INTERNATIONAL FRAME BUILDING IN MEDIATED PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

This chapter focuses on strategic frame building by political actors in the international arena. We reflect on studies in mediated public diplomacy, defined as the attempt to influence the presentation of a country in foreign media, and argue that it is a suitable theoretical concept when attempting to describe the strategic efforts carried out by national actors in order to achieve political and communicative objectives in the international arena. We argue that value and political proximity between countries play a key role in the ability of national actors to promote their preferred frames in the foreign media. Proximity, however, is characterized by a relative and conditional nature, which is discussed in the chapter in detail. Finally, we argue that rhetorical framing strategies, as well as the concepts of weak versus strong frames, can be used in order to build a theory that will comprehensively explore the ways in which national actors can succeed in their strategic frame building efforts.