Using examples from your own observations of television programs discuss Barker's contention that "National Identity is a form of imaginative identification with that nation state as expressed through symbols and discourses. Thus, nations are not only political formations but also systems of cultural representation so that national identity is continually reproduced through discursive action." (Barker, 1999, pages 64-65)
We live in an imagined community. Australia. And as citizens of this nation, we are Australians - this is who we are, it is our national identity. Benedict Anderson defines a nation as an imagined community where national identity is constructed through symbols and rituals. It is "Imagined" 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 images of the communion..."
(Anderson, 1983)
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