Benedict Anderson’s most convincing argument for the rise of Nationalism and, therefore, “imagined communities,” is the dissemination of print media in regional vernaculars as a result of print-capitalism. As Anderson writes, a critical step in the process of creating national communities was the fragmentation of the sacred languages. As these languages fragmented and mechanical printing evolved, the explosion of print media in the vernacular “made it possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate to themselves, in profoundly new ways” (Anderson, 36). Mark Allen Peterson’s article focuses on this commonality of language as a first step in placing an individual within a larger social group. The first step in either taking or reading a newspaper in New Delhi is finding a relatable “broad language niche” (Peterson, 176). Regardless of the type of news an individual is interested in, each person is first and foremost identified as a member of a particular language group. From there, the paper can take on any number of characteristics regarding social class, political leanings, level of intelligence, etc. Essentially, the newspaper is both an emblem of social standing and a tool of social awareness.
I thought one of the more interesting comparisons between the two articles was how the act of reading the paper was performed. Anderson refers to the paper as being performed in “silent privacy, in the lair of the skull” (Anderson, 35). He goes on to say that while an individual is reading the paper alone, he is acutely aware of millions of others that are doing the same thing. To be reading alone, but simultaneously aware of millions of others is a true “imagined” community. However, this is completely different than Peterson’s description of the role of newspapers in New Delhi. In New Delhi the act of reading the newspaper is a social act. Newspapers are read, talked about, and traded. I would argue that based on the information in Peterson’s article, there is a tangible social network surrounding the taking and reading of newspapers in New Delhi. As Peterson writes, “The newspapers one takes must be chosen carefully because they enter into the texture of daily life” (Peterson, 169).
After reading both of these articles I realized that I have never considered myself part of an imagined community of millions while reading the newspaper. However, I do agree with both Anderson and Peterson that the newspaper, whether it is in print or online, is a valuable tool for increasing one’s own social awareness. And to a lesser degree, I think the newspaper can still say something about the individual. For instance, if I saw two people sitting side-by-side, one reading the Wall Street Journal, and the other reading USA Today, I would be inclined to think the person reading the Wall Street Journal was at least somewhat more knowledgeable.
-Daniel Gergen
21 comments:
When I consider the Benedict Anderson and Mark Allen Peterson articles together, they cause me to reflect upon how I perceive myself within my own nation-state.
Anderson writes that the nation is an “imagined political community” that is “imagined (his emphasis) because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion,” (Anderson, 6). Personally, no image of my communion with, say, a corn farmer in Iowa is evoked until I read a book like The Omnivore’s Dilemma that adequately details the chain that connects me with said-individual. My connections with others within my nation are also broadened via my discussion of the book with fellow readers, much in the way Peterson describes Indian citizens as both defined and linked together by their unique behaviors of taking and reading Indian newspapers.
The unique thing about print media is that when it is read in the public sphere, one’s reading choices are no longer private, but rather displayed to the people around them. Unlike with laptops or tablets, it is difficult to hide the cover of a book from a curious passerby when reading in, say, a park. I am curious what the class thinks about the increase in tablet and eBook usage in terms of what more private modes of book and newspaper reading implies for print media as a means of enhancing the connections amongst people within an “imagined political community” or nation. Does drawing the advertisement of one’s reading material out of the visual public sphere imply that we will be less connected?
As a member of a very diverse nation, I do believe that print media has brought about a sense of nationalism is our country. As Anderson’s article points out, print media spreads across the nation in one language with topics that are assumed to be interesting to an entire nation. Although I tend not to think much about someone who is not directly connected to me, when I read the newspaper I unconsciously believe that the articles are the concerns of our nation. I trust the newspaper writers to highlight the main issues of our country in assuming that the “main issues” to me are the same issues that a person living in another part of the country would want to hear. However, I do believe, after reading Peterson’s article, that a newspaper can not only create a sense of nationalism, but also create smaller imagined communities within the nation. Whether it is a certain political party or a particular interest, each newspaper has a “face” of its own that can create smaller imagined communities within the nation. Each newspaper is bias in its opinions and what they think is important. Often there are articles that criticize our nation’s leaders and ignore issues because they may not find it important. For example, a newspaper in California might have the Chargers on the front cover of the sports section while the Baltimore Sun is more likely to have the Ravens on the front. In this sense, print-media does not so much create nationalism as it may create smaller communities such as the people of Maryland, or a Liberal party. Either way these newspapers do create a sense of unity within its group of readers.
I also agree with Benedict Anderson that there is an “imagined” community among readers of news print. I believe that people are always looking for something to “belong” to and newsprint gives its readers a unique sense of connectivity to not only the paper but to other readers of the newspaper as well. I agree with Kristen that the act of reading a newspaper allows us to interact with people who we may not have thought we had anything in common with because we share the same time and place with those people through those news stories. I had the same reaction as Daniel when reading the Mark Allen Peterson article in how the newsprint that people read says something about the individual. The article made me think of how I would react when sitting on a train and seeing two people reading two different newspapers and what that might say about the ideas and personalities that those people possess. For example, I definitely infer that there are differences in two people when one is reading the New York Times and the other is reading page 6 of the New York Post. Also, I think Amy brings up an interesting point in that you expose part of yourself when you “take” or read certain types of newsprint because your choice is made public. This publicity of the newspaper allows people to have opinions about a person without actually knowing anything about that person. This point was definitely relevant in the Peterson article when he stated that although one man now read a certain newspaper, the Hindustan Times, he could not give up another newspaper, the Statesman, because it was his habit (Peterson, 169). I took this to mean that even though he might read the Hindustan Times to either get a certain type of news, keep up a certain type of appearance, or belong to a certain social network, there is still some loyalty this man feels to the Statesman and to the network it allows him to belong to. So as much as choosing to read a newspaper is an individual choice, it affects many more people than just the reader.
In class, I really connected with the ideas that print media can unveil the existence of a sense of nationalism, through the organization of connecting us through common space and simultaneous time. This is why I would agree with many of the previous posts when saying that as I read any newspaper, I am more aware that I am apart of a larger nation or community, with which I would never have identified with previously.
I also agree with Kristen when comparing the Peterson article to the Anderson one, and coming to the conclusion that I not only identify with my nation when reading the newspaper, but that print media can also create smaller and closer communities through social sharing of news. I totally agree that newspapers have a 'face' or character about them, and I thought it was very interesting the way Peterson described how people in New Delhi picked certain papers for their unique qualities, and further shared and interpreted the news socially among others. I believe this clearly links to Anderson in that print media has been able to reach and connect the public at large, including all varieties of social strata, class, and across barriers of language. Comparing the two readings, I believe that both show that print can create a sense of nationalism among a population, but still exhibit an individual, creative form for such social sharing uses.
This whole discussion of the ability of print media to build community, whether on a grand scale (a nation, for example) or not, begs the following question in my mind: What about those people who don’t read newspapers? Perhaps they are illiterate; perhaps they are apathetic and just don’t care; or perhaps they’ve already figured out that the news covered in print is not of interest to them. Whatever it might be, I’m curious to know what Anderson and Peterson would say about this population of people. Are they exempt from the community created by print media? If so, that’s fine, but if that community defines itself as a nation, then is it really fair to leave these people out? It’s true that most people probably accept what they see in the news as what they need to be most interested in, because that’s what the media has dictated, but what about those that have realized that this mediated news is not for them, those that just stay away? And those that cannot even read it—perhaps due to a poor upbringing in an urban area with a weak education system—these people certainly are a definitive part of what is truly the nation, but they are left out of this sense of unity created through print media as well.
I also found the lead post’s reference to reading online and using tablets of particular interest. I, for one, don’t identify with the community brought together by those that buy into print media, because when I do read the news, it’s online, where no one can judge my selection and where I in fact choose which categories I am interested in reading rather than just perusing it the same way I would if it were in print in front of me. This is yet another example of the exclusivity of the creation of a nation united by print media. I’m very curious about this question—does reading the news online count? Even if it does, what about those who don’t read the news at all?
Of what I can gather from Benedict Anderson’s piece, the author believes that it is strange how nationalism arises since nationalism is a kind of abstract concept. It is difficult to understand why people of different countries develop this mindset that they are separate from others since the boundaries are often not visible or physically there. This reminds me of one study done for the purpose of understanding more about social psychology—the Robber’s Cave experiment. In this experiment, children in camp were divided into different groups (different cabins with unique names, etc.) to see if this increased competition amongst the children. It turns out that just the act of separating the children and assigning them separate groups made the children sometimes dislike each other. I feel as though looking at nations, we see the same type of behavior. Granted nations aren’t the same as groups of children, but because society is divided into different categories and given different names, they feel more competitive and conflict arises more frequently between them. In the Robber’s Cage study, the only time when camp members ceased to be competitive against each other was when they were given a greater goal that required all the members to work together in order to succeed. This task united them as one, and instead of thinking only for their own groups, they began to feel as one unit. Perhaps the only way that we could ever hypothetically unite as a singular unit instead of several nations, is if there was some kind of catastrophic event that would be inevitable unless the entire world worked together and forgot their boundaries.
In the old times in my village in Nigeria, a youth, usually between the ages of 18 and 28 was designated the town crier and his job was to relay directions from the king to the constituents. He would usually begin by saying “Greetings, greetings my people of Arochukwu, our king has sent me to relay this message…” Then he would go on about an impending war or a meeting for the elders. How did we know he was referring to us? Even though he was a stranger, the message was to the community, our community of Arochukwu. As a member of that community, we were obliged to listen and to obey the messages of the king. Anderson explores this notion of an imagined community in his book. He defines a nation as “an imagined political community- imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” (Anderson 6). In determining the origins of this feeling of community, he discusses two cultural systems: the religious community and the dynastic realm. In the religious community, those that understood the “sacred language” could mediate between god and the people possessing a certain prestige, just as the town crier in my village possessed a power of communication. This sacred language soon declined with the rise of vernacular languages, an effect being the rise in printing of books and eventually newspapers.
In an attempt to tackle the question posed about reading news online, I note that it is the sharing of language and its dissemination that is the key to the formation of this community. In essence, it does not matter whether one reads the paper online or on print. The act of reading at all engulfs us in this imagined community. We share this intimacy with strangers because they share our language. One might counter with the question: why are we influenced by a news story about a famine in Mali, even though they do not speak the same language as us. In response, I would like to clarify that it is the language of dissemination I refer to. For example, since the story is written in English, and the readers of the newspaper share the English language, then we are part of the imagined community. One can further this argument to include those that are illiterate. If one does not read but shares a language with people that do, he is by association, a part of the imagined community as long he meets two important criteria. These criteria are the assumptions journalists/ editors make when they place news stories on the front page. First, the man who does not read must share the same “space” as those who do read. The editors of the Baltimore Sun assume that we care about Baltimore and that is why we read the paper. In their minds, we share the same sense of “space”. Therefore, the non-reader must be in an environment where he can be influenced by the knowledge of those who do read the paper. Secondly, the man must also share the same sense of time with those who read. Once these two assumptions are fulfilled, even a man devoid of print media, and could still partake of this imagined community.
In the Peterson article, the men also construct imagined communities through the newspapers, based on the master narrative. They look at the hierarchy- the big people controlling the media at the top, the press that shape the people’s minds next, and finally the people at the bottom- and they create an identity somewhere within this construct, which in turn determines the newspapers they are willing to “take”. Even though they are in imagined communities, the focus in the Peterson article is on the formation of “personal and group identities” within this construct (Peterson 180).
-Emmanuel
Up until these readings and Tuesday’s lecture, I had honestly never considered communities to be “imagined”, as so much as understood. This notion of nationalism rising at the expense of sacred language and dynastic rule makes me consider how I would truly define the origin of communities. Anderson’s statement that “the novel and the newspaper…provided the technical means for ‘re-presenting’ the kind of imagined community that is the nation” (Anderson, 25) emphasizes the role of the press discussed in Peterson’s piece. As was stated in previous blogs, I agree with the idea of formulating characteristics of a person based upon the source from which they are reading. This subject ties into Peterson’s topic of the “face” of the newspaper. What I have been ruminating over is the New Delhi principle where the “character of the newspaper is understood to reflect only on the initial giver of that newspaper” (Peterson, 176). Peterson’s article established the concept of taking versus reading, along with the casual exchange of newspapers. But isn’t it quite plausible for character to be unintentionally imposed on an individual who takes or reads an article out of mere curiosity? I guess this notion goes back to placing people in “imagined” communities, as describe by Anderson. Though it is possible that a person may depict himself as falling into a specific category, it is inevitable that an unknown, observant individual could remove such a label. In this regards, when it comes to the question of private outlets such as eBooks, I feel like a more intimate connection may have to be created between two individuals before a sense of nationalism is established, aside from the belief of everyone moving through “homogenous, empty time.”
Benedict Anderson’s reading was difficult to understand but what I got from it was print-capitalism. Print-capitalism made it “possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others (36).” I agree with Kristen that the act of reading a newspaper can make people in the community become closer and interact with one another more. An example would be reading about how good the New York Yankees are not in the Boston Herald. The news is interpreted differently depending on the location that it is printed.
Regarding what Daniel said about two people sitting side by side; one reading the Wall Street Journal, and the other reading USA Today, everyone has their individual preferences and how the interpret what they read and what they see and hear. In the Peterson reading, he mentions, “Consumers buy the brand and not the product (173).” People buy that newspaper because it has a certain appeal or has a side that has the same view as he or she does. I believe when reading a story that there can be several different sides of the story presented by different newspapers. Example, Ravens beat the Steelers, in the Baltimore Sun, its going to make it seem that the Ravens are going to win the Superbowl this year. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it is going to be saying something like the Ravens played well but we will get them next time when it matters. Every paper presents different views because of their location and they want people to buy their product.
Jessica’s comment on people who don’t read newspapers, I agree with her statement that some people don’t care or maybe they look for their news online? I feel that the news almost always exaggerates in a way to make things look worse than they really are. Example: The recent Hurricane Irene was supposed to be a terrible and horrifying event that turned into being nothing but a strong storm in the area of Baltimore. I feel that people don’t care about the news because they always make everything out to be a huge event and they are wrong too many times to believe everything they say.
Based on the readings and the blog responses, I am very interested in this idea of an “imagined community”, and how print creates a common space and time for its readers. Anderson best puts it as “the idea of a sociological organism moving calendrically through homogenous, empty time is a precise analogue of the idea of the nation which also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily down (and up) history” (Anderson 26). When we read a paper, we imagine an association of strangers sharing the same time, space, stories and concerns. Newspapers allow us to feel as though we are more than the individual. Just as others have mentioned in the blog, this is particularly prevalent in New Delhi, where choosing a newspaper is practically a social ritual. People choose the newspaper, not for its message, but for its brand, fellow readers, and what it represents to be a reader of that particular newspaper in the overall social context. Being a consumer of a specific newspaper represents belonging to a particular social cohort, sharing a common space and simultaneous time. I question this notion, however, when it comes to world news. How can we relate to issues in the other side of the world, as they are clearly not in the same space as us? By “us” I can mean anything from Hopkins students to Americans. Anderson makes a good argument that although the events happen “independently, without the actors being aware of each other or what the others are up to […] the date at the top of the newspaper is the single more important emblem on it, and provides the essential connection” (Anderson 33). Although famine in Africa is not be on the front cover everyday, we know it is still present, and there are still people at this very moment suffering. “Us” can mean more than just us students, or us Americans and include other nations across the world, but print creates imaginary boundaries limiting the extent of our community.
Also, in response to Amy's question, I think that placing print media online and in the privacy of our laptops, kindles and ipads connects us even further. We are still consciously choosing what we read online, knowing that others will also be reading the same material, so we still get a sense of community. I would even argue that, just like there is an imagined boundary between "mac users" and "pc users", using portable reading devices places us in a community as well.
-Adali Martinez
After reading both the Anderson and Peterson article, I tend to agree with Anderson when he talks about they way people read the newspaper, going so far as to call it "the lair of the skull" (Anderson, 35). A few years back, everyone that got a daily subscription to a newspaper would wake up, eat their breakfast, drink their coffee, and read their newspaper. However, in current society with all the technology we now have, people rarely get the newspaper delivered to their houses anymore. They will read short news clips on their iphone or ipad or any other smart phone on their way to work. This technology makes daily life more the way that Peterson described, people conversing about what they read because they have unlimited access to information in the palm of their hand. I would also tend to agree with Chase and disagree with Daniel about judging people by the newspaper they read. I don't believe that it makes a person any smarter or dumber what newspaper they read. It is well-known that the NY Times is a very liberal newspaper and the Wall Street Journal is a very conservative newspaper. Those have to do with personal preference and obviously if you are more liberal you will not read the Wall Street Journal, not because you are "less knowledgeable" but because you happen to think more liberally.
I agree with both articles in that the act of reading printed news gives a community a sense of unity. I also believe that it doesn't matter what kind of news though using the phones or computers to read news i think has equal effectiveness in creating a sense of belonging. I, like Jessica read the news online but not for same reasons. I find reading the news online to be far easier and i dont think that its much more private than printed media. People can see what your looking at on your computer screen or phone just as easy as someone can pick up and read a printed newspaper without anyone seeing or judging. The news on the internet can provide the same information that brings the sense of community too an individual. The leads comment about how he would be inclined to think that someone is more knowledgeable because they are reading a wall street journal instead of a USA today, is interesting in that it does not take into account all the people who chose to read the wall street journal simply to look intelligent. It is the common information that is being read by so many individuals that's creates the social community. I also couldn't help wondering about all the people who don't read the news or any media. But even for those who are illiterate there are other ways to hear the news which essential gets passed by media. Im sure there are people who chose not to engage in current social media do these people have a sense of community? if so from what?
I found the article about newspapers in India compelling because it introduced a new way of thinking about print media. Reading through these comments, many are related to technology and the way that creates a certain kind of "imagined" community, but print media creates a particular kind of community that is created by investment in a certain newspaper. This specific type of interaction is interesting because it incorporates aspects of morality in terms of ideals communicated through the myriad to news media.
These four mens' interactions with each create a microcosm of a larger phenomena in Indian news media culture and the communities it creates.
Elizabeth Katzki
I, like many others here, was extremely interested in the “imagined community” Anderson talks of. I think such an imagined community and how it is created by print media is evident in the way we reference events in the world via their stories in the news. Many times I hear people asking if someone has read “that article in the New York Times about X” rather than just asking if the person knows about X. The paper has defined the story and in that way is the focal point of such an imagined community. I find the interaction between this idea and the way newspapers in India are viewed to be fascinating. In India, it seems that there are several “communities” within a larger imagined community, segmented by which paper people take. Reading about the different papers that people may take in India made me remember something from my childhood. My father would always have the New York Times delivered to the house and he would read it on the train to work. On the way back from work he would always buy a New York Post to read. When I was younger I found this practice very amusing—I could not understand how different these papers were and why he enjoyed reading both. Now I understand the nature of these papers to be different, and the more relaxed qualities of the Post are what made it a great read for him after the workday. The preferences of people in India express this to an even fuller extent, especially when people may “take” one paper but end up reading many of them. Print media is very personal in some ways. This is the idea of the paradox of a unified public. That the print media speaks only to you, but it speaks to all of the possible “yous” out there. All of this I believe plays into the idea of an imagined community, insofar as it relates everyone to one another, while also addressing them individually.
In class, I really connected with the ideas that print media can unveil the existence of a sense of nationalism, through the organization of connecting us through common space and simultaneous time. This is why I would agree with many of the previous posts when saying that as I read any newspaper, I am more aware that I am apart of a larger nation or community, with which I would never have identified with previously.
I also agree with Kristen when comparing the Peterson article to the Anderson one, and coming to the conclusion that I not only identify with my nation when reading the newspaper, but that print media can also create smaller and closer communities through social sharing of news. I totally agree that newspapers have a 'face' or character about them, and I thought it was very interesting the way Peterson described how people in New Delhi picked certain papers for their unique qualities, and further shared and interpreted the news socially among others. I believe this clearly links to Anderson in that print media has been able to reach and connect the public at large, including all varieties of social strata, class, and across barriers of language. Comparing the two readings, I believe that both show that print can create a sense of nationalism among a population, but still exhibit an individual, creative form for such social sharing uses.
Synthesis of Discussion:
I am not sure if everyone in section one has blogged yet, but I wanted to present what I thought is a summarization of our discussion this week on newspapers.
Many of us really connected and were interseted in Anderson's idea of an 'imagined political community' and his idea of print media to help create a 'nation'. A lot of us agreed with these ideas of Anderson, in saying that we often feel connected to our nation and community when reading either print media or newspapers through the internet. No matter how we each read news, it in some way connects our nation together- by what Anderson says to be attributable to 'common space and simultaneous time'. Many of us also discussed topics like print-capitalism', and even our own personal experiences with the mediation of newspapers and its connectivity in our own lives.
In addition to this, Peterson's article was referenced in many blog posts, espeically about how print media today can have unique characteristics and an individual 'face'. We talked about how not only does print media make us aware of our own nation, but it is a way to soically integrate people by the way they 'take' certain newspapers for their character and content. On the opposite end, some of us questioned how people may feel if they do not engage in social or print media? Overall, I think this discussion was a very interesting and influential one in the way we look at newspapers, online news, and print media in general-and how it impacts our daily lives and the way we recognize a sense of community and unity in it.
Summary comment from Anand P:
Hi all, I think this was a terrific discussion that we've had online this week. Many of you have called attention to forms of commonality in the experience of media like newspapers: shared time and space, imagined communities, social networks, shared habits, shared forms of morality and moral ideals, shared forms of individual identity and experience. At the same time, thought, I also like the different kinds of distinctions that you've all been drawing in various ways: between the Anderson and Peterson articles, between what one might say about media in the West and media in a place like modern India, between different scales of social belonging, between print and digital media in the forms of collective identity and affinity they make possible, and even between different aspects of oneself as they come out in relation to different newspapers, even over the course of a single day (Oliver's fascinating story of his father). Some of you raised questions about those who could not read, and unintentional forms of imposed identity. In response to these questions, I would emphasize that, as some of you have also written, we are concerned here with unconscious processes to a great extent, things that happen without our explicit awareness that they are happening. It is in this way that the interplay between the constructed form of the news medium and the evolving form of individual and collective identity can become quite pronounced, as we will speak more about shortly.
AP
Also from Anand P: One more thing. Although many of us wound up calling attention to our own recollections and uses of news media in interesting ways, I would also stress that we ought to be thinking about the limits of our own experience in making sense of the experience of others, and that therefore we ought also to be thinking about the ways in which things that we read cannot necessarily be captured fully by what we've seen ourselves in our own lives.
AP
The medium of print has always been a means to take the pulse of the nation. What is printed "above the fold" is what has been looked at as the most relevant or pressing events or controversies. If your story is printed "above the fold, then it is most likely that your stroy will get paid attention to. Even if your are not the most discerning reader of The Wall Street Journal or New York Times, the headlines will always catch your attention with thier large font and compelling language.
Benedict Anderson's "imagined communities" are connected by these front page eye-catchers more than anything written in between the pages. The communities, whether they be neighborhoods or nations will always have some knowledge of the most publicized and latent news. As an example, if North Korea threatens nuclear war, even the common man who does not even dig past the front page will know and have an opinion.
While there might be an issue that is just as important to society on page 4 of the same paper, it will not get the proper attention it deserves by the mass community. This is why writers fight furiously to get the front page material that will reach the most people, even the non-serious reader who only picks up the paper for the funnies.
People will try to seem knowledgeable in social arenas and build a reputable opinion about front-page material. It is when challenged to think critically about lesser known (and less publicized) issues that were in the same paper that their true grasp of issues comes forth.
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