Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted From Oil to Diversification: Strategic Nation Branding in Saudi Arabia(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Alissa, Reem; Caruana, RobertSince the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016, Saudi Arabia has aimed to reshape its international image, which has traditionally been defined by oil dependence and conservative values. It seeks to rebrand itself as a culturally rich, economically diverse, and globally engaged nation. This dissertation examines how the Saudi government strategically uses nation branding to challenge historical stereotypes and present a modern identity aligned with Vision 2030. Using an interpretivist, qualitative approach, the study draws on eight semi-structured interviews with senior stakeholders from key government entities involved in shaping and promoting the Kingdom’s national image. Data were thematically analyzed following Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework. The findings reveal four interconnected strategies: cultural marketing, soft power through sports and entertainment, institutional empowerment, and strategic marketing that collectively contribute to building Saudi Arabia’s competitive identity, as noted by Anholt (2007a), and enhancing its soft power. Results show that Saudi Arabia’s branding efforts go beyond just promotional campaigns; they are deeply linked to structural reforms, cultural authenticity, and long-term development goals. While initiatives like global sports sponsorships, cultural festivals, and the rebranding of Saudi coffee have increased visibility, issues such as international skepticism, media bias, and tensions between rapid modernization and traditional values persist. The study contributes to the theory of nation branding by demonstrating that in large-scale national transformations, such as Saudi Arabia under Vision 2030, effective rebranding requires coordinated, cross-sector strategies based on genuine reform.11 0Item Restricted Narrating Alternative Nations: Oral Tradition and Counter-Hegemonic Nationalism in Scottish and Anglo-Irish Fiction, 1800-1818(Saudi Digital Library, 2025) Alreshidi, Hani Hameed; McKeever, Gerard LeeThis dissertation examines how Romantic-era fiction in Scotland and Ireland reimagines oral tradition as a literary and political form through which alternative models of nationhood are negotiated under the conditions of the Union. Focusing on Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800), Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl (1806), and Walter Scott’s Waverley (1814) and The Heart of Midlothian (1818), it argues that representations of oral storytelling operate not as nostalgic survivals of premodern culture but as formal strategies that mediate relations between vernacular voice and imperial authority. The dissertation identifies four modes of preservation—structural resistance, sentimental mediation, aesthetic containment, and institutional incorporation—to describe how these texts transform oral forms such as digression, recursion, and vernacular idiom into narrative techniques that both challenge and adapt to modern print culture.33 0Item Restricted Children, Identity and the Media: How Children as Active Audiences Make Use of their Favourite Screen Media Texts to Engage with their Saudi National Identity(University of Leicester, 2024-01-01) Alareifi, Noor; Kennedy, Melanie; Simmons, Tracy; Whitehouse-Hartn, JoanneConsidering the vital role of popular media in the formation of societal structures, values and identities, and taking into account the importance of reinforcing the national identity of young Saudis within the Saudi Vision 2030 initiative, the study takes a critical cultural approach that focuses on children’s reception by exploring the ways in which they, as audiences, make use of their favourite screen media texts to engage with their Saudi national identity. The subject was investigated from a qualitative, inductive research standpoint. The study adopted a creative artwork method (drawings) and one-to-one semi-structured interviews conducted online through video calls to capture the children’s insights. The screen media texts that the children liked and spoke about also added another layer of contextual analysis. The fieldwork took place in October 2020 with a total of 17 participants (10 girls and 7 boys). The sample included Saudi children aged 7 and 8 years (equivalent to 8 and 9 years in the Islamic/ Hijri calendar) living in different locations in Saudi Arabia. Societal–social–cognitive–motivational theory (Barrett, 2007; Barrett and Davis, 2008) and the British object relations tradition in psychoanalytic psychology were central to the understanding of childhood self-development and sense of identity in this study. In addition, the work was strongly informed by the process of imagining nations (Anderson, 1983, 2006) and also drew on work on banal nationalism (Billig, 1995) and the discussion of representation and the media (Hall, 1997). Thematic and semiotic analysis were applied, and the findings demonstrated that distinct gendered differences were fundamental to the participants’ conceptualisation of their identities. Even though the Saudi child participants apparently constructed their sense of self in line with the traditional concepts of masculinity and femininity in the Middle East, the data revealed that the female participants, unlike their male counterparts, did not fully adhere to these gendered roles and traditions. Alongside the gender discourses, the data showed that religion (Islam) and loyalty to the country’s rulers are key components of Saudi children’s understanding of their Noor Alareifi Children, Identity and the Media: How Children as Active Audiences Make Use of their Favourite Screen Media Texts to Engage with their Saudi National Identity ii national identity. The findings also revealed that the communication process between media and child audiences is more complicated than a direct cause-and-effect relationship, since the children brought elements of themselves to the reading and interpretation of the Western media texts that they liked and had chosen as their favourites. Conducting this child-based research in an Arab/Muslim context in Saudi Arabia adds to the existing knowledge and understanding of childhood and contributes to the gap in media audience research, particularly in the Middle East.66 0