Effect of Media on Creating National Identity

Culture and identity are inextricably linked concepts. Identity is formed by your culture and in turn your identity shapes the respective cultures of the groups you identify with. I belong to many different cultural groups, and my identity is a complex web of competing and conflicting beliefs, experiences, and characteristics. My identity is not only complex, but also dynamic, as the experiences I have change who I am.

Identity portrays qualities and beliefs that makes a person or group different from others. Your identity is influenced by language frames, culture, origin, membership and people's thoughts about you. Majority of people have many identities that can change depending on who he or she is with or type of setting he or she is in. Your identity is shaped by culture and by people you interact with on a daily basis. This is because a person can reflect their identity through the perceptions of people. The media has a huge influence on a person's identity whether it be on television or online such as Facebook. The media constructs a person's identity and how we portray ourselves.

For many years the media has been destroying our national identity by portraying us as bigots and lower class clowns without any knowledge.

The United States of America has greatly influenced the cultures of many other countries. Perhaps the most noticeable area of this influence is from the United States media. Disney cartoon characters are known worldwide, and popular movies produced in the United States are popular all around the world. These movies often directly show a clear example of American social life, religion, entertainment, food, and politics. Many American businesses flourish in these other countries since the countries are already familiar with the businesses from movies or other media. For example, McDonald’s is a popular restaurant in numerous countries, and Marvel’s Captain America movies are amongst the most popular movies in China. American pop culture is also prevalent in several other countries.

Few facets of culture and media have fostered a greater impact on the production of American identities than the television. Since its inception, television has played a crucial role in shaping, forming, and producing a distinctly American “national imagery” of acceptable normalcy, especially in regards to African Americans and their shifting television portrayals. In addition, Herman S. Gray argues in his article Television and the Politics of Difference that the creation and delineation of difference is an essential aspect of television, and that this production of difference is perhaps most visible in the characterizations and representations of African Americans on television due to a product and capitalism-based business model.

As Christopher Dodd once said, “Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.” The media plays a big role in how audiences view other ethnicities from what they see on television shows. Crime shows for instance, show a wide variety of different ethnicities. I decided to focus on a quantitative research and count each ethnicity in a crime-drama episode and look at what the person’s job was.

In chapter 6 I first learned about the 3 cultural identity from Julia who talked about it in her voice thread. She told us about nature identity and how it's like a sense of belonging to a culture. Julia mentions that this belonging can be felt when people learn about traditions, heritage, language, religion, and ancestry.

nationhood than solely focusing on groups or individuals within the community. It is therefore a

Referring to the Social identity theory we assume that the differentiation between the ingroup and outgroups is motivated by the members’ desire to improve the evaluation of the ingroup and of their social identity. So, in other words in order to create a social identity a ingroup usually derogates the outgroup, especially in contexts where the groups are interwoven in a conflict

Since the year of 1948, the state of Palestine became known as the state of Israel, but whatever happened to the Palestinians. Since then clashes have occurred between the two nations and Israel created walls, checkpoints, no passing zones, and illegal settlements but when a Palestinian stand up for his or her rights, he or she is automatically labeled as a blood shedding terrorist. The media had an enormous impact on this situation of course. When one just switches the remote, his eyes open and his ears expand as they say, Palestinian terrorists have done this or done that. Media and Television is something I have always loved as a child, but not when my people were being targeted.

The first section is divided into four main chapters. The first chapter brings to light the concept of nationalism, nation and culture. Those terms are not always easy to define, scholars do not always agree on the topic. But given that it is the prominent concept of my research, I must be able to provide a sufficient and general definition of those concepts.

What is the nature of man? It is known that our basic animal instinct includes that of ensuring survival among all else. However it is heavily debated whether or not the prevalence of what is known as ethnic nationalism stems from that basic survival instinct. Therefore being considered a natural phenomenon. The other side argues that ethnic nationalism is a result of socialization and adherence to the social norms of a nation. Before taking a stance on the debated question. It is of vital importance to understand the definition of ethnic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism can be explained as a type of nationhood that is defined by things such as language, religion and traditions. It isn’t like civic nationalism where the glue holding the people together is their shared political rights. Here it is rather their preexisting ethnic traits that keep them in conjunction. (Hill, 2003, p. 1). Is that feeling of pride and loyalty to one's nation a natural phenomenon when based off of their race and/or ethnicity? Ethnic nationalism stems from the concept race which has existed almost as long as the existence of man itself. Race is a natural factor where human beings come in different shades, colors and distinctive features. It is essentially the seed for the concept of ethnicity, where those similarities diminished in race are a reason to feel a sense of similarity and commonality among a group of people. That

Several points of departure also appear necessary when rearticulating nationalist doctrine and strategy to render them more resonant with contemporary reality. The formulation of identity should base on respect for democracy and human rights and the willingness to rigorously uphold them (xxx, xxx). Creating a fair balance between cultural diversity and framing a common political community is only possible through ‘just recognition’ of each other’s identities. “Just recognition” entails acknowledging the inherent worth of those whose identity is defined in different terms from ours. Reflecting the symbols and languages of all concerned collectivities in their constitutional foundation is the basics of just recognition (O’Leary 1999). Only this willingness of communities to reach across cultural divides through mutual recognition can disarm extremist elements

Nation is a social concept with no uncontroversial definition, but which is most commonly used to designate larger groups or collectives of people with common characteristics attributed to them - including language, traditions, customs, habits, and ethnicity. A nation, by comparison, is more impersonal, abstract, and overtly political than an ethnic group. It is a cultural-political community that has become conscious of its autonomy, unity, and particular interests.

Political identities may be realized in this way but they may be and are accommodated in other fashion (Taylor,1979 p-1) Identity is a quality of the individual that a part of the common criteria of individual maturity according to national perspective. Identity crisis is an important theme of adolescence a time when various type life of law are tired out. It is important to note that one autonomy by the using social links for all. Language, religion and whole politics are each essential. In this way, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have given the great identity to keep off the nationalism through politics.