Configuring and Reconfifuring the Nation by Media

Configuring and Re -Configuring Nation By Media

Introduction :

There exists a nexus between media and nation in the study of media anthropology where , media and ethnographic study play altogether to identify the anthropological information about how nation as cultural and political identity is cultivated and effected by the consumption of media product , media production, and it's controlling institutions because the anthropology is a social science studying culture and media refers to the media technologies, including the Internet, television, newspapers, and radio, which are used for communications, and to the organizations which control these technologies. In this case culture is studied as transmitted product of media influence . And this essay tends to explore the way media helps and mediates in configuring and reconfiguring nation as a result of changing, shaping and re shaping cultural patterns of community. In the following discussion of the essay, configuring nation involves the active process and impact or effect of media production, consumption in shaping and changing a cultural identity of nation which saturated to into growing nationalism which has been exemplified by the Belizeans , who has been got out of the colonial legacy of culture and claimed for cultural autonomy as kind of growing nationalism . And it has been possible by their growing discourse about the TV impact on them . on the other hand , re configuring nation explores the way media brings realignment , de-alignment and fragmentation among people of a nation by putting impact on culture, this essay sites different examples of it .To analyze the configuring and re configuring nation by media , the media anthropological framework has been used here is " functionalist approach " which involves mainly "the media effects tradition", that refers to the ability of media to influence the individual mind and action. F. Ginsburg said the anthropological perspective on media should study the social process of media consumption, production and circulation and Allen defines media anthropology is that studies process, impact of media product, ....etc . Combing these two views, the framework is represented as such :

"Looking through the consumption, production and circulation of media and it's impact ,process , function in configuring and reconfiguring nation" but here we mainly look through the process and impact of media consumption , production in configuring and re configuring nation.

Configuring Nation :

Growing nationalism or cultural molding , identification and national characterization is the indication of configuring nation which I will discuss based on the influence of media product , technology and circulation with the case study of Belize .

Growing sense of cultural autonomy in Belizeans and media :-

Belize , a former colony of Britain but gained independence in 1981 was with the colonial legacy . there was public perception of themselves that they are culturally lag from the metro pole state like USA , Britain due to the geographic distance which had been reflected by the time . they were culturally " years behind" from the metro pole like state USA in terms of time which had been kept up by the elites of the Belizean society , they flew to USA and hold new fashion like dresses and shown back in country which were really years ahead from the reach of the general Belizeans . but during 1990's when the general people got to watch TV , satellite programs , VCR videos, there created a coevalness between periphery like Belize and metro pole like U.S.A because now the Belizean Can watch the real time TV program of U.S.A with USA viewers . and this coevalness breaks the links between geographic distance and cultural lag . As consequence people got to understand the cultural and political difference between metro pole and them . Another important impact of the media technology Television is the unity among the Belizean nation , they get involved in the debate with the same language about the impact of TV on them, specially on culture which produces their practice of talking about local cultural practices like cooking , dance and language . and this is the reflection of growing sense for the cultural autonomy of Belizeans which can be indentified as the growing new kind of Belizean nationalism .

Re Configuring Nation:

Sometime media consumption has a great impact on the patterns of culture of society . media cultivates the audience mindset through story, message, characters, behavior, fashion, eating, cooking, songs, dance . Actually here we will examine the way media product like TV serials, media technology like TV, VCR, Satellite etc, process of media production like film making, shooting, script writing etc have impact on the cultural transmission of a community by which that nation or community get integrated and disintegrated of get to have transnational subjectivity and imaginary . In analyzing these the different case studies are here as follows :

Realigning India through TV Serial :

India is no doubt a state of multilingual and cultural people with the majority of Hindus living altogether under a sense of Indian nationalism . Here clear is the fact that the main uniting force of all the Indian people is not others elements of culture but only religion "Hinduism". As far as the division of India Pakistan based on the theological theory " two nations theory" ( a very unique event occurred in the world history ) is concerned that the roots of Indian nation is the Hinduism as for that there exists Hindu hegemony and majority people in Hindu identity After the independence in 1947, the first attempt from the Indian hegemonic body national congress party of Indian to reconfigure and consolidate Indian nationalism by televising Hindu epic Ramayan to remove any difference between the Indian nationalism and Hinduism. It was actually an attempt to raise the awareness among people about who they are and remembering their identity roots. On January 1987 the first episode of the Ramayan , a serial based on Hindu epic was shown on the national controlled Tv channel "Doordarshan ". And gradually this serial got a huge popularity among Indians .

In this case media consumption of the people and media production , specially cinematic presentation and story choice worked as main force to create such a public sentiment about themselves that they are Indian which is based on only Hinduism and Indian is a land of hindu , not of the others( Muslims )