Publication Date

2017-05-04

Availability

Embargoed

Embargo Period

2019-05-03

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Public Relations (Communication)

Date of Defense

2017-04-04

First Committee Member

Juliana Fernandes

Second Committee Member

Jyotika Ramaprasad

Third Committee Member

Lim Hyunji

Abstract

This study attempts to explore the current image of the Republic of Kazakhstan (RK) in the US through quantitative content analysis of popular US newspapers. News stories were collected from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post for the period from February 10, 2015 to February 10, 2017. The objectives of the study are to discover the current strengths and weaknesses of the RK image in the US. ProQuest Newsstand online database was used to obtain electronic versions of all news articles (N = 829). To measure intercoder reliability, percentage of agreement (M = 98.1%) and Cohen’s Kappa (M = 0.9) were calculated. This study examined frames such as economic, sport, environment, and human interest. By the end, the researcher proposed a new frame, the country as a source of natural resources. The results of this research also revealed that the number of negative stories was more than two times higher than the positive ones and the number of articles that mentioned Russia and all post-soviet countries were higher than the number of articles where Kazakhstan was addressed individually. In addition, professional boxer of Kazakhstan, G. Golovkin seems to be the best suited person to serve Kazakhstan as a national brand ambassador since he earned the biggest number of positive reports from main US print media.

Keywords

Public Relations; Public Diplomacy; Image; Kazakhstan; Kazakh; Nation branding

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Available for download on Friday, May 03, 2019

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