Culture and Theater Versus Place Branding - Bibliometric Analysis of Literature

Abstract

Place branding is an issue that has been constantly evolving over the past decades. It is becoming crucial to take into account geopolitics, or dynamic technological advances. On the other hand, it is equally important to constantly revisit the previously established theoretical framework and understand the unchanging factors that shape a city's brand. Among these factors, culture is an important element. The author attempts to investigate the role of cooperation between theaters and local governments in the city branding process. In order to set the direction for future research, this article conducts a review of the existing literature and attempts to identify the research gap regarding the role of theater in city branding. To achieve the goal, the method of bibliometric analysis was used. The literature review included two bibliographic databases: Web of Science and Scopus. Scientific studies published between 2000 and 2024 were analyzed. VOSviewer software was used to visualize various bibliographic networks. A complementary method was the content analysis of selected articles in the topics covered. In order to more fully visualize the subject area under study, the content of the 10 most cited articles from the two databases mentioned above were analyzed. Based on the results of the study, a significant role of culture in place branding was identified. In contrast, none of the surveyed articles address the impact of theater on city branding. This indicates that there is a research gap regarding studies on the role of theater in city/place branding.