Imagined communities with references to Benedict Anderson

Nationalism definition: 1) Loyalty and devotion to a nation, with primary

emphasis on promoting it's culture.

2) Nationalist movement or government.     

Imagined communities is a phrase that was coined by Benedict Anderson in 2006. When looking at media in relation to imagined communities Anderson focuses on print media, he thought that it's existence enables imagined communities. In the present time imagined communities are symbolically produced through all kinds of media, but at the end of the 18th century print media became popular at the same time as the emergence of nationalism. 

 The logic behind this link is that print media needed to maximize the size of their market to make a profit and so newspapers were everywhere and they interconnected the country. It also became a daily ritual to read newspapers and offered homogeneity to everyone creating a sense of togetherness. 

There are four ways of understanding nationalism: 

• Dissimilisation= Differences between your nation and others, not being them. 
• Assimilation= Constructing similarities within your nation, traditions and culture that you can carry with you. 
• Inward looking= Defining your nation in terms of your own internal and cultural history. 
• Outward looking= Constructing a national image to outside countries. 

Yet nationalism continues to be incredibly difficult to define and practically impossible to analyse.  According to Anderson nationalism is an anomaly in Marxist theory and because of this it has not been confronted but instead dodged at all costs. He goes on to make the point that perhaps if nationalism was put in a category with "kinship" rather than "liberalism" it would be easier to define. 

 "No scientific definition of the nation can be devised

yet the phenomenon has existed and exists"

- Hugh Seton-Watson

This is why Anderson offers the definition of nationalism to be "an imagined political community." Because it is imagined, the bond of brotherhood that is felt within a country filled with people who all feel connected but are in fact strangers is surreal but it is definitely within most of us. It is a strange and unexplained pull and pride that we feel for our own country and members.

"Marxist movements and states have tended to become

national not only in form but in substance"

"nation-ness is the most universally legitimate value in the 

political life of our time"

-Eric Hobsbawm

But as a nation changes surely so do the nations values, both keeping with old and new traditions. Especially considering the way the world is changing, many people even say that the world is shrinking. Cultural changes could happen due to cultural hybridity, which has happened throughout history and is still happening today. One factor that is now happening less and less would be colonial conquesting and of cause globalisation played a massive part in merging cultures. As well as immigration, migration and asylum seekers. 

But as with everything there are negative points to nationalism, it can create a boundary between different countries and cultures and this can cause tension. When people have a very firm idea of what their nation stands for and the way that they want that nation to be perceived it can also lead to tension in that society if their are people that don't fit that stereotype.    

For more on Anderson click here!