Nadia Kaneva | University of Denver (original) (raw)
Books & Special Issues by Nadia Kaneva
Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this collection of essays examines the ways ... more Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this collection of essays examines the ways in which popular media re-construct ideas and ideals of femininity in the post-socialist cultural space. The book highlights the need to reconsider feminism as a political and theoretical project with many faces. It bridges research on the mediation of post-socialist femininities with broader concerns about the transnational trajectories of feminism today.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies (2015, v. 15, issue 1).
Nation branding -- a set of ideas rooted in Western marketing --gained popularity in the post-com... more Nation branding -- a set of ideas rooted in Western marketing --gained popularity in the post-communist world by promising a quick fix for the identity malaise of "transitional" societies. Since 1989, almost every country in Central and Eastern Europe has engaged in nation branding initiatives of varying scope and sophistication. For the first time, this volume collects in one place studies that examine the practices and discourses of the nation branding undertaken in these countries. In addition to documenting various re-branding initiatives, these studies raise important questions about their political and cultural implications.
The turn of the twenty-first century has seen an ever-increasing profile for religion, contrary t... more The turn of the twenty-first century has seen an ever-increasing profile for religion, contrary to long-standing predictions of its decline. Instead, the West has experienced what some call a ‘realignment’ of religion where it persists in conjunction with other institutions and structures. Outside the West, religion is an ever more prominent force in social and political movements of both reform and retrenchment. Across these contexts, no issue in religion is of as much concern as fundamentalism – or rather the fundamentalisms within various traditions – which are seen to be fomenting religious, social, ethnic, and political tension and conflict.
The contributions to this volume represent the first effort to look at ‘fundamentalisms’ and ‘the media’ together and address the resulting relations and interactions from critical perspectives of history, technology, geography, and practice. The result lays important groundwork for scholarship on these new and increasingly important phenomena.
Journal Articles by Nadia Kaneva
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2018
This article outlines a new perspective on the role of media in nation branding, drawing on Jean ... more This article outlines a new perspective on the role of media in nation branding, drawing on Jean Baudrillard's post-structuralist media theory. I argue that, following Baudrillard, we can see nation brands in a new light, namely, as simulacra which exist within a transnational media system for the creation, circulation and consumption of commodity-signs. In this capacity, nation brands shed their representational burden of standing in for the nation and, instead, operate as self-referential entities. I use the example of Brand Kosovo to provide illustrations for my theoretical points. However, while the case of Kosovo has its specificities, I propose that the theoretical claims presented here hold beyond its parameters. This article forms part of the Theorizing Media in Nation Branding Special Issue.
This article traces the limits of branding as a tool for (re)constructing nations as 'imagined co... more This article traces the limits of branding as a tool for (re)constructing nations as 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983). Drawing on examples from post-socialist Eastern Europe, I analyse discourses and practices of nation branding from a critical perspective, rooted in the theoretical traditions of political economy and cultural studies. Focusing more closely on branding campaigns implemented by post-Soviet Ukraine and post-war Kosovo — two nations seeking to assert themselves as independent actors on the global stage — I consider the impact of nation branding on national identities and democratic governance. I identify three interconnected limits of the branded national imagination as a structuring discourse for nation building. First, the branded national imagination is structured through its subjection to a foreign gaze; second, it is heavily dependent on commercial transnational media; and third, it produces branded national subjectivities that contradict the lived experiences of national populations. I argue that while nation branding effectively depoliticises national (re)definition, it may in fact serve to reinvigorate ethnic nationalisms in the post-socialist region. Finally, I suggest that although we must be aware of local histories and legacies, the post-socialist experience can inform our understanding of the structuring limits of the branded national imagination in other post-conflict and post-colonial contexts as well.
This conceptual paper offers a cultural perspective on political candidate brands in postmodern, ... more This conceptual paper offers a cultural perspective on political candidate brands in postmodern, mediatised consumer democracies. Focusing on the US and the UK, we analyse the cross-disciplinary, scholarly literature on political candidate branding and address two overarching questions: What socio-cultural conditions underlie the emergence of branded political candidates-or brandidates? And how does branding enable political candidates to connect with voter-consumers in new ways? After outlining social and cultural trends that set the stage for the emergence of candidate brands, we discuss and illustrate three strategies that give brandidates a persuasive advantage on the campaign trail. First, brandidates speak to consumers on consumers' terms by honing their messages through research and delivering them in entertaining and interactive formats. Second, brandidates humanise and personalise politics by drawing on their personal stories to create brand narratives that simulate an authentic, yet idealised, leader. Third, brandidates perform emotional labour to meet the affective needs of voter-consumers and, in this way, they link political choice to voter self-expression. We conclude our discussion by raising several questions about the implications of branded political candidates for democracy, and outline directions for future research on this topic.
This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe wh... more This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe who have emerged in the post-socialist context. These women are found in various countries and their political affiliations and agendas are diverse. However, they share a peculiar penchant for using the mass media to offer provocatively packaged public displays of their bodies in ways that relate to their political careers. These strategies of mediated self-exposure include posing for erotic magazines or using sexualized messages in various other video and print formats. In addition to drawing attention at home and abroad, these sensationalized and sexualized displays of female politicians’ bodies highlight the changing tastes and manners of post-socialist political culture. This article examines emblematic examples of female politicians’ mediated self-exposure and uses them to raise critical questions about the gendered nature of post-socialist political culture as it intersects with commercial media culture.
Communication, Culture & Critique, Aug 2014
This article examines how nation branding intersects with a transnational discourse about Europe’... more This article examines how nation branding intersects with a transnational discourse about Europe’s “Roma problem.” We undertake a critical discourse analysis of “Romanians in Europe,” a branding campaign by the Romanian government, implemented in 2008. We address three main questions: What conditions led to the Romanian government’s decision to intervene in the “Roma problem” discourse through a commercial campaign? How did the campaign construct a narrative of Romanian national identity, and what was the position allotted to Romania’s Roma in it? Finally, what can we learn from this case about hierarchies of othering and the politics of national and transnational identities in Europe after the end of the Cold War and in conditions of growing mediatization and commercialization?
Feminist Media Studies, 2013
This study analyzes the visual representations of women in Bulgaria from the 1950s to the 1980s, ... more This study analyzes the visual representations of women in Bulgaria from the 1950s to the 1980s, as depicted in photographs in the official daily newspaper of the communist party. The study is
theoretically informed by feminist theories of media representations and engages specifically with Gaye Tuchman’s idea of “symbolic annihilation,” which referred to Western media’s condemnation, trivialization, and omission of women in public discourse. However, this analysis adapts Tuchman’s theory to the specificities of socialist societies, where women’s participation in public life was ideologically mandated. The authors propose the concept of “symbolic glorification” as a correlate to Tuchman’s idea, and argue that symbolic glorification was a necessary part of ideological efforts to claim that women’s participation in the labor force and political life was a sign of true emancipation. Nevertheless, the visual data reveal that certain aspects of femininity, related to motherhood and sexuality, were symbolically annihilated as a way to make female identities conform to ideological goals. The paper concludes by raising questions about the ways inwhich the ideologically constructed identities of women during socialismmay impact on a feminist agenda after the end of the Cold War.
This article examines the efforts of post-communist Romania and Bulgaria to reinvent their nation... more This article examines the efforts of post-communist Romania and Bulgaria to reinvent their national images through the use of nation branding. After the collapse of communism in 1989, former communist nations experienced significant political, economic and cultural turmoil, accompanied by a deeply felt need for national self-redefinition. Nation branding programs were intended to articulate a new image for external consumption and, at the same time, to revive national pride at home. Adopting a critical interpretive approach, this article analyses comparatively the symbolism in two branding campaigns in Romania and Bulgaria. The analysis teases out tensions and contradictions in the advertising texts to generate insights about the politics of image creation and symbolic commodification in the post-communist context. The authors find that the campaigns appropriate national identity for the purposes of neoliberal globalization. This appropriation constrains national imaginaries within an ahistorical, depoliticized frame, resulting in a form of national identity lite. In this way, nation branding also serves to foreclose democratic avenues for national redefinition.
This article discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an expanded c... more This article discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an expanded critical research agenda on this topic. It begins with an extensive overview of scholarly writing on nation branding, based on 186 sources across disciplines. The discussion organizes the sources in three categories, teasing out key themes within and across them. Second, the article proposes a reflexive conceptual map which identifies four types of research orientations across disciplines. Finally, some directions for future critical research on nation branding and its implications are outlined. The ultimate goal of this mapping exercise is to stimulate more work informed by critical theories on the global phenomenon of nation branding.
Book Chapters by Nadia Kaneva
Inclusive Place Branding: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, edited by M. Kavaratzis, M. Giovanardi & M. Lichrou, 2018
Commercial Nationalism Selling the Nation and Nationalizing the Sell, edited by Z. Volcic and M. Andrejevic
Samaras, A. (Ed.) Images of Nations: Strategic Communication, Soft Power and the Media [Εικόνες Κρατών: Στρατηγική Επικοινωνία, Ήπια Ισχύς και Μέσα Ενημέρωσης], 2014
Media Transformations in the Post-Communist World: Eastern Europe's Tortured Path to Change (eidted by P. Gross & K. Jakubowicz), 2012
Branding Post-Communist Nations: Marketizing National Identities in the "New" Europe, edited by N. Kaneva, 2011
Commentary by Nadia Kaneva
Advertising & Society Quarterly, 2017
In this book discussion, author Mara Einstein and critics Scott Ableman, Nadia Kaneva, and Edward... more In this book discussion, author Mara Einstein and critics Scott Ableman, Nadia Kaneva, and Edward Timke discuss Einstein's book Black Ops Advertising: Native Ads, Content Marketing, and the Covert World of the Digital Sell (O/R Books, 2016). The conversation focuses on definitions of "black ops advertising," such as content marketing and native advertising, and what they mean for entertainment media and journalism's ability to financially support themselves when people actively avoid advertising. At stake are questions of authenticity and intent of covert advertising messages, consumers' ability to distinguish advertising from non-advertising content, objectivity in reporting when journalists and editors become marketers and advertisers, and consumer agency in an environment with evolving digital advertising regulations. In the end, the participants agreed on the public's need for increased media and advertising literacy as well as the industry's responsibility to reflect on the tactics and data that are being used as digital media and technologies take an increasing hold on everyday life.
Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this collection of essays examines the ways ... more Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this collection of essays examines the ways in which popular media re-construct ideas and ideals of femininity in the post-socialist cultural space. The book highlights the need to reconsider feminism as a political and theoretical project with many faces. It bridges research on the mediation of post-socialist femininities with broader concerns about the transnational trajectories of feminism today.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies (2015, v. 15, issue 1).
Nation branding -- a set of ideas rooted in Western marketing --gained popularity in the post-com... more Nation branding -- a set of ideas rooted in Western marketing --gained popularity in the post-communist world by promising a quick fix for the identity malaise of "transitional" societies. Since 1989, almost every country in Central and Eastern Europe has engaged in nation branding initiatives of varying scope and sophistication. For the first time, this volume collects in one place studies that examine the practices and discourses of the nation branding undertaken in these countries. In addition to documenting various re-branding initiatives, these studies raise important questions about their political and cultural implications.
The turn of the twenty-first century has seen an ever-increasing profile for religion, contrary t... more The turn of the twenty-first century has seen an ever-increasing profile for religion, contrary to long-standing predictions of its decline. Instead, the West has experienced what some call a ‘realignment’ of religion where it persists in conjunction with other institutions and structures. Outside the West, religion is an ever more prominent force in social and political movements of both reform and retrenchment. Across these contexts, no issue in religion is of as much concern as fundamentalism – or rather the fundamentalisms within various traditions – which are seen to be fomenting religious, social, ethnic, and political tension and conflict.
The contributions to this volume represent the first effort to look at ‘fundamentalisms’ and ‘the media’ together and address the resulting relations and interactions from critical perspectives of history, technology, geography, and practice. The result lays important groundwork for scholarship on these new and increasingly important phenomena.
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2018
This article outlines a new perspective on the role of media in nation branding, drawing on Jean ... more This article outlines a new perspective on the role of media in nation branding, drawing on Jean Baudrillard's post-structuralist media theory. I argue that, following Baudrillard, we can see nation brands in a new light, namely, as simulacra which exist within a transnational media system for the creation, circulation and consumption of commodity-signs. In this capacity, nation brands shed their representational burden of standing in for the nation and, instead, operate as self-referential entities. I use the example of Brand Kosovo to provide illustrations for my theoretical points. However, while the case of Kosovo has its specificities, I propose that the theoretical claims presented here hold beyond its parameters. This article forms part of the Theorizing Media in Nation Branding Special Issue.
This article traces the limits of branding as a tool for (re)constructing nations as 'imagined co... more This article traces the limits of branding as a tool for (re)constructing nations as 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983). Drawing on examples from post-socialist Eastern Europe, I analyse discourses and practices of nation branding from a critical perspective, rooted in the theoretical traditions of political economy and cultural studies. Focusing more closely on branding campaigns implemented by post-Soviet Ukraine and post-war Kosovo — two nations seeking to assert themselves as independent actors on the global stage — I consider the impact of nation branding on national identities and democratic governance. I identify three interconnected limits of the branded national imagination as a structuring discourse for nation building. First, the branded national imagination is structured through its subjection to a foreign gaze; second, it is heavily dependent on commercial transnational media; and third, it produces branded national subjectivities that contradict the lived experiences of national populations. I argue that while nation branding effectively depoliticises national (re)definition, it may in fact serve to reinvigorate ethnic nationalisms in the post-socialist region. Finally, I suggest that although we must be aware of local histories and legacies, the post-socialist experience can inform our understanding of the structuring limits of the branded national imagination in other post-conflict and post-colonial contexts as well.
This conceptual paper offers a cultural perspective on political candidate brands in postmodern, ... more This conceptual paper offers a cultural perspective on political candidate brands in postmodern, mediatised consumer democracies. Focusing on the US and the UK, we analyse the cross-disciplinary, scholarly literature on political candidate branding and address two overarching questions: What socio-cultural conditions underlie the emergence of branded political candidates-or brandidates? And how does branding enable political candidates to connect with voter-consumers in new ways? After outlining social and cultural trends that set the stage for the emergence of candidate brands, we discuss and illustrate three strategies that give brandidates a persuasive advantage on the campaign trail. First, brandidates speak to consumers on consumers' terms by honing their messages through research and delivering them in entertaining and interactive formats. Second, brandidates humanise and personalise politics by drawing on their personal stories to create brand narratives that simulate an authentic, yet idealised, leader. Third, brandidates perform emotional labour to meet the affective needs of voter-consumers and, in this way, they link political choice to voter self-expression. We conclude our discussion by raising several questions about the implications of branded political candidates for democracy, and outline directions for future research on this topic.
This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe wh... more This article focuses on a ‘new generation’ of female politicians in Central and Eastern Europe who have emerged in the post-socialist context. These women are found in various countries and their political affiliations and agendas are diverse. However, they share a peculiar penchant for using the mass media to offer provocatively packaged public displays of their bodies in ways that relate to their political careers. These strategies of mediated self-exposure include posing for erotic magazines or using sexualized messages in various other video and print formats. In addition to drawing attention at home and abroad, these sensationalized and sexualized displays of female politicians’ bodies highlight the changing tastes and manners of post-socialist political culture. This article examines emblematic examples of female politicians’ mediated self-exposure and uses them to raise critical questions about the gendered nature of post-socialist political culture as it intersects with commercial media culture.
Communication, Culture & Critique, Aug 2014
This article examines how nation branding intersects with a transnational discourse about Europe’... more This article examines how nation branding intersects with a transnational discourse about Europe’s “Roma problem.” We undertake a critical discourse analysis of “Romanians in Europe,” a branding campaign by the Romanian government, implemented in 2008. We address three main questions: What conditions led to the Romanian government’s decision to intervene in the “Roma problem” discourse through a commercial campaign? How did the campaign construct a narrative of Romanian national identity, and what was the position allotted to Romania’s Roma in it? Finally, what can we learn from this case about hierarchies of othering and the politics of national and transnational identities in Europe after the end of the Cold War and in conditions of growing mediatization and commercialization?
Feminist Media Studies, 2013
This study analyzes the visual representations of women in Bulgaria from the 1950s to the 1980s, ... more This study analyzes the visual representations of women in Bulgaria from the 1950s to the 1980s, as depicted in photographs in the official daily newspaper of the communist party. The study is
theoretically informed by feminist theories of media representations and engages specifically with Gaye Tuchman’s idea of “symbolic annihilation,” which referred to Western media’s condemnation, trivialization, and omission of women in public discourse. However, this analysis adapts Tuchman’s theory to the specificities of socialist societies, where women’s participation in public life was ideologically mandated. The authors propose the concept of “symbolic glorification” as a correlate to Tuchman’s idea, and argue that symbolic glorification was a necessary part of ideological efforts to claim that women’s participation in the labor force and political life was a sign of true emancipation. Nevertheless, the visual data reveal that certain aspects of femininity, related to motherhood and sexuality, were symbolically annihilated as a way to make female identities conform to ideological goals. The paper concludes by raising questions about the ways inwhich the ideologically constructed identities of women during socialismmay impact on a feminist agenda after the end of the Cold War.
This article examines the efforts of post-communist Romania and Bulgaria to reinvent their nation... more This article examines the efforts of post-communist Romania and Bulgaria to reinvent their national images through the use of nation branding. After the collapse of communism in 1989, former communist nations experienced significant political, economic and cultural turmoil, accompanied by a deeply felt need for national self-redefinition. Nation branding programs were intended to articulate a new image for external consumption and, at the same time, to revive national pride at home. Adopting a critical interpretive approach, this article analyses comparatively the symbolism in two branding campaigns in Romania and Bulgaria. The analysis teases out tensions and contradictions in the advertising texts to generate insights about the politics of image creation and symbolic commodification in the post-communist context. The authors find that the campaigns appropriate national identity for the purposes of neoliberal globalization. This appropriation constrains national imaginaries within an ahistorical, depoliticized frame, resulting in a form of national identity lite. In this way, nation branding also serves to foreclose democratic avenues for national redefinition.
This article discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an expanded c... more This article discusses the growing body of research on nation branding, arguing for an expanded critical research agenda on this topic. It begins with an extensive overview of scholarly writing on nation branding, based on 186 sources across disciplines. The discussion organizes the sources in three categories, teasing out key themes within and across them. Second, the article proposes a reflexive conceptual map which identifies four types of research orientations across disciplines. Finally, some directions for future critical research on nation branding and its implications are outlined. The ultimate goal of this mapping exercise is to stimulate more work informed by critical theories on the global phenomenon of nation branding.
Inclusive Place Branding: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, edited by M. Kavaratzis, M. Giovanardi & M. Lichrou, 2018
Commercial Nationalism Selling the Nation and Nationalizing the Sell, edited by Z. Volcic and M. Andrejevic
Samaras, A. (Ed.) Images of Nations: Strategic Communication, Soft Power and the Media [Εικόνες Κρατών: Στρατηγική Επικοινωνία, Ήπια Ισχύς και Μέσα Ενημέρωσης], 2014
Media Transformations in the Post-Communist World: Eastern Europe's Tortured Path to Change (eidted by P. Gross & K. Jakubowicz), 2012
Branding Post-Communist Nations: Marketizing National Identities in the "New" Europe, edited by N. Kaneva, 2011