Nationalism and Media!

Nationalism is identified by the common ground that is shared by people living in a particular area. These grounds are related to shared values, believes, culture, heritage and future. For example, being raised in a particular state makes individuals get inspired by its people, and its welfare. Hence these individuals feel they belong to this state and that they are part of its people. These feelings are formulated by education and other factors such as Media. Media has an influence on how nationalist people feel and how their feeling of belonging is interpreted by actions and sayings that reflect nationalism. For example, a good citizen is characterized by actions such as, volunteer work and social work, which are heavily promoted in the domestic Media. However, foreign Media affect people differently, some people may view foreign media production as an entertaining source that is not related to their actual life and reality since it is not representing and echoing their culture. Thus, such influence is very limited. However, it increases the awareness about other cultures and creates a global “cosmopolitan” identity that feels it belongs to the further area its concern has reached.Public spheres are very influential for civil societies and nations communicate domestically. This influence reaches globally with international public spheres. The role of public sphere in some conservative states represents the voice of the opposing party to the government (crisis of legitimacy). International exposure on public sphere on large scale especially with the introduction of advanced communication technologies creates sub-public spheres within the public mainstream, but that does not necessary contradicts with the local public sphere that domestics belong to. With Internet, virtual public spheres gather people from all around the world on a particular cause. This sphere may be strange to the national public sphere but will be familiar and common to the global one. And these spheres usually adopt a specific ideology that would influence the state public policies. For example, the influence of the international public sphere (global networks) have influenced some economic decisions regarding international trade/markets in some states and imposed new dealings that have been urged by influential public groups, in addition to affiliation to international organizations that govern and regulate international interactions. Such impact may urge the demand for social, cultural, educational, political, and economic change. However, the influence may vary from nation to another depending on the nature of people and state. To some conservative people change must come from and within the people themselves and not a direct foreign impact; hence, to those, change could take time to be effective (crisis of identity). On the other hand, some states do not allow a space for change that comes from public sphere; In fact, to these states a global public sphere may seem betrayal and would face suppression for any effort taken. Therefore, public sphere may focus on only on global issues that do not deal with the state sovereignty such as, global warm, AIDS, cancer, and recycle (Crisis of efficiency) in which changes change is not in state’s hand. With the existence of virtual civic global societies, the reduction of conventional public sphere is apparent. And minorities of global societies in some states have empowered with the strengthening the individual communication on the international arena. These minorities may play role on global scale rather than domestic one as they gain power from international entities, such as UN, and Amnesty international. And because the good cause of these entities, public and international media garnish the portrayal of these NGO.This is illustrated in the notion of Diaspora; local media production intensifies the values, and beliefs of the people’s homeland rather than being influenced by the domestic Media of the area they live in; that to them it seems to be foreign. But that does not change the fact that these people belong to their physical location as they belong to their spiritual and inspiring homeland. Thus, incorporating the belonging to these groups could be mixed with where they feel belong and where they feel they are inspired from. In fact, these people would feel like strangers when they are in their homeland. Thus some scholars might questions their nationalism, as their influential channels are not pure from where they live but also imported from their homeland. Research would help understanding and sorting the conflict of identity for sub-culture groups, how domestic and international media affect them, and how they identify their nationalities that appear to be misunderstood by an outsider.