Influenced or to be influenced: Engaging social media influencers in nation branding through the lens of authenticity

Abstract

Social media influencers are emerging as a new force in shaping public discourse and raising public awareness of socio-political agendas in the digital space. This paper explores the role of influencers as part of the citizens group in nation branding by looking into their interactions with followers through the lens of authenticity. It analyzes the networked narratives generated by the influencers and followers, using the mixed methods of blending content analysis with social network analysis. The findings identify the potential of influencers evolving as a crucial force in contributing to a representative national brand informed through imbuing authenticity with engagement, featuring valued-based content, interactivity, creativity and intrinsic motivations within an ethical communication mechanism. It advances influencer studies in nation branding by underpinning the two-way construct of authenticity in generating influence; and informs the development of strategies for engaging citizens in nation branding through influencers using authenticity. Considering the central role of China in international economics, politics and culture, this article has significant domestic and regional implications.

“Dream Now, Travel Tomorrow”: Communicating the Nation Branding of Indonesia through Tourism-Based Social Media

“…This finding has been consistently showing in the patterns through images and words which help people to learn, associate, expect, feel, and remember a nation (Anholt, 2007) and similar to other researchers' findings. However, the dominant images then are problematics because these do not offer the imbuing authenticity of Indonesia landscape (Li & Feng, 2022) in the postmodern world with cities and vibrant development. The pattern only accommodates the western elites of "transnational-promotional class" (Aronczyk, 2013) to project the creation and execution of nation branding campaigns but not yet offer the facilitators of dialogue among different publics within a country to find points of convergence and divergence around what constitutes the identity of their nation (Miño & Austin, 2022).…”

“…On a global level, the government manages social media for purposes of discuss the influence of social media in shaping the public discourse and raising public awareness of socio-political agendas, especially in nation branding contexts by looking at their interactions with followers and the narrative generated from them in China (Li & Feng, 2022). The project emphasized the need of imbuing authenticity with engagement, featuring valued-based content, interactivity, creativity, and intrinsic motivations within an ethical communication mechanism especially when it comes to sports (Li & Feng, 2022). Another project aims to investigate how cultural heritage information leverage country branding and contributes to developing a competitive identity (Nobre & Sousa, 2022).…”

Security and digital nationalism: speaking the brand of Australia on social media

“…Nationalist sentiments seeping into online contents, like videos and their commentaries, are prevalent on the country's web (Schneider, 2018, 2021). Moreover, influencers in China demonstrate the potential of speaking for the true rather than state-defined identity of citizens, while performing the role between “a state propaganda vehicle and an authentic actor connecting with the grassroot public” (Li and Feng, 2022: 225). Their communication practices are confined by the country's sophisticated internet censorship (Lu and Zhao, 2018), as well as its networked culture and politics, which is loaded with playfulness, like “humor, parody, satire and jokes, in textual and multimedia forms” (Yang and Jiang, 2015: 1).…”

Digital nationalism: How do the Chinese diplomats and digital public view “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy?

“…On the other hand, the state media also transmit the diplomatic performances in traditional avenues like Ministry of Foreign Affairs regular press conferences and the US–China diplomatic meetings in Anchorage, Alaska to Weibo, to show the “fighting spirit” of the Chinese diplomats. In other words, the diplomatic messages on social media like Twitter or Weibo are the result of the top-down agenda-setting behaviors of state-driven forces like media (e.g., Nguyen & Hekman, 2022) and diplomats themselves which appear to be the social media influencers in crafting message to feed their followers (e.g., Li & Feng, 2022).…”