An Analysis of Media Perception of the Czech Republic in Selected Foreign Media in 2010-2011

This paper analyzes the theoretical concept of country of origin as a brand and its influence on brand image of products originating from a particular country. It reviews the role of the media in establishing the perception of country of origin in general and its potential use as a tool contributing to the achievement of the target image of a country. Primary research concentrated on monitoring of influential international media (the global impact media BBC and CNN and 19 Russian media were analyzed) with the aim to identify factors that influenced the media perception of the Czech Republic in the years 2010 and 2011. The main factor that influenced the media perception of the Czech Republic was culture (including sports) followed by politics across all the media analyzed. Culture had a mainly positive impact, while politics a rather negative one. Cross-cultural differences in the media coverage were also identified and analyzed. The media audit conducted showed that the majority of the publicity was either neutral or slightly positive.