Abstract
Media Nations combines a comprehensive overview of media, nations and nationalisms with in-depth ventures into specific fields such as war and gender, exemplified by case studies from a multitude of geo-political areas. It details the diverse and changing roles and meanings of nations and nationalisms in different contemporary and historic contexts, as well as in different epistemological contexts. It combines text-based cultural analysis with analysis of institutional, political and economic dimensions. Throughout the book, Mihelj moves skilfully between reflexive discussion and taking a stand. The introductory chapter argues for the need to reassess the meanings of nations and nationalisms in relation to the media, counters ‘false dichotomies’ like globalization/nationalism, and includes an outline of subsequent chapters – which made this reader eager to continue.
Chapter 1 discusses nationhood in terms of a culture-power nexus and scrutinizes iconic nation theorists like Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson. It reassesses taken-for-granted lessons from Anderson’s media-nation trajectory, highlights the often neglected parts on capitalism, and subsequently defines nationalism in relation to power. Chapter 2 discusses media nations in a globalized world and includes contemporary theories on cosmopolitanism and the network society. It is argued that many processes that have been considered features of globalization should instead be understood as features of a global rise of modern nation-states as key political actors and of a global spread of nationalism. Three areas that structure forthcoming chapters are introduced: economics, politics and culture. Each area is discussed in relation to globalization and nationalism and exemplified by cases from varying parts of the world.
Chapter 3, ‘Media Nations and Alternative Modernities’, de-Westernizes the nation-modernity link, questions preconceptions of modernity as necessarily giving rise to nation-states, and accounts for varying time-spaces of secularization in media-nation-modernity trajectories. This chapter, together with the next one, develops a theoretical-analytical framework for multiple nation-modernity constellations based on alternative modernities theory, comparative media research and historical research on nation-building. It also provides illustrations of principles of social organization, modern political ideologies and media models. The examples are mainly Eurocentric here, with Iran as a crucial addition, but subsequent chapters take the de-Westernization mission further.
Chapter 4 develops the analytical-theoretical framework further and identifies diverse routes to nationhood from different geo-political time-spaces, mainly post-apartheid South Africa, post-communist Eastern Europe and post-1980 India. Mihelj combines the culture/politics/economy structure with processes of modernization, channels of mass communication, forms of national imagination and lines of exclusion. Three ideal types of nations emerge in relation to three media models: nations of comrades (the communist media model); ethnic nations or nations of believers (the fascist media model); and nations of traders, consumers and industrialists (the liberal media model). These ideal types and the analytical framework provide fruitful points of reference for future research and discussion. Moreover, the spreading of examples geographically, ideologically and culturally adds to the elaborateness of this chapter.
‘Media Nations at War’, Chapter 5, includes an advanced analysis of different uses of the term, ‘we’, in (pre-)war reporting. There is, however, a conspicuous lack of analysis of visual aspects, which is especially striking when it comes to television examples (where the importance of flags and opening sequences are mentioned only in passing). The next chapter provides a much needed account of ‘The Gendered Order of Media Nations’, including observations of gendered language in wartime, and a seminal discourse on gender and media in varying political systems. The trajectory is not only geographically, but also temporally broad, which is praiseworthy. However, media examples used as illustrations of the argument appear at times solitary, scattered over decades as well as nations. While more information on the relations between the examples and other media content of the time and place would have been appreciated, in the introduction, the author does acknowledge that the possibility of making broader generalizations from what should be viewed as case studies is limited.
Chapter 7 details the development of clock time and calendar time in relation to nations in different spaces. It includes important points about the standardization of time as crucial for globalization and nationalization, national-historic commemorations and war-related memories. Building solely on existing works, a discussion on time perception, politics and nationhood in China does not quite reach the same depth as other parts of the book, where Mihelj relies on her own empirical analysis/building of theoretical-analytical frameworks, but it still constitutes an intriguing narrative.
The last chapter, ‘Media Nations, Cultural Diversity and Cosmopolitanism’, argues that ‘[n]ation-states are still capable of regulating the public forms of collective identification, although the forms and extent of this regulation have been transformed’ (p.165). It also highlights positive sides of nationalism as a basis for inclusion and solidarity and brings the many complex threads running through the book together beautifully in relation to contemporary (epistemologies of) cultural diversity, cosmopolitanism and public sphere(icules). Like this reader, some may object to the concluding section’s statement that it is only by sticking to national public spheres and nation-state legislation that cosmopolitan communication can ensure that we approach limitless communication. But Mihelj certainly argues well for the crucial importance of these features.
Readers will benefit from reading the book in its entirety as later chapters elaborate on arguments from previous ones. However, readers with interests in certain areas, like gender/war/time, will find that chapters on these subjects also work well as stand-alone chapters.
The book’s main strengths are: its exemplary reflexivity and debating; its scrutiny of taken-for-granted references and constructive re-evaluations; that it entails a significant discussion of gender; that it provides a multitude of examples from various geo-political/geo-cultural parts of the world; that it builds a constructive analytical framework; and, not least, that it is an intrepid explorer of the mine-laden political landscape of media nations and nationalisms.
There are always elements or perspectives that can be perceived as lacking in a comprehensive book like this. There is, however, an important distinction between what should have been and what could have been included. What should have been included here is attention to visual aspects in television (and newspapers) in discussions of constructions of a national ‘we’. What could have been included are more online/social media examples, which might have strengthened and nuanced the general argument. Moreover, at times, it seems as though the book is on media and nationalism, rather than on media and nation. Nationalism appears as the focal point in large parts of the book and is the key term in the gap identification (p.2). Nationalism is clearly relevant in discussions of the nation, but the motivation for its prominent position in relation to nation, nationhood and similar terms could have been made clearer (or signalled in the title). Likewise, the book could have benefited from more continuous discussion on why certain features are interpreted as national, rather than cultural, especially since the reasons might be state-media oriented.
That said, this is an important and meritorious book. The introductory chapter states that if it ‘will help bring nationalism, nation-state and national identity back on the agenda of media and communication research, and stimulate further comparative and historical research in this area, [it] will have achieved its aim’ (p.8). This aim will most probably be achieved. It certainly deserves to be, as the scope and depth of this book are impressive.