国家形象和跨文化传播

国家形象和跨文化传播

National Images and Cross-Cultural Communication

Diana PETKOVA

论文摘要：

此文是2004～2008年间在保加利亚、芬兰、荷兰和美国进行的实证研究的结果。在这些国家中,对被访者的访问都是采用开放式或封闭式的问卷调查。问题围绕他们如何看待自己的国家,如何看待别的国家及别的民族而展开。研究发现本国居民对本国形象的认知与别国居民对该国形象的认知有很大差别。本国的形象会加强或是削弱该社会的民族个性。此外,国家形象在不同的背景下具有不同的意义。例如,一些被访者会区分出国家原有形象、作为度假地的国家形象和作为居住地的国家形象。

在美国进行的另外一项研究中,以面访方式采访了来自17个国家的23个旅居者。采访围绕他们来美国之前对美国的形象认知和在采访时如何认知美国形象进行。研究发现,旅居者在进入东道国之前,对于东道国的形象认知很大程度上会影响他们的跨文化体验和适应性。它预先确定了对于东道国的态度和他们在一个新的国度会遇到的困难。因此,国家形象对于跨文化传播来说是一个非常重要的因素。

以此研究为基础,本文将进行以下细节的讨论：

1.对本国国家形象和他国形象的描述,其基本构成因素是什么?

2.国家形象的建构的机制是什么,哪些因素对国家形象的建构产生影响?

3.为什么及在何种程度上国家形象对于族群、国家、区域和文明之间的跨文化传播很重要?

关键词：国家形象　民族个性　跨文化传播

This paper presents the results of empirical studies done in Bulgaria,Finland, the Netherlands, and the USA in the period 2004-2008.The informants were university students.They came from the University of Sofia“St.Kliment Ohridski”, the Technical University of Sofia and the Technical University of Varna(Bulgaria), the universities of Jyväskylä, Kuopio and Oulu(Finland), the University of Applied Sciences in Leewarden(the Netherlands), and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Massachusetts(the USA).200 students were interviewed in Bulgaria, 200 in Finland, 54 in the Netherlands and 108 in the USA.In all of these countries the informants were asked what they thought of their own country as well as what they thought of other countries and nationalities.They were interviewed by means of questionnaires with open-ended and closedended questions.

On the basis of the research done the paper will discuss in detail：

1)what the basic constituents of both national self-images and the images of other countries are；

2)what the mechanism of national image construction is, and what factors contribute to its modifications；

3)how and why national image is important for the cross-cultural communication between ethnic groups, nations, regions and even civilizations.

National lmage Revisited

One of the biggest ambiguities surrounding the concept of national image consists in the approaches used in defining what national image is.There are four basic approaches to national image.The first one is the essentialist approach, according to which there are a number of essential, core features that are deeply rooted in every national group that determine its uniqueness and specificity.The early investigators of the nations, Vico(1940), Deloche(1860), and Renan (1994),see national community as‘organic’,‘naturaI’and‘essentiaI’.From this point of view through objective analysis of the economic, social, and cultural characteristics of nations their ‘true images can be outlined.’

Contemporary research thus focuses on empirical methods that can be effectively used to describe national characteristics.In sorting out evaluative and descriptive aspects of judgments, Peabody(1985) determines the most prominent traits of different nationalities, such as the English, the German,the French,the Americans,and the Russians.Others use a set of contrasting cultural characteristics in order to fix the cultural model of a nation and to describe its image.These are, for example,high/low context(Hall 1976), collectivism/individualism,male/female culture(Hofstede and Hofstede 2004), and particularism/universalism(Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1997).No matter what their particular methods are, the adherents of the essentialist approach consider the image of a nation to be, like photography, a true reflection of what essentially the nation is.

The second approach to national image,social constructivism, has become popular since the mid 20^thcentury.It denies the existence of innate and essential features of national community and rather accepts it as a social construct.‘Imagined communities’(Anderson 1983) and‘invented tradition’(Hobsbawm et al.1983) have become widespread notions in relation to national collectives at the end of the 20th century.According to the authors sustaining this approach, the nation as well as its image are often results of a deliberate and conscious social engineering.Thus, not the national community itself, but its image, continuously shaped and reshaped, becomes the basis of the collective identification with that image.Instead of‘innate features of nations’, the social constructivists speak about stereotypes and autostereotypes.It is believed that all nationalities share some stereotypes(beliefs about certain personality characteristics that other social, ethnic, or national communities possess)and autostereotypes(characteristics thought to be typical of one’s own community).

From this point of view, national image should be disintegrated into two main aspects：the image that others, non-members, hold of a particular nation, and the self-image that members of a national collective hold of themselves.National image is, thus, a reflection of a constantly evolving collective perception of the‘self’and the‘other’.

According to the third approach to national image, the discourse approach, the nation is a message and text to be conveyed.From this perspective national image is a more symbolic form than a social reality.For instance,Bhabha(1990：1-2)states that the nation comes into being as a cultural signification, as a representation of social life, rather than as the social life itself.Hence,a national image is a narrative,a story written or told and a text shared by and transmitted among the members of a given community.Ashmore et al.(2004) write about‘collective identity stories’that express national feelings both on individual and collective levels,and that can be found in the media, educational and legislative systems.In other words, national image, as well as national identity, is generated by myths and narratives stored in collective memory.Halbwachs(1976) was the first author to introduce the concept of collective memory.According to him collective memory is an independent mental system reflected in collective myths and narratives, and sustained by members of a given national group.By means of it they differentiate themselves from non-members.The individuals’beliefs, values and even memories are often placed within the frames of collective memory.Thus it functions as a basic mechanism through which national self-images and images of national‘others’are created.

The fourth, post-modern approach appears in the 80s of the 20th century.According to this approach, social communities are undergoing inevitable transformations in the epoch of postmodernism(Baudriallard 1983；Lyotard 1983).The nation-state, traditional for the modernist epoch, will either cease to exist or will be translated into a community of a different type.In such a way national identity as a phenomenon will be questioned too.The traditional model of the society composed of nation-states will be replaced by the international global society(Ahmed and Donan 1994；Lehning 2001；Risse 2003；Hymans 2004).In that society there is an increasing interdependence between the global, national and local, which cannot be anymore separated from each other, but they are constantly and progressively intermingling.From this perspective national image is no longer a relevant category for research in the fields of the social sciences and PR.

On the opposite, other scholars state that the global system is now constructed on the base of the nation-states, which also become an important ingredient of the global civil society(Carnoy et al.1996).This presupposes the competitive advantage on the part of nations, especially those that are the so-called‘homes’of transnational companies(Porter 1990).This explains why in a global society national images gain importance.According to Giffard and Rivenburgh(2000), hosting global media events in a given country has recently become one of the most popular image management strategies.Global events include, for example, the Olympic Games, World Championships and some of the conferences of NATO or the UN.Being placed under the spotlight of the world news agencies,all of these are seen as an opportunity for a global public promotion of the host countries.

Moreover, even in the so-called‘globaI’PR, two main tendencies are contending for supremacy.The first one tends to ignore the local and national circumstances, the second one wants to make the most of national cultures in order to optimize the impact of the PRmessages on the target audience.In this process localization precedes globalization(Lehtonen and Petkova 2007).One could assume that the globalization process does not influence the social communities in only one way, but that it works simultaneously in two opposing directions；towards the homogenization of territories, social spaces and communities and at the same time towards multicultural encounters,and towards the creation of multi-spatial identities(Petkova 2005).From this perspective national identities and national images will not cease to exist but rather their context of existence will be progressively translated from a monocultural to a multicultural society.

This paper combines the constructionist and discourse approach, and sees national image as a mental construct stored in collective memory and expressed in narratives and collective group stories.National image is the idea that other, foreign nationalities have of a given nation.Foreigners may shape their image of the country in question on the basis of their own personal experiences and impressions, but most often their attitudes are strongly influenced by the media.Thus the image consists of stereotyped characteristics connected to the country and assumed to be shared by the majority of the members of the nationality.This image may constitute a combination of the reputation of some products of the country, experience or second-hand knowledge of the country as a target for tourism,historical knowledge of the country,and impressions of the country based on newspapers, advertisements and other mass media.

On the other hand, national self-image is the idea that the inhabitants of a given country possess and promote of themselves.In such a way national self-image incorporates the self-concept of the nationality.Guirdham(1990：123) defines the self-concept as the mental picture of the members of the group, describing what sort of collective they think they are.Self-esteem is thus an essential ingredient of the self-concept.It is the evaluative element of self-worth, attractiveness, and social competence(Rothwell 2000：41).Thus in order to investigate the selfimage of a national community, the analysis needs to concentrate on the collective self-concept of the nationality, expressed in its collective stories or self-narratives(Petkova 2006).

On the basis of the research done in four different countries, Bulgaria, Finland, the Netherlands, and the USA, this paper will outline what the basic ingredients of the national images are, and how they are being constructed.

The lmage of the‘Other’Country

In a Bulgarian-Finnish intercultural research done by Petkova and Lehtonen(2005), the Bulgarian and Finnish respondents were asked to list the first thing to enter their minds when they think about a given country.The chosen countries were the following：Turkey, Greece and Sweden for both groups；while the Finns and Bulgarians had to give their free associations about each other’s country.The respondents were encouraged to name three or more things that came into their minds.The number of replies by each respondent for each country varied from zero to more than six.The informants’answers were grouped into semantic clusters.These answers suggest that country image, based on free association, consists of at least several components or layers.Among the most important are：

—The geographical position and the natural features of the country in question.For example, some of the most frequently mentioned associations with the different countries were nouns and adjectives, such as‘snow’,‘cold’,‘lakes’,‘forests’,‘sea’,‘sun’,‘Nordic’, and ‘Southern’.

—The perceived physical and psychological distance of the target country for the informant.Many of the students characterized the target countries as‘neighbour’or‘distant’.Statements such as‘I don’t know anything about the country’, that were not rare at all, also reveal high perceived psychological distance from the country, which relates to the lack of existing knowledge of it.

—Cultural icons and historical traditions of the given country, for instance, many of the Bulgarian and Finnish associations with the other countries were：‘religiosity’,‘harems’, ‘sultans’/Turkey/,‘philosophy’,‘Olympic games’,‘mythology’/Greece/,‘royaI’and ‘royal family’/Sweden/.

—Particular objects, commercial products and product brands of the country.These associations included‘mobiles’,‘Nokia’,‘Finlandia’vodka/Finland/,‘folk costumes’, ‘Bulgarian yoghurt’and‘rose oiI’/Bulgaria/,‘white stone houses’,‘olives’,‘olive oiI’and ‘Greek salad’/Greece/,‘street boutiques’,‘pastry’,‘pastry shops’,‘sweets’and‘carpets’/Turkey/,‘steeI’,‘cars’and‘Volvo’/Sweden/.

—Renowned political or cultural figures, or fictional characters, and representatives of the given country；Santa/Finland/, Karlson, Pipi and‘Roxet’/Sweden/, Ataturk/Turkey/.

—Assumed physical or mental characteristics of the citizens of the country in question, such as,‘hard-working people’,‘blond people’/Finland/,‘lazy people’,‘dark and hairy people’/Turkey/,‘sly people’/Greece/,‘blond people’and‘organized people’/Sweden/.

On the basis of these results received it can be concluded that the image of a given country consists of different components that can be combined in different ways in the minds of individuals.For some countries their geographical position may be underlined, while for others it may be the cultural and historical traditions that first come to mind.In this respect the images of Finland and Sweden in the mind of a Bulgarian are based more on geographical and natural phenomena, while for Finns the images of Bulgaria,Greece and Turkey are strongly related to their cultural heritage as well.

Bentele(1995：63) draws attention to the difference between the image of the country and that of the inhabitants or the nation.According to him the former is more important as an addition to information about the country-of-origin and other business contacts, while the latter may influence the processes of interpersonal and intercultural communication.However, despite the suggestion of the scholar that the image of the country and the image of the people living in it are two different phenomena,the data from the Bulgarian-Finnish intercultural study shows that the two are not separated in respondents’minds.For example, when the Finns were asked about the country Bulgaria many of them described the supposed characteristics of the people living in it.The same held true for the Bulgarian respondents, who tended to identify Finland not only with nature, brands and services,but also with the cold and reserved character of the Finns(Petkova& Lehtonen 2005：82-83).The data suggests,then,that the two images are closely intermingled and that the image of the people is in fact an important element of the overall image of the country.

The research done in Leewarden, the Netherlands, confirms this conclusion.When asked about the country Bulgaria,many of the interviewed students described what,in their opinion, the Bulgarian people are.Here too, the respondents were encouraged to name three or more things that came into their minds about Bulgaria.The answers were clustered into three different categories：

—Historical past of the country.Most of the answers referred the country to‘socialism’, ‘communism’,‘Eastern block’,‘transition’and compared it to other Eastern European countries, such as Romania and Russia.However, in some questionnaires wrong facts were given too.For example,Bulgaria was considered to be a country from the Ex-Soviet Union, and was related to civil wars and disintegration.

—Standard of life and financial situation.Every second student in this study described Bulgaria as a‘poor’country.This fact was given two different interpretations.On the one hand, it was associated with‘high criminality’,‘low salaries’,‘corruption’and‘mafia’.On the other hand, Bulgaria was often designated as a‘cheap holiday destination’and‘cheap tourist country’.This means that the low standard of life and even poverty can be seen and evaluated both negatively and positively by the respondents.

—The perceived psychological distance from the country in question.Many students wrote on the questionnaire‘I don’t know anything about Bulgaria’,‘I haven’t heard about Bulgaria in the media’, and‘I don’t know any Bulgarian’.

Almost none of the informants(with few exceptions) could point to Bulgaria on a map.This is probably why very few answers were given about the supposed nature or landscape of the country.Those who wrote about the natural features of Bulgaria underlined mainly wrong facts, some believed that the country is flat like Poland or Sweden, others thought it is situated in the North or that it is a close neighbour of Russia.In comparison with the Finnish answers, the Dutch ones reveal much less stereotypical assumptions about the‘other’people as well.Some of the few associations with the inhabitants of the country Bulgaria were：‘strange’,‘different’,‘like Russians’,‘hospitable’,‘friendly’, or‘family oriented’,but they were not so often repeated to be clustered into different categories.

When I was working on the content of a similar questionnaire in the USA, a high degree of confusion was shown by colleagues and students in regards to the part of the questionnaire related to the images of‘other’countries.Two working groups were created in two different universities—the University of Amherst at Massachusetts, and the State University of San Jose, California.Each of the groups consisted of approximately 20 students.They were asked to answer the questionnaire and to comment on its design and content.Practically all the students declared embarrassment and confusion because, in their words, they did not know anything about the countries mentioned in the questionnaire.Most of them stated that they did not even have knowledge about their closest neighbour.For the students from the University of Massachusetts, this was Canada and the Canadians, while the students from the State University of San Jose envisaged Mexico and the Mexicans.All of them also believed that they did not know anything about the big European countries, such as UK, France or Germany.Regarding the small countries like Bulgaria, some of the students confessed that they had never heard about it before.The members of the working groups evaluated the questions about‘other’countries as‘irrelevant’and‘embarrassing’.After these meetings, and following the advice of esteemed colleagues, I had to redesign the questionnaire and cancel the first part dedicated to the images of‘other’countries and nationalities.

What can be learned from the experience in the Netherlands and the USA?Obviously factual knowledge about‘other’countries is the basis on which national images are built.Scanty knowledge about the‘other’nationality may have two main consequences.First, it can be expected that because of obvious gaps in factual knowledge of the‘other’, people will fill those gaps by adopting more general stereotypes in their description of the target country.This is why it can also be supposed that much of the images of the target countries and nationalities are based on stereotypical generalization rather than on actual knowledge.Second, the gaps in knowledge are not only the trigger to activate stereotyping, but also affect the nature of the most persistent stereotypes.When people possess more knowledge about a given country or nation, they can apply a variety of more specific stereotypical attributions to particular cultural traits, customs and traditions in the other country or to concrete personal characteristics, such as,‘hard-working’, ‘silent’, or‘organized’.This is valid for the Bulgarian and Finnish case.On the other hand, if people have only scarce factual knowledge about the target, they will make more general and less specific assumptions.In such cases stereotypes about people do not suggest specific personality traits but rather characteristics assumed to be typical of the larger region where the country is presumed to be situated.This is exactly the case of the Dutch respondents.They had scanty knowledge about Bulgaria and associated it mostly with its historical past and the Eastern European region.

However, the study in America shows a particular case, in which a given country may have no image at all.A total lack of knowledge about the country in question is equivalent to no image of it.Although it might sound paradoxical, no image is still an image.This is why I will call it ‘zero image’.Usually when people have no information about a given country,it is considered by them to be insignificant and less important.This means that the degree of knowledge about a particular nationality is the basic mechanism through which national images are created.From the data received it is also evident that scarce knowledge of a given country presupposes more simplistic pictures of it together with black-and-white evaluations.More knowledge about the nationality in question is related to a more complex image of it shaped in different nuances.However, the degree of knowledge may differ between separate communities as well as between different people within a community.

How important knowledge is can be seen in the self-perceptions of community members too.One question to pose here is whether the knowledge of the self is always correct.Also, does our self-image correspond to the image that others have of us?

The Self lmage

National images can also be analyzed with the help of the concept‘self-categorization’, introduced by the cognitive school of social psychology.Self-categorization is defined as identifying oneself as a member of, or categorizing oneself in terms of a particular social grouping(Ashmore et al.2004：83).This is also the way autostereotypes appear.For example, the Germans think, ‘We, the Germans are organized and disciplined’, or the Italians believe,‘We, the Italians are spontaneous and artistic’.

In the Bulgarian-Finnish intercultural study(Petkova and Lehtonen 2005) both the Bulgarian and Finnish respondents were asked to list, by free association, what they believed people in other countries think about them.These people were Germans, Bulgarians, Finns, or Russians.The question was not aimed at revealing what other nationalities really think about the Bulgarians and Finns, but what in fact the Bulgarians and Finns think of themselves.Such so-called‘projected autostereotypes’do not tell what the foreigner really thinks about us, but they project our own fears about how we appear in the eyes of others’.Projected autostereotypes are thus an integral part of the collective self-concept.In this respect it is very interesting to compare our projected self-image with the image that others hold of us.

The Finns supposed that the Bulgarians think they are‘Nordic’,‘silent’,‘quiet’and‘rich’.These were the dominant characteristics among the 225 listed assumptions.What do the Bulgarians really think about the Finns?Among the most often attributes ascribed to the Finns were：‘technologically developed’,‘silent’,‘reserved’and‘hard-working’.Obviously, the selfimage of the Finns overlaps to a certain extent with the image that their Bulgarian colleagues have of them.

In the case of the American respondents there is a more considerable discrepancy between the image and the self-image.When asked to list what other nationalities might think of them, the American students mentioned‘democratic’,‘independent’,‘free’,‘proud’,‘materialistic’, ‘greedy’,‘individualistic’,‘egoistic’,and‘boastfuI’.The Finnish and the Bulgarian answers for the Americans were strikingly similar.The most often attributed traits to Americans by the Bulgarian respondents were,‘superficiaI’,‘workaholics’,‘egoistic’, and‘patriotic’.The Finns ’characterizations of Americans were：‘egoistic’,‘superficiaI’,‘ignorant’, and‘patriotic’.

Contrary to the attributes ascribed to other nations, the Bulgarians‘and Finns’stereotypes of Americans are almost identical.The Finns and Bulgarians are as members of two different cultural zones, the North and the South-East of Europe, geographically distant from each other.However, when compared with the Americans, they represent one and the same civilization—the European one—and in this respect they share a common European identity.Thus for Europeans, America represents a civilizational collective‘other’.This explains why the Bulgarian and Finnish images of America and the Americans are so similar.

The Dutch students wrote that the Bulgarians might think they are‘rich’and‘prosperous’.Many of them also supposed that the Bulgarians did not know anything about the Dutch people in the same way they did not know about the Bulgarians.This assumption is not true, since the Bulgarian respondents showed much knowledge of all the European countries mentioned in the questionnaire.

From these results it seems that the self-image of a nation may coincide with the image that other nationalities hold of us, but in many cases the two can be quite different.In this relation the Bulgarians present a case of a total discrepancy between the image and the self-image.For example, the Bulgarian respondents listed 192 assumed Finnish characterizations of the Bulgarians, many of which were negative：‘unknown’,‘sociable’,‘loud’,‘non-developed’, and‘noncivilized’.Simultaneously the Finns characterized Bulgarians as：‘lively’,‘cheerfuI’,‘poor’, ‘friendly’, or‘hospitable’.

The Bulgarian respondents believed that Turks think the Bulgarians are：‘honest’,‘their subjects’,‘lower than them’,‘non-developed’, or‘dangerous’.In this questionnaire the Turks were deliberately chosen as a target nationality because they represent a former ruler of the Bulgarians.Bulgaria had been under the Ottoman rule for 500 years.This fact explains to a certain extent the negative feelings that the Bulgarian respondents were expected to show towards the Turks.

In the year 2006 Serra Gorpe and Gandan Celic interviewed 200 students at the University of Istanbul, Turkey, using as a model the questionnaire of Petkova and Lehtonen(2005)and asking the same questions to the Turkish students.According to the results received, the most often repeated associations of Bulgaria were：‘immigrants’,‘communist regime’,‘nationalists’, ‘cheap country’,‘neighbors’,‘blond people’,‘white skin’, or‘Slavs’.Also the characteristics most often attributed to the Bulgarians were：‘poor’,‘proud’,‘hard-working’, ‘obstinate’,‘cold’, or‘rude’(Gorpe& Celic 2006).This data shows that there is a considerable difference between the self-image of the Bulgarians and the image that others hold of them.Members of other nationalities may have some negative stereotypes of them, but the Bulgarians see themselves predominantly in a negative light.They suppose that all the other nationalities think only negatively of them.

One reason for this might be explained with the so-called‘self-handicapping strategy’in the social psychology.This phenomenon usually occurs when social groups or collectives feel threatened and less tolerated by other cultures.Social anxiety and a high level of task importance can also facilitate the self-handicapping process(Baron& Byrne 1991：81).In this case thinking negatively about oneself is designed to reduce one’s responsibility for potential failure(Lehtonen 2005：79-82；Lehtonen 2006).

Obviously nowadays there is a shift in the angle of the mirror in which Bulgaria sees itself.During socialism the country was one of the well-to-do members of the socialist block, the reference level being Eastern Europe and especially the Soviet Union.At the beginning of the 1990’s the mirror was shifted towards Western Europe, and suddenly the bar rose many notches.This is how Bulgarian society experienced crisis in its collective self-image and self-esteem.This in turn explains why the Bulgarian media, particularly newspapers, often mediate negative messages about Bulgaria and even Bulgarians.Underestimating the collective‘self’may be one of the selfhandicapping strategies in the image construction that Bulgarians use in order to mitigate public uncertainty and social responsibility in the face of the high political and economic demands on the part of the European Union.

Another reason for the self-nihilism,shown by the Bulgarian respondents in this study, can be found in the cultural trauma from the historical past.Cultural trauma is defined by Berry et al.(2008) as any historical or social event seen as negative heritage by a nationality.Thus the collective story‘we are not good enough’might function as a compensatory mechanism for the Bulgarians and it may be a direct consequence from their cultural trauma experienced in the past.The five centuries under the Ottoman rule as well as the half century of communism are even nowadays felt by the Bulgarians as a collective burden haunting their minds.Obviously these historical facts reflect in the low self-confidence of the Bulgarians interviewed.

In such a way it can be concluded that the self-image of a nationality never coincides totally with the image that others hold of it.The concurrence can be high, partial or very low.In some cases the image and the self-image can even be different and opposing.All this is dependent on the knowledge of both‘oneself’and the‘other’.

The Bulgarian case is, however, a real exception.In most cases there is a natural tendency to see one’s own community in a more favorable light than all the other communities.The opposition‘self/other’is underlined in the social psychology as a normal and universal mental process of generalizing information about the personality or the group, of which the individual is a member(Freud 1985).Tajfel(1982)suggests that competing groups seek to see themselves as better than their rivals, and prejudices arise out of this clash of perceptions.This explains why in many cases the self-image of a nationality is more positive than the image that others hold of it.According to Jandt and Tanno(2001：119) the concept of‘other’, as it is used in European thought from Plato up to the present day social life,is related to perceptual imperialism.The latter is the process of observing and interpreting information about cultural‘others’through an underlying set of ideas based less on reality than on myth.

Some scholars maintain that very often groups view themselves as the centre of everything or as superior in some relation, which is an indication that ethnocentrism and racism are the forms of self-perception(Brislin 1981：41-42；Lustig and Koester 2003：150).Van Dijk(1987：62-65) shows empirically that in the media the discourse of prejudices is most often related to two basic categories：ethnic minorities and foreigners.This is inseparable from national feelings.In this sense negative stereotyping of‘others’is often embedded into the construction of one’s own collective identity.This is another important mechanism of national image formation.This fact also indicates the significant role of national images for the cross-cultural communication between ethnicities, nations and civilizations.

Cross-Cultural Dialogues

In another study done in the USA(Petkova 2008), 23 sojourners from 17 countries were interviewed with face-to-face interviews recorded on tapes.The informants came from the following countries：Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China, Ecuador, Japan, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Nepal, Nigeria,Pakistan,Romania,Russia,South Korea,Spain, and Vietnam.They were asked what their image of the USA was before they entered the country,and what it is at the moment of the interview.

On the basis of the data collected, two major groups of reported characteristics of the host country can be outlined.The first one consists of‘differences’that are mentioned by all the interviewees, independent from what countries or regions they come.In this category three main characteristics of the American culture were emphasized to one or another extent by all the 23 informants in the study：the hard working Americans, their individualism, and their lack of knowledge about‘other’countries and people, often associated with ethnocentrism.This means that these cultural traits were perceived by the informants as‘differentia specific’of the American country in comparison with all the other countries.

Simultaneously there are some sets of characteristics that were observed and analyzed only by a group of people coming from a particular cultural zone.For instance, all the Asian informants, both male and female, dwelled upon partners’and family relations in the USA, while most of the European interviewees did not mention them at all.At the same time the European informants underlined three American characteristics that were not given priority by the Asian informants；the American materialism, often related to aggressiveness, intolerance in attaining one’s goals, and the‘superficiaI’or‘false’friendliness of the Americans.

Thus it seems that all the traits pointed out by the informants as‘typical of the USA’are as informative for the host country as for the sojourners’native cultural environment, because they are seen through the eyes of outsiders.This is also how certain characteristics of the country are surprising or even shocking from the point of view of a particular cultural group, and not even noticed, or‘normaI’for another.These peculiarities indicate that sojourners see the host country through a highly selective screen that is composed of values, attitudes and meanings adopted in their home country,and only through them they perceive,judge and evaluate the characteristics of the host country.As a direct consequence of this phenomenon, culture shock appears.

In this study it was found out that the image that sojourners held of their host country before they entered it was highly responsible for their cross-cultural experiences and adaptation in the USA.It predetermined their attitudes towards the hosts and the difficulties they met in the new environment.Thus there is a correlation between the sojourners’expectations before they enter the country and their real life in it.Those who had predominantly negative expectations were surprised by‘positive things’but were overwhelmed by their distrust in the new situation.Conversely those who had unrealistically high expectations suffered from disappointment and disillusionment.

Among the sources of knowledge and impressions of the future host country the interviewees mention‘TV’,‘books’,‘Internet’,‘history textbooks’,‘school lessons’,‘encyclopedias’, ‘conversations with ex-sojourners in the US’, and‘personal meetings and talks with Americans’.Also Hollywood films had created a incorrect image of the country for most of them.This often caused‘surprises’and‘shocks’and hindered their adaptation to the new environment.From these results it seemed that it was almost impossible to form realistic expectations based only on the information from the media.Many of the feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the new country were related to the extent to which both good and bad expectations corresponded to the real experiences in the host culture.

Hence, the data discussed above open the discussion to what extent national image reflects social reality.From the studies done in Bulgaria, Finland, the Netherlands, and the USA, it is evident that a country is always seen from the perspective of one’s own culture.This is why a given nation may have various images among members of different nationalities.For example, some of the Finnish and Bulgarian images of the same target nation are diametrically opposed.This concerns in particular Russia and the Russians.In the Bulgarian-Finnish intercultural study the Bulgarian associations with the Russians were‘good-hearted’,‘Slavonic brothers’,‘similar to us’, or‘clever’, while for the Finns the Russians were‘untrustworthy’,‘irresponsible’, ‘dishonest’,‘criminals’, or‘thieves’.Both the Bulgarian and Finnish evaluations of Russians are based on collective memories from the historical past.For the Finns, Russians represent a former ruler, while for the Bulgarians they are their liberator from the Ottoman dependency.This is how the image of one target nation turned out to be completely different and even diametrically opposed between the Bulgarian and Finnish nationals.

At the same time, some differences were found in the Finns and the Bulgarians portrayals of the Germans.Both the Bulgarians and Finns believed the Germans were‘punctuaI’,‘precise’, ‘strict’, and‘meticulous’.However, the Bulgarians stated also that they were‘cold’and‘nonsociable’, while the Finns mentioned that they were‘cheerfuI’,‘polite’,‘loud’, and ‘talkative’.For the Finns Germany is the South and the Germans offer an image of a loud speaking, talkative, and friendly European nationality.For the Bulgarians Germany represents the North, stereotypically associated with‘cold’and‘non-sociable’people.This is also how the image of Germany turns out to be completely different between the Bulgarians and the Finns.

The same phenomenon was found in the intercultural study done in Massachusetts as well.America and the American people are seen from two different perspectives by the Asian and the European interviewees.The Asian image of the American country focuses on the main traits of the family model in the USA, while the European image underlines mostly work-related matters.

Thus it becomes obvious that the image of a nation is always shaped from a particular perspective.More concretely, together with the knowledge of the target country there are two other basic factors that contribute to the forging of a national image.Firstly, the history of mutual relations turns out to be the foundation on which the national image is built.Secondly, it is their proximity with the nation in question, either geographical or cultural, that is considered important by the people appraising it.In this relation,the culture of the target country is always valued from the perspective of one’s own cultural model.This explains why cultural characteristics are always relative.The representatives of a given nation may be seen as‘talkative’by one culture and ‘silent’or‘cold’by another, according to the informants’culture.

Conclusion

The image of a nation is always based on stereotypical generalizations.The latter derive from particular cultural context and are related to characteristics of the observers’own culture.Thus a nation is always perceived through the prism of the observer’s own cultural model and is appraised more or less subjectively.This means that a country does not possess its image；rather a country is like a polyhedron, which has as many‘faces’as there are collectives with their own cultural values in it, and from whom the target is observed.The picture depends on how distant or close the culture of the nation is to the culture of the people appraising it.So, the national image is a particular mental construction of the observer, representing the cultural specificity not only of the target nation in question, but also of the culture of the people constructing the image.This fact is the key to understanding the significant role that national images play in the process of crosscultural understandings between people from different nationalities, regions and civilizations.

Acknowledgments

The studies presented in this paper were supported by a Fulbright senior scholar award for the academic year 2006-07 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst；2006 OLP(Occasional lecturing program)award of CIES, Washington, DC, for lecturing at the State University of San Jose, California；Finnish Government scholarship for research in Finland during the academic year 2004-05；and 2008 EU Socrates-Erasmus grant for lecturing at the University of Leewarden, the Netherlands.Many thanks are also due to the Asia Media Research Centre of the Communication University of Beijing for the possibility to present this paper at the 2008 Asia Media and Communication Forum in Beijing, China.

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〔Diana PETKOVA,UNESCO Chair in Communication and Public Relations Chief Assistant Professor,Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication, Sofia University‘St.Kliment Ohridski’〕