Imaginary and Nation

Benedict Anderson couches the imaginary in political terms. Anderson interprets the meaning of the imaginary by associating it with the concept of “nation.” He argues that the development of print capitalism in the eighteenth century standardized and disseminated vernacular print languages and social concerns. The common language was “fixed” as the “national” language, through which people communicated and exchanged ideas. The common concerns raised by the print media also constructed an imagination of a community, the nation, in which people share common concerns at the same time. To Anderson, the community is “imagined” because nationalism encourages members of the community to imagine that they share not only the same language but also the same concerns, although “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them.” Anderson further explains:

It is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings.

Anderson argues that media play a critical role in the construction of these imagined communities because the widespread nature of communication processes help construct national identity and other forms of community.