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Digital nationalism: understanding the role of digital media in the rise of ‘new’ nationalism

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journal contribution
posted on 2021-01-12, 10:01 authored by Sabina MiheljSabina Mihelj, César Jiménez-Martínez
While digital technologies were initially seen as harbingers of globalisation and cosmopolitanism, scholars increasingly acknowledge their role in the rise of nationalism and right-wing populism. Yet, this surge of interest leaves at least two important questions unanswered. Where was nationalism before its apparent resurgence? Are contemporary forms of nationalism different from their predecessors, and can these changes be linked to digital technologies? To answer these questions, we argue for the importance of understanding the less visible ways in which digital technologies reproduce our sense of belonging to a world of nations. We discuss three such mechanisms: the architecture of internet domains, the bias of algorithms, and the formation of national digital ecosystems. Next, we examine three characteristics of contemporary nationalism that can be partly linked to recent shifts in the global communication ecology: diversification, fragmentation and commodification. We conclude by considering the implications of our arguments for future research in the field.

Funding

Communicating the Nation in Troubled Times: From the Brazilian June Journeys to Post-Brexit Britain

Economic and Social Research Council

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History

School

  • Social Sciences and Humanities

Department

  • Communication and Media

Published in

Nations and Nationalism

Volume

27

Issue

2

Pages

331 - 346

Publisher

Wiley

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The authors

Publisher statement

This is an open access article. It is published by Wiley under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2020-01-20

Publication date

2020-12-30

Copyright date

2020

ISSN

1354-5078

eISSN

1469-8129

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Sabina Mihelj. Deposit date: 15 July 2020

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