A Study On Saudi Arabia's National Image Construction Since The Middle East Upheavals

Since the outbreak of “Arab Spring”,Saudi Arabia has actively intervened in regional conflicts,this not only furthered intensity and complexity of the Syrian war and Yemen crisis,but led to a fast fading of Saudi's image and prestige in the Islamic world since the 9/11 attacks.During its image management,challenges within and outside revealed and became increasingly complex.In dealing with these challenges,Saudi government defined three overall goals to manage its image.Politically,Saudi Arabia tries,with its geopolitical advantages to be a big power that dominates regional order in the Middle East;Economically,it seeks,with an abundance of capital and economic strength,to become a global investment powerhouse;By exerting influences over other Islamic countries,Saudi Arabia seeks to consolidate its religious leadership of the entire Islamic world.To achieve theses goals of image management,and out of the need of royal family to secure regime survival,Saudi Arabia has recently used various means to disseminate,optimize,restore or reshape its damaged national image,which produced positive results in its image construction and management.While a new national image of Saudi Arabia is taking shape,constraints in its political system,power structure and religion may still have a negative impact on Saudi's image management.This paper examines the process of image construction and management of Saudi Arabia,based on a theoretical framework of crisis management and national image construction.It also explores the goals,paths and challenges of Saudi's national image construction since the “Arab Spring”,and evaluates the effectiveness of this process through case studies.