ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the print media, which acts as the link between global sport mega-events and national publics, creates meaning, generates interest, and mobilises a patriotic national public via various representations of a threatening opponent at the occasion of a mediated global sport mega-event during which the sporting reputation of the country host is at stake. The chapter’s analysis of New Zealand media representations of the French rugby team illustrates the intersections of Buhmann and Ingenhoff’s concepts of country reputation, country brand, and country identity, and the associated functional, aesthetic, normative, and sympathetic dimensions of country image.
