Government Public Relations And National Image Building

With the development of globalization, new spotlights arise in the international relation arena. More emphasis is attached to a state's national image. Though it is constructed by international community's cognition, national image building is an internal affair to a certain degree. As governmental public relations deal with international communication, it has a close relationship with national image polishing. Meanwhile, is it feasible for us to refer to the updated theoretical works of public relations so as to enhance the efficiency of government public relations as an embranchment of public relations? Taking China's bidding for 2010 EXPO as an example, this thesis explores the feasibility of improving governmental public relations with reference to general public relations, and the relationship between governmental public relations and national image.Governmental public relations refer to the general public relations communication models (such as open system public relations model and the two-way symmetrical model) with consideration of characteristics and particularities of different nations. Such approaches as governmental public relations, media promotion, cultural communication could be adopted to build a state's national image. That is to say, governmental public relations are kind of way to polish the national image. In the case of China's bidding for 2010 EXPO, China projected series of efficient governmental communications with BIE members and convinced them to support China. China succeeded in winning the bidding and polishing its image. Some problems arise in the China's bidding for the EXPO and that indicates governmental public relations is like a double-edged sword to national image building: effective and efficient governmental public relations helps to build the national image, vise versa.