| Summary: | This thesis investigates the formation of the Finnish nation brand by examining the portrayals of Finland and Finnishness in the Instagram posts of two Finnish embassies. The topic was inspired by a personal interest of mine for the Foreign Affairs of Finland and further motivated by my experience as an intern for the Embassy of Finland in Canada. Due to the current global situation and on-going international competition, the measures that nations take to establish a certain image of themselves play a significant role when it comes to their standing on the global stage. With nation branding, countries aim to project a desired image of them-selves with different actions, including social media presence. The contemporary nation branding comprises the digital public diplomacy, and this research aspires to study the phenomenon in the Finnish context. The research questions for this thesis govern the discursive construction of Finland and Finnishness in the cho-sen Instagram posts of Finland in the USA and Finland in Thailand by examining all the multimodal re-sources, including symbols that are applied to form the Finnish nation brand. Furthermore, the study aims to discover whether the Instagram posts of these two embassies depict Finland and Finnishness similarly. The question is based on the policy formulation of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland which has stated that the USA belongs to the focus countries of the Foreign Ministry, whereas Thailand does not belong to those countries that have highlighted public diplomacy and communication endeavors. The findings of this research show that Finland and Finnishness are portrayed through the discourse of the essence of Finnish-ness which is constructed with discourses governing nature, national culture, happiness and symbolic signif-icance of Finnish consumer brands. The applied symbols include landscapes, nature’s phenomena, nationally recognized elements, such as national scenery and animals, Christmas, sauna, foods, consumer brands, flags, logos and uniforms. Additionally, the results show that stereotypes and borealism were applied when creating the image of Finland and Finnishness. The research data was examined by applying a social semiotic multimodal research analysis which strived to discover the culturally and socially tied elements within the data. As based on my findings I suggest a more diverse and inclusive take on the Finnish nation brand that does not resort to stereotypical assumptions.
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