Browsing by Author "Bogdanov, Evgeny"

What main identities does Russia focus on in order to build a more positive national brand in the eyes of the international audience while getting ready to host 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi? This thesis focuses on this sporting event as a unique opportunity for Russia to boost its image internationally from a problematic to a more positive one (Ostapenko, 2010). An empirical study examines the representation of the country in press-releases and news materials published within the News section of the main website of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games from 2007 to 2014. The study builds its conclusions on the basis of 742 news items realized within seven years. The theoretical framework of the study is based on national branding theory and international events as its part. It aims to delineate some lineaments of the Russian national brand. The current study utilizes qualitative research (QR) methods, presenting regularities largely through their interpretation. Findings of the current work show that the approach to the Olympics has been deliberated in detail. The first glaring feature is that the main technique of building the Russian national brand is its culture, one of the things that is undoubtedly positively-received by people around the world, according to the National Brand Index (NBI, 2008-2012; Bertelsen, 2008). Conversely, it is worth noting that the part that usually causes critical or negative associations with Russia, politics, has been erased from the News section. If some high-ranking officials appeared in the limelight, most of them were linked with the national Olympic Committee. Even Vladimir Putin, the incumbent President of Russia, has appeared there 8 times in the headlines, while the previous Russian president and incumbent prime-minister Dmitri Medvedev has appeared only 9 times in the headlines. Problematic ecological and civil society-related topics, which are frequently the butt of criticism, have been covered painstakingly. The motives behind that, however, might be an intention to muffle criticism. Moreover, Russia has made an attempt in the Olympics to show people with different backgrounds (sport, cultural, show-business), with whom Russia may be associated. This goal was achieved through the ‘Olympic ambassador’-position and within the Cultural Olympiad’s events. The second hallmark of the Sochi 2014 Olympics was an inclination to demonstrate a ‘different’ Russia, varying from its stereotypical image (Dinnie, 2007). This arises even from the place hosting the Olympics, because the city of Sochi, bordering the Caucasian regions of the country, is less-known than its European part. In this respect, the news about the Olympics was mostly concentrated on the undiscovered (for foreigners) parts of the Russian Federation. Thus, some Olympic-related events, such as the torch relay, spanned the whole country, and numerous cultural events spotlighted the separate identities of the Russian indigenous groups. In addition, the Russian Olympic committee tried to highlight the positive changes taking place in Russia, ranging from the legislative amendments to the technological innovations using the Winter Olympics as a framework for these changes. The word 'innovation' was among the catchwords of the news about the Olympics preparations in Sochi. This could be explained by the fact that the positive news about Russia is usually ignored by the media in other countries (Dinnie, 2007). The link with the solid Olympic brand was supposed to evoke positive feelings in people’s minds and make the foreign audience aware of positive changes in Russia (Giffard and Rivenbuvgh, 2000, p. 15; Dinnie, 2007).