Att sälja ett land genom historia: En narrativanalys av Spaniens nation branding-projekt España Globals historiebruk på hemsidan This is the Real Spain

Författare

Alice Widerberg

Summary, in English

This paper examines the use of history on the website This is the Real Spain run by the Spanish nation branding project España Global. With the use of narrative analysis, articles about the history of the country are studied in order to bring clarity to how history is used to legitimize Spain and strengthen its economy. The paper investigates what positive image the country wants to promote about itself, how this image is being projected and the presence of an ideological and a commercial use of history, adopting the definitions by the Swedish history professor Klas-Göran Karlsson.

The results show that the image that is being projected is mainly one of solidarity, valuing education and being a liberal democracy. This is manifested by the use of external actors, international rankings, the attribution of continuous values throughout history and the use of the Francoist dictatorship as a strategy to highlight the country’s progression. The ideological use of history is more pronounced than the commercial and is expressed by legitimating the current Spanish state as well as ascribing it continuous positive values throughout history while the commercial use of history is being manifested with the purpose to attract visitors to the country as well as strengthening the attractiveness of Spanish educations.

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