The USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School's research team in Shanghai has launched CPD Video Conversations: Nation Branding at Expo 2010 Shanghai, a video blog that will feature select countries’ nation branding efforts at the World Expo.

As part of the Center's Nation Branding at the Expo Shanghai 2010 project, Jian (Jay) Wang, CPD University Fellow and Associate Professor of public relations at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, is leading the research team in Shanghai to examine how various countries are engaging in nation branding and how Chinese visitors experience the branded pavilions. Specifically, the team will explore how nation-states define, communicate and manage their identity and image through national pavilions. The team includes two students and a recent graduate from the USC Master of Public Diplomacy program: Chen Chen and Cesar Corona and Di Wu.

In addition to traditional blogging on the Expo through the CPD Blog, the team will use the video blog to produce about a dozen video conversations highlighting select countries and their pavilions, as well as interviews with pavilions’ officers and visitors. Countries will be selected based on their geographic coverage, roles in global society and relationships with China. The team will video-blog once a week and each blog post will be between five and 10 minutes in length.

The first video conversation was released on June 9 and focuses on the French Pavilion: Culture as a Nation-Branding Platform. Next week, the team will feature South Africa's pavilion. All video blogs can be found on the Center's website or by following this link.

The CPD Video Conversations have been produced in partnership with brandchannel and Shanghai Expo Insights.

To read more about the Center's Nation Branding project which includes a Media Monitor dedicated to tracking international coverage of the Expo, click here.