This thesis aims to research how the Korean Wave has been a factor in increasing the government's soft power. It sets out the role the government has played in creating this source of soft power...Show moreThis thesis aims to research how the Korean Wave has been a factor in increasing the government's soft power. It sets out the role the government has played in creating this source of soft power and how it has affected South Korea's position in the world scene. This is done by researching the effects of K-dramas in the East Asian region and K-pop in the global context.Show less
This thesis explores Saudi Arabia’s power behavior towards Lebanon in order to explore the pattern of Saudi Arabia’s waning influence. After all, it is among the most powerful regional actors and...Show moreThis thesis explores Saudi Arabia’s power behavior towards Lebanon in order to explore the pattern of Saudi Arabia’s waning influence. After all, it is among the most powerful regional actors and wields immense financial as well as religious resources compared to lightweight Lebanon. Nevertheless, Saudi action in Lebanon backfires seemingly frequently, either strengthening its opponents or weakening its allies. It is argued that Saudi Arabia is very capable of using their economic might in Lebanon; however, the more they strangle Lebanon the more likely Lebanon is to fall into Iran’s open arms. This, in turn, hurts Saudi Arabia’s overarching goal of regional influence and limiting Iran’s expansionism. On top of that, Saudi’s credibility, trust and legitimacy were thwarted after the 2009 elections and especially after the 2017 Hariri debacle in Lebanon. While prioritizing immediate national interest is natural for any country, Saudi Arabia’s policies disregarded the Lebanese target population’s perception and failed to achieve its regional interest with regards to pushing back Iranian influence. Hence, its prematurely hard power-driven policy pushed its allies away into the open arms of Iran. Saudi Arabia indeed has immense soft power resources, which, however, it has been largely ineffective in utilizing thus far. After all, it has become evident that despite its small size, Lebanon is the stage for regional power play. If Saudi Arabia continues to employ such a miscalculated policy, it will threaten its regional standing despite its immense, yet waning, economic might. Consequently, an unbalanced use of soft and hard power behavior of Saudi Arabia results in a cost inefficient foreign policy. Instead of self-defeating its efforts, it should be in Saudi’s self-serving interest to winning the hearts and minds of the people for effective power conversion and a strong standing to challenge Iran.Show less
Present Bachelor of Arts thesis paper presents an empirically oriented news framing analysis that is carried out on a number of RIA Novosti and Sputnik News publications, in order to determine the...Show morePresent Bachelor of Arts thesis paper presents an empirically oriented news framing analysis that is carried out on a number of RIA Novosti and Sputnik News publications, in order to determine the change of intensity of Russian Public Diplomacy efforts in the news media dimension since 2014. The analysis is based on Public Diplomacy, Soft Power, and News Framing theory, and conducted on articles falling under an overarching theme of Russian perception of the historical West. The analysed frames are synthesised in their purest form on the basis of Russian official ideology, paying special attention to the universality of the resonating capacity of the frames, and traced back to publications and appearances of Vladimir Putin, to demonstrate the continuity of a frame, from sponsor to reader. Conclusions are made based on the results of the analysis, and findings on Russian development of Public Diplomacy infrastructure since 1929.Show less
