frames (both cultural and individual) are produced in the materials published on countries’ social media. The special focus is put on frames connected with migration and refugee movement since 2014, as it has played an important role in shaping people’s perception of a country and heavily influenced EU political and media agenda. The research aims also to develop a scale to measure nation branding perception among the public. The objective is to investigate whether all six aspects in Anholt’s Nation Brand Hexagon (tourism, exports, governance, investment and immigration, culture and heritage, society) are really perceived by the public or whether a nation brand can be built on potentially different theoretical models than a hexagon. The third objective is to analyse the impact of online media on shaping perception of public opinion within nation branding strategy.