22

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

  • Upload
    others

  • View
    1

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North
Page 2: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change

Series Editors: Pradip Ninan Thomas, The University of Queensland, Australia,and Elske van de Fliert, The University of Queensland, Australia

Advisory Board: Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University, USA, KarinG. Wilkins, University of Texas at Austin, USA, Thomas Tufte, RoskildeUniversity, Denmark, Zaharom Nain, University of Nottingham, MalaysiaCampus, Rico Lie, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, Claudia Mitchell,McGill University, Canada, Jo Tacchi, RMIT University, Australia, NicholasCarah, The University of Queensland, Australia, Zala Volcic, Pomona College,Claremont, USA

Communication for Social Change (CSC) is a defined field of academic enquirythat is explicitly transdisciplinary and that has been shaped by a variety of the-oretical inputs from a variety of traditions, from sociology and development tosocial movement studies. The leveraging of communication, information, andthe media in social change is the basis for a global industry that is supportedby governments, development aid agencies, foundations, and international andlocal NGOs. It is also the basis for multiple interventions at grassroots levels,with participatory communication processes and community media making adifference through raising awareness, mobilizing communities, strengtheningempowerment, and contributing to local change.

This series on Communication for Social Change intentionally provides thespace for critical writings in CSC theory, practice, policy, strategy, and methods.It fills a gap in the field by exploring new thinking, institutional critiques, andinnovative methods. It offers the opportunity for scholars and practitioners toengage with CSC as both an industry and as a local practice, shaped by politicaleconomy as much as by local cultural needs. The series explicitly intends to high-light, critique, and explore the gaps between ideological promise, institutionalperformance, and realities of practice.

Titles include:

Tina Askanius and Liv Stubbe Østergaard (editors)RECLAIMING THE PUBLIC SPHERECommunication, Power and Social Change

Levi ObijioforNEW TECHNOLOGIES IN DEVELOPING SOCIETIESFrom Theory to Practice

Pradip Thomas and Elske van de FliertINTERROGATING THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COMMUNICATION ANDSOCIAL CHANGEThe Basis for a Renewal

Page 3: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Sonja VivienneDIGITAL IDENTITY AND EVERYDAY ACTIVISMSharing Private Stories with Networked Publics

Zala Volcic and Mark AndrejevicCOMMERCIAL NATIONALISMSelling the Nation and Nationalizing the Sell

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social ChangeSeries Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback)(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing astanding order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write tous at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series andthe ISBN quoted above.

Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills,Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Page 4: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Commercial NationalismSelling the Nation and Nationalizingthe Sell

Edited by

Zala VolcicPomona College, USA

and

Mark AndrejevicPomona College, USA

Page 5: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Selection, introduction, and editorial matter © Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 2016Individual chapters © Respective authors 2016

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmittedsave with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licencepermitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publicationmay be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this workin accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2016 byPALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companiesand has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fullymanaged and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturingprocesses are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of thecountry of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataCommercial nationalism : selling the nation and nationalizing the

sell / edited by Zala Volcic, Mark Andrejevic.pages cm.— (Palgrave studies in communication for social change)

Summary: “One of the crucial sites of contestation in current approaches tocommunication for social change is the status of the national identity in an eracharacterized by the tensions between the globalization of capitalism and myriadresurgent nationalisms. Commercial Nationalism intervenes in discussions of thefate of nationalism and national identity by exploring the relationship between stateappropriation of marketing and branding strategies on the one hand, and, onthe other, the commercial mobilization of nationalist discourses. The book’s uniquecontribution is to consider an emerging formation characterized by the followingcomplementary (and related) developments: the ways in which states comeincreasingly to rely on commercial techniques for self-promotion, diplomacy, andinternal national mobilization, and also the ways in which new and legacy forms ofcommercial media rely on the mobilization emerging configurations of nationalismfor the purpose! of selling, gaining ratings, and otherwise profiting. We see thisformation as a unique reconfiguration of the formation of nationalism associatedwith the contemporary context. Often these processes are approached separately:what is the economic role of nationalism and how do media participatein the formation of national identity?”— Provided by publisher.1. Nationalism. 2. National characteristics. 3. Communication in politics.4. Branding (Marketing) I. Volcic, Zala, editor. II. Andrejevic, Mark,1964– editor.JC311.C629 2015320.54—dc23 2015023256

ISBN 978-1-349-55651-9 ISBN 978-1-137-50099-1 (eBook)

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-50098-4

DOI 10.1057/9781137500991

Page 6: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Contents

List of Figures vii

Notes on Contributors viii

1 Introduction 1Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic

2 Setting the Scene for Commercial Nationalism: TheNation, the Market, and the Media 14Graeme Turner

3 The Apologetic Brand: Building Australia’s Brand on aPostcolonial Apology 27Nicholas Carah and P. Eric Louw

4 Colombia Was Passion: Commercial Nationalism and theReinvention of Colombianness 46Juan Sanín

5 Rethinking Commercial Nationalism: The ‘ChineseDream’ in Neoliberal Globalization 65Fan Yang

6 Personal Wealth, National Pride: Vietnamese Televisionand Commercial Nationalism 86Giang Nguyen-Thu

7 Nation for Sale? Citizen Online Debates and the ‘NewPatriotism’ in Post-Socialist Poland 106Magdalena Kania-Lundholm

8 Borderless Nationalism: Italy’s RAI Transnational Brand 131Michela Ardizzoni

9 South African Nation Branding and the World Cup:Promoting Nationalism, Nation Branding, and the MiracleNation Discourse 147P. Eric Louw

v

Page 7: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

vi Contents

10 Commercial Nationalism and the Affective News Network 162Mark Andrejevic

11 Nation Branding and Commercial Nationalism: Notes fora Materialist Critique 175Nadia Kaneva

Index 194

Page 8: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Figures

5.1 Chinese Dream posters in Shenzhen, January 2014 80

vii

Page 9: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Contributors

Editors

Mark Andrejevic is the author of several books, including Reality TV:The Work of Being Watched (2004); iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Inter-active Era (2007); and Infoglut: How Too Much Information Is Changing theWay We Think and Know (2014), that explore the social, cultural, and the-oretical implications of data mining and predictive analytics. His currentwork explores the logic of automated surveillance, sensing, and responseassociated with drones.

Zala Volcic’s research has focused on a critical cultural studies-basedapproach to popular media. She has published numerous books, includ-ing Serbian Spaces of Identity (2009), and the co-authored CrossingCultural Boundaries (with Shuang Liu and Cindy Gallois, 2011/2014).

Contributors

Michela Ardizzoni is an assistant professor at the University ofColorado, Boulder. She holds her PhD in Media Studies from IndianaUniversity-Bloomington. Her research focuses on global media, con-nected media practices, and media activism. Her study of Italiantelevision North/South, East/West: Mapping Italiannes on Television waspublished in 2007. She is also the co-editor of Beyond Monopoly:Globalization and Contemporary Italian Media (2010). Her research hasalso appeared in several media journals, such as Journalism, Jump Cut,Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of Italian Cinema, and MediaStudies, International Journal of Communication. She is currently work-ing on a manuscript titled Disruptive Spaces: Global Practices of MatrixActivism, which examines contemporary practices of media activism andthe dichotomy between alternative and mainstream, consumption andproduction, centers and margins.

Nicholas Carah is a lecturer in the School of Communication andArts at the University of Queensland. His research examines branding,popular culture, and media technologies.

viii

Page 10: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Notes on Contributors ix

Nadia Kaneva is an associate professor in the Department of Media,Film & Journalism Studies at the University of Denver. Her researchdraws on critical theories of communication and culture to explore theconstruction of national and gendered identities in the age of globalcommercialism. She is the editor of Branding Post-Communist Nations:Marketizing National Identities in the New Europe (2011), co-editor ofFundamentalisms and the Media (2009), and author of multiple schol-arly articles and book chapters. She was the guest editor for a specialjournal issue titled ‘Mediating Post-Socialist Femininities,’ for FeministMedia Studies (2015).

Magdalena Kania-Lundholm is a researcher at the Department ofSociology and Department of Informatics and Media at the UppsalaUniversity, Sweden. She specializes in sociology of media and com-munication, particularly cultural practices in digital settings. Her PhDdissertation, ‘Re-branding a Nation Online: Discourses on Polish Nation-alism and Patriotism,’ is published by the Uppsala University. Thedissertation points out the importance of citizens in the process of nego-tiating and constructing of national identity and a new nation brandin an online post-socialist context. Her current research focuses onthe Internet (non)usage by older people and citizens’ attitudes towarddifferent forms of surveillance.

P. Eric Louw is an associate professor at the University of Queensland,previously worked for a number of South African universities, and rana Non-Government Organization engaged in development work. Hisbooks include The Roots of the Pax Americana; New Voices Over the Air:The Transformation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation; The Rise,Fall and Legacy of Apartheid; and The Media and Political Process. He is aresearch fellow at the University of South Africa.

Juan Sanín is an industrial designer with graduate studies in Aesthetics(MA) and Cultural Studies (PhD). His research draws on theoretical andmethodological frameworks from design, media, and cultural studies toexamine the construction of cultural artifacts such as ‘home,’ ‘nation,’and ‘sustainability’ in consumer culture. He has conducted extensiveresearch on manifestations of commercial nationalism in Colombia andAustralia.

Giang Nguyen-Thu is a PhD candidate at the School of English, MediaStudies and Art History, University of Queensland, and a lecturer,

Page 11: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

x Notes on Contributors

Faculty of Journalism and Communication, University of Social Sciencesand Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

Graeme Turner is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies in the Centrefor Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. Hismost recent books include (with Anna Cristina Pertierra) Locating Tele-vision: Zones of Consumption (2013) and a revised second edition ofUnderstanding Celebrity (2014).

Fan Yang is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Com-munication Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County(UMBC). Her work has appeared in New Media & Society, Theory, Culture& Society, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, positions: Asia critique (forth-coming), antiTHESIS, Flow TV, and Public. Her first book, Faked in China:Nation Branding, Counterfeit Culture, and Globalization (forthcoming),analyzes globalization’s contradictory cultural impact on the Chinesenation state in the first decade of the twenty-first century. She is also atwork on a new project, tentatively titled Chimerica: A Transnational Cul-tural Production, which examines the imaginary amalgamation of Chinaand America in a proliferating number of transnational media artifacts.

Page 12: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

1IntroductionZala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic

As recent history suggests, developments typically associated with theterm ‘globalization’ go hand in hand with assertive and resurgentnationalisms – both enhancing and reconfiguring national identities.We might include in this category of globalization attributes the follow-ing: emerging forms of economic interdependence, the more widespreadglobal circulation of news, information, and mediated forms of cultureassociated with digital media technologies, enhanced forms of physicalmobility for leisure travelers and some categories of labor. In the era ofmass customization and the rise of identity politics, it should not besurprising that nationalism is an important aspect of current forms ofglobalization. We are very familiar with the notion that the assertion ofunique identity markers has become a mass phenomenon – and a strat-egy for addressing the economization of social relations at the nationaland individual level. Without placing too much weight on the homol-ogy, we might note the similarity between self-branding and nationbranding: the recognition that, in the global economic context, the abil-ity to channel and capture attention is a crucial one. The displacementof ‘trust relations’ by rationalization and bureaucratization described byJames Carey (1983) as symptomatic of the rise of electronic commu-nication is followed rapidly by the rise of ersatz personalization andindividuation. Facebook and Twitter provide us with interactive trainingin the art of the ‘parasocial’ (Levy, 1979). The triumph of the parasocial(including relations to brands themselves) coincides with the person-alization of bureaucratization – the displacement of the impersonalfunctioning of the bureaucratic machine, and the forms of objectivityand neutrality to which it laid claim, by the mobilization and modula-tion of affect. Walter Cronkite gives way to the rise of cable TV’s 24-houraffective news network.

1

Page 13: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

2 Introduction

One of the main registers in which the expression of nationalism isreconfigured for the current version of globalization is, unsurprisingly,the commercial one. We can approach this observation from severaldirections: a consideration of the way, for example, that in many partsof the world current and former state media organizations are embracingthe logic of commerce and finding ways to blend it with the mobi-lization and exploitation of nationalist sentiment. Nationalism sells, asRupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (among others) has discovered.Indeed, nationalism is perhaps the ur-form of the brand – a meansof channeling affective sentiment around a floating signifier. At thesame time, state sanctioned forms of nationalism in the era of the‘enterprise state’ piggyback on commercial entities and strategies. TheUnited States Department of Homeland Security, for example, uses abrand tie-in with a Disney movie (Big Hero 6) to promote its national‘readiness campaign,’ which enlists the populace to help secure thenation in the face of potential threat. It is the conjunction of thesetwo tendencies that we mean to highlight with the notion of com-mercial nationalism: the use of nationalism to sell (or gain ratings)and the use of commercial strategies by public sector entities to fosternationalism and national agendas. The notion of commercial nation-alism does not assume that either of these developments are, on theirown, novel; rather, it is meant to designate the new constellation ofinter-relations they designate, one that takes on different shapes in dif-ferent regional contexts, while simultaneously responding to economicand cultural shifts related to international capitalism. In parts of Europe,for example, the rise of commercial nationalism in the media is a func-tion of post-communist market reforms combined with the emergenceof post-Cold War nations. Fostering national identity becomes, in part,a commercial project, both for the promotion of local industries and forthe establishment of commercial broadcasters. In China, the success ofcommercial media remains closely articulated to state interests and pri-orities, leading to a unique formation of commercial nationalism. Withthe notion of commercial nationalism, then, we mean to designate amodel for interrogating contemporary media relations by consideringhow commercial and nationalist priorities remain both intertwined andin tension with one another. Our wager is that this is a fruitful angleof approach for exploring the social function of the media in shapingforms of competition – both commercial and national – in the era ofglobal capitalism.

As an approach, commercial nationalism continues in the tradition ofbringing together political economic approaches with the theorization

Page 14: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 3

of nationalism and national identity. Nationalism has been explainedin terms of ethnic identity (Smith, 1991; 2008a; 2008b), waves ofindustrialization (Gellner, 1983), print capitalism (Anderson, 1983), orculture, identity, and discourse (Calhoun, 1997). Specifically, crucialworks on nationalism and national identity have related the originsof the nation to industrialization and modernization (Gellner, 1983;Hobsbawm, 1992; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983; Smith, 1991), but theyhave not fully recognized the importance of markets, commerce, andconsumption in the process of nation-building. These works have beencriticized in particular for overlooking popular culture and everyday lifeas important dimensions of nationalism (more in Mihelj, 2011). Fur-thermore, in the field of ‘everyday, and ordinary nationhood,’ althoughscholars have acknowledged the significance of consumer culture inthe reproduction of nations (Billig, 1995; Caldwell, 2002), we connectthe banalization of nationalism with the nationalization of commercialculture. The work of Robert Foster is exemplary in this regard – he ana-lyzes different national contexts (from Australia to Papua New Guinea)with an emphasis on the consumption of commodities as part of spe-cific national ways of life (Foster, 1995, 1999). We seek to push thisanalysis further with a contemporary exploration of the deliberate mobi-lization of nationalism by commercial media alongside the embrace ofcommercial techniques by state institutions and actors.

Such an approach has links to Billig’s notion of ‘banal nationalism,’but with an emphasis on the registers of commerce, marketing, and con-sumption – and on the appropriation and mobilization of commercialstrategies, consultants, and institutions by the state actors. This empha-sis, in turn, considers the ways in which marketing has become a defaultparadigm for governance via the canalization of sentiment. Thanks toprocesses of economic and cultural globalization, the state’s politicallegitimacy to control a territory, to exert power over its inhabitants,and to insure obedience from them has been reconfigured to adjust tothe rise of global capital. In the period of global neo-liberalism, thepolitical shifts toward the commercial where both the state and themarket become reference points for national identification (Volcic &Andrejevic, 2011). The economic and political interconnectedness ofcontemporary nation states against the backgrounds of economic glob-alization has fostered an altered and fragmented notion of the state asan entity that is undergoing fundamental structural changes.

In many parts of the world, globalization is combined with the emer-gence of neo-liberal political and economic transformations that ‘mar-ketize’ state forms of governance and transpose nationalist ideological

Page 15: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

4 Introduction

formations into a commercial register. This creates a particular situ-ation – one in which nationalism entails corporate thinking (in theera of ‘the enterprise state’) (Plant, 2010) and combines patriotic emo-tional ideas with marketing goals, integrating commercial and nationalappeals. By the same token transnational media corporations (whichhave shed their own national identities) have simultaneously fannedthe flames of resurgent forms of nationalism for commercial purposes.

This book’s unique contribution is to consider an emerging formationcharacterized by the following complementary (and related) develop-ments: the ways in which states come increasingly to rely on commercialtechniques for self-promotion, diplomacy, and internal national mobi-lization on the one hand and, on the other, the ways in which new,emerging, and legacy forms of commercial media rely on the mobi-lization of nationalism for the purpose of selling, ratings, and profit.We see this formation as a unique reconfiguration of the formation ofnationalism associated with the contemporary context. Often these pro-cesses are approached separately by considering either the economicrole of nationalism or, on the other, the media’s participation in theformation of national identity. This book’s contribution is to suggestthat the way in which the state conceptualizes and mobilizes con-ceptions of national identity in the current conjuncture needs to bethought alongside the ways in which commercial entities piggyback onand exploit conceptions of national identity for commercial ends – aswell as the ongoing relationship between commercial media and thestate. We think it is important to consider these developments togetherbecause of the emerging logic of national identity associated with themyriad ways in which nations are offloading processes of civic mobi-lization and international relations on to the private sector and becauseof the rapidly transforming media environment associated with theemergence of transnational media conglomerates in the digital era. Thenotion of commercial nationalism takes developments in the realm ofstate policy and commercial strategy as complementing one another inthe ways in which they displace citizenship with consumerism. Alsoimportant in this regard is the rise of newly or recently privatized mediasectors in a wide range of nations (thanks to the decline of state and pub-lic service media and their ‘national’ function) and emerging contextsof media ‘glut’ (the multiplication of outlets, channels, platforms, anddevices – and the ways in which these mobilize nationalism as a meansof gaining market share). These processes are complex, nuanced, andlocalized, which is why the book takes a case study approach that looksat several different regions of the world, each characterized by a unique

Page 16: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 5

constellation of relationships between the state and commercial mediaoutlets. We propose the notion of ‘commercial nationalism’ as a meansof thinking through these developments in their relevant contexts.In this regard, the contributions seek to place together an exploration ofthe impact on nationalism and national identity of changing pressuresand circumstances facing nation states and the pressures and prioritiesfaced by commercial media outlets.

Clearly, the contexts in which commercial media in China makenationalist appeals are quite different from those in which Fox News inthe United States does so – and yet there is a shared set of shifting log-ics that allow these quite disparate case studies to inform one another.Something similar can be said of the ways in which nation states seek tomobilize nationalist identity using marketing-based tactics – both inter-nally and externally. This has been picked up by the literature on nationbranding, which we see as fitting within the larger umbrella of commer-cial nationalism. So, to be clear, this book is not envisioned as an exten-sion or variation on the literature on ‘nation branding,’ despite the factthat many of the authors here write and think about nation branding inspecific national contexts as a layer of commercial nationalism. Rather,we envision it as helping to explain (among other things) the contextin which nation branding comes to seem (to some) an important wayof building a sense of national identity and a tool for internationalrelations and tourism by relying on commercial techniques and out-sourcing the formation of civic identity and responsibility to marketingsubcontractors. Nation branding is one of the phenomena that emergewhen states start to think of themselves through the lens of the nationas corporations or ‘enterprise states’ (Plant, 2010).

The selection of chapters included in the volume serves as a fruit-ful starting point for exploring the specificities of the relationshipbetween state mobilization of the commercial and commercial mobi-lization of nationalism. The selection is meant to be productive ratherthan exhaustive: it represents a diversity of regions and contexts (andtheir associated uniqueness and complexity), but by no stretch of theimagination can it cover the entire range of contemporary permutationsof commercial nationalism. It is therefore meant to be an incitementto further research and theory development. We hope that the notionof commercial nationalism might prove fruitful for considering theemerging formations of nationalism and their uptake by commercialmedia.

We start from the premise that no historical formation is entirely‘new’ – and, by the same token, that every historical conjuncture is

Page 17: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

6 Introduction

also unique (not an identical copy of what came before). Thus, wewant to acknowledge elements of continuity with historical processesof national identity formation and commercialism. Ever since the birthof the nation state, commercial and economic concerns have had animportant role to play. However, as the world economy develops along-side media technologies and practices, and as political regimes andrelations transform, the historical context develops into new and uniqueconfigurations. We take this for granted: that when we say ‘new’ wemean in it in this sense, and not in the absurd sense of ‘without anyhistorical continuities or connections.’

The notion of commercial nationalism helps us to understand notonly, for example, the processes of nation branding associated withforeign-investments and tourism (marketing to other nationalities) butalso the marketing of nationalism to domestic audiences. Citizens areaddressed not simply as consumers; rather, they are positioned and pro-duced as nationalist(ic) consumers. They are socialized in new formsof national belonging that rely upon the dynamic of consumption:national belonging is not just the locus of a particular form of imagi-nary identification, but of reiterated practices of consumption. In thisregard, commercial nationalism is about transforming consumers intoparticular kinds of national subjects. In the commercial sector, eventhough there is a strong ideological agenda underlying the construc-tions used, it is also true that the primary goal is selling. While formsof nationalist appeal have long played a role in marketing campaigns,this participation now takes place against the background of the stateembrace of marketing and branding as a strategy for international rela-tions, self-promotion, and ‘soft power.’ Consider, for example, ‘There’snothing like Australia,’ a nation-branding campaign developed througha ‘crowd-sourcing’ initiative that encouraged citizens to share photosof their holidays in Australia via social media networks, claiming toempower them in the construction of a more democratic and authenticimage of their country. It is the conjunction of these developments (thestate’s self-identification as a brand with the commercial mobilizationof nationalist appeals) and their relationship to one another in the eraof global capitalism and neoliberalization that is unique and in need ofinterrogation.

The model of commercial nationalism fits neatly with the participa-tory promise of the interactive era – and it echoes its logic: the invitationto participate not just in marketing to oneself, but in ‘propagandizing’oneself. The logic of the market reinforces the mobilization of national-ism not as a top-down imposition but as the reflection of the aggregated

Page 18: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 7

desires of individual consumers. In this regard, we might think of com-mercial nationalism as a ‘neoliberal’ form of ideological identification: akind of propagandizing ‘at a distance.’

The chapters that follow all engage with the notion of commer-cial nationalism and offer specific examples of its manifestations inAustralia, Italy, Poland, Colombia, South Africa, the USA, Vietnam, andChina. Some scholars who draw on the critical literature on nationbranding (Louw, Kaneva, Carah, this volume) reveal how countries’self-promotional efforts offer useful case studies for tracing the reartic-ulation of national interests and identities in commercial terms. Theauthors argue that all forms of nationalism mobilize people and work totransform them into national subjects in order to advance specific polit-ical, economic and cultural interests. The following section providesan introduction to the main themes of the contributions in order toprovide a road map of the topics engaged by the volume’s contributors.

Chapter themes

Graeme Turner’s opening chapter sets the scene for an understandingof commercial nationalism internationally and comparatively. He pro-vides a useful overview of the changes in ‘structures and functions’that contribute to the ‘instrumental deployment of the discourses ofnationalism’ with both commercial and political consequences. Whatis new about this deployment, he suggests, ‘is what we might describeas the political agnosticism (or perhaps, more pointedly, the politicalopportunism) of so much commercial nationalism.’ In this regard he isinterested in the ways in which the commercialization of nationalismin mediated contexts unmoors it from particular state commitments –and the forms of accountability with which these were once associated.

In their chapter, Carah and Louw focus on Australia, where one formof commercial nationalism exploits synergies between public and pri-vate interests, such as when Australia Day is sponsored by the companythat makes Vegemite (which is now owned by a US conglomerate).On Australia Day, Australians are invited to go online and becomeco-creative consumers by media giant Fairfax Media, which organizedan ‘iPhoneography Challenge’ during which mobile users were invitedto share iPhone pictures showing what being an Australian, means tothem on that day. Carah and Louw look beyond traditional modelsof nation construction, and pay attention to commercialized forms ofnationalism in everyday life, where nationalism and consumer cultureintersect. They argue, for example, that Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia

Page 19: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

8 Introduction

(2008) is an example of how commercial films form part of the nation-branding industry. While exploring how Luhrmann and the Australiangovernment turned a postcolonial apology narrative into a message thatpromoted Australia as a tourism destination, they examine how theapology is deployed in Australia’s efforts to brand and position itselfwithin the global tourism industry. In particular, they look at howthe political act of apology (to the country’s indigenous peoples) hasbeen used as a device in commercial and state-subsidized popular cul-ture and nation branding. Through focusing on the film and touristicnation-branding efforts (Luhrman’s Come Walkabout advertisements),they show how ‘the commercial nation-state not only appropriates theidentities of indigenous people for commercial and political gain butalso turns its own apology to indigenous people into a commerciallyvaluable claim.’

In his chapter on commercial nationalism in Columbia, Juan Saninlooks at how nation-making has been transformed into a promotionalactivity. He explore the double logic of commercial nationalism: onthe one hand, commercial organizations incorporate nationalism intheir promotional activities, and on the other, governments implementmarketing to advance their nationalistic projects. He focuses on the‘Colombia is Passion’ branding campaign, while analyzing the brandingstrategies it implemented to create a new sense of Colombianness thatwas successfully ‘sold’ to citizens through market and media products.Interested in revealing some of the internal effects of nation brandingin the commercial construction of Colombianness, Sanin analyses ‘thejoint work of the government, corporations and brand consultantsin the creation of a new symbol for representing a new sense ofColombianness.’ The success achieved by ‘Colombia is Passion‘ withinthe country, he writes, has to do with the main target of its strategy,focused not only on international publics but especially on local citi-zens. Since it was launched in 2005 by Alvaro Uribe’s government andunder the direction of his wife Lina Moreno de Uribe, the brand hasimplemented a series of local campaigns designed to change the internalperception of the country, recover confidence in national institutions,promote a sense of collective identity (in spite of ethnic and culturaldifferences) and mobilize patriotic feelings to affect shopping decisionsin favor of products displaying the ‘Colombia is Passion’ logo. Duringthe years it operated, the brand became tacitly associated with Uribe’spopular and populist presidential periods (2002–2006 and 2006–2010)and with a series of acclaimed achievements resulting from his contro-versial policies. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from nationalism

Page 20: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 9

and promotional culture, this chapter explores the story of ‘Colombia isPassion’ to discover how the branding strategies it implemented createda new sense of Colombianness that was ‘sold’ to Colombian citizensthrough commercial and media products.

Although the implications and effects that nation-branding cam-paigns have within local populations are clearly identified by marketingscholars and strategically managed by branding consultants, this per-spective remains understudied in critical approaches. The study of thedomestic effects of nation-branding campaigns, Sanin suggests, offersa useful approach for understanding some of the effects of commer-cial nationalism in (a) the nation-building processes, (b) the creationof national imageries, and (c) the reproduction of national identities.

Fan Yang explores the emerging commercial environment in China,where the decline of state subsidies for broadcasting is conjoined with‘the reorientation of consumer–citizenship in nationalistic terms as wellas the transformation of the state itself into an enterprise and a marketerof nationalism.’ She focuses on the discourse of the Chinese dream thatshe suggests is about the nation’s future and that has been translated incomplex ways into contemporary media culture so as to present compet-ing ways of ‘being Chinese.’ She analyzes a range of ‘Dream-themed’ cul-tural productions in contemporary China, including China’s presidentXi Jinping’s official ‘announcement’ of the ‘Chinese Dream’; a commer-cially successful 2013 film, Chinese Partners (Zhongguo Hehuoren); a seriesof public service ads titled ‘Chinese Dream, My Dream’ (Zhongguo Meng,Wode Meng) that draw on local and regional folk traditions and are dis-played in multi-media platforms as well as urban public spaces; and asong called ‘My Requirement Is Not That High,’ performed by the pop-ular film star Huang Bo in the 2014 Spring Festival Gala aired on ChinaCentral Television (CCTV). Fan Yang explores how these texts help tocreate three overlapping and yet distinct forms of citizen-subjectivity:the nationalist entrepreneur, the participatory cultural citizen, and the(state-defiant) middle-class consumer. What is of particular interest hereis how the organizations responsible for making the media artifacts –the China Film Group, the Civility Office, and CCTV – are state entitiesthat have been commercialized and/or adopted marketing and advertis-ing principles in their operation. Her research shows how the blendingof the commercial and the national is fraught with contradictions: thestate and its commercialized media alike seek to negotiate their positionsin response to global forces often not of their own choosing. She writesthat ‘While many of these conditions, such as the globally hegemonicinfluence of the “American Dream,” are perhaps not unique to China,

Page 21: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

10 Introduction

the Chinese experience may present a few useful lessons, both for deep-ening our critique of neoliberal globalization and for sharpening theanalytical edge of commercial nationalism.’

Giang Nguyen-Thu’s chapter focuses on Vietnam, and explores howa nation once framed by proletarian revolution has been reframed andrebranded as a symbol of capitalist success. First, she creates a histori-cal framework for an understanding of the reuse of existing nationalistvalues to legitimate neoliberal self-freedom, which proves to be a pro-ductive strategy. She explores the rise of commercial nationalism inVietnam through the analysis of the television program Contempo-raries, demonstrating how the nation was portrayed as ‘a community ofself-mastering individuals’ in ways that depoliticized nationalism andnational identity. The chapter considers the ways in which commer-cial nationalism works outwardly to promote local distinctiveness whilesimultaneously turning inward to optimize the productivity and con-sumption of domestic populations by reframing national citizens intoentrepreneurs or consumers. In Contemporaries, she argues, the inwardlogic is prominent, ‘as this show mainly targeted the domestic audienceto enhance their capacity of self-enterprising.’ She analyzes the waysin which so-called self-empowering ‘narratives of “never giving up,”“investing in yourself,” “thinking big,” “being your own boss,” “learn-ing from your mistakes,” and “transforming your destiny” were system-atically juxtaposed with nationalist terms such as “Viet brands,” “Vietquality,” “Viet dream,” “Viet values,”’ while Vietnam was portrayed as acompetitive enterprise in a context of global competition.

In her chapter Magdalena Kania-Lundholm explores the ‘new patri-otism’ in Poland. She examines the ways in which commercial logicshapes the portrayal of nationhood in the nation’s post-socialist context.She also explores how citizens appropriate and reformulate nationhood,and how cultural meanings about nation and national identity are pro-duced to suit the global imperative of nation branding and its logic. Shebases the chapter on a qualitative analysis of materials collected fromonline forum discussions and citizenship journalism websites, since thediscoursive negotiation of nationhood online can also be perceived asa practice of nation rebranding. While analyzing online comments andarticles, she focuses on the perceived need to ‘introduce the new formof patriotism that would be suitable to the contemporary post-socialistcontext.’ She makes a careful distinction between nation branding andcommercial nationalism in the Polish context: commercial national-ism not only takes place as a top-down process through establishedmarketing agencies and experts, but also through the rearticulation

Page 22: Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change...Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–36166–0 (hardback) (outside North

Zala Volcic and Mark Andrejevic 11

of nationhood by citizens who appropriate and construct a sense ofnationhood.

Michela Ardizzoni’s contribution discusses the branding strategies ofRAI International, the Italian public broadcaster’s channel for viewersoutside Italy. She examines the ways in which Italianness is sold in theform of foods, music, and holiday experiences to domestic and inter-national consumers. To provide context, she also analyzes RAI Inter-national’s framing of national identity, which, she argues, is centeredaround essentialized, stereotypical attributes. Her main research ques-tion is: ‘why does the Italian government (as RAI’s overseeing body)promote its language and culture through commercialized shows andformulaic repetitions of identity?’ Ardizzoni carefully examines howItalian public service television has branded itself as commercial andnational(istic) in order to appeal to diasporic communities in ways that‘reconnect’ them to their country of origin. She shows how RAI Inter-national has resorted to the commercial nationalization of televisionin the neoliberal era. She demonstrates this process through a histori-cal analysis of the production RAI’s production of ‘commercially drivengame shows, dance-ridden variety shows, hours-long sports programs,and sensationalistic talk shows.’ During the Berlusconi years, she arguesthat RAI was transformed from being the public service network in Italyto becoming a brand – one of the many brands that were used (amongother things) to promote Italian culture and economy abroad. RAI Inter-national’s current and past programs tend to reinforce the stereotypicalversions of Italian culture that mainly deal with music, soccer, food, andCatholicism. She writes how ‘commercial nationalism was conceivedas an undisputed tactic to promote the changing role of public servicebroadcasting in Italy and abroad. Positioned between its civic-orientedmission and the impending demands of an increasingly commercializedmarket, RAI has sought to straddle the ostensibly incompatible goalsthat public service broadcasters have had to face in recent decades.’

Writing about South Africa, P. Eric Louw examines nation brandingstrategies and commercial forms of nationalism that have played animportant role in the construction of South African identities. He exam-ines how the FIFA soccer World Cup was used to promote and exploita commercialized sense of national identity. He also analyzes SouthAfrican communication campaigns that were run to target differentaudiences – inside and outside South Africa. He gives a historic overviewof the creation of the Brand SA that promoted ‘an image of SouthAfrica being in the forefront of building a new kind of Africa (Mbeki’sAfrican Renaissance) and focusing on positive images of South Africans