Page 36 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.74, # 1, 2017, pp. 34-47

developed and strong sense of national identity has the power to be a productive and
enabling force within the society, providing positive social capital, with benefits
such as improved cooperation with others, improved information flows and more
effective, better functioning government and other democratic institutions‖
[Aldridge, Stephen (2002)]. National identity is not a trait with which people are
born; rather, experiences from the common lives of people that build their identity.
In the recent political philosophy, the concept of national identity has been used with
increasing frequency, especially by the philosophers arguing for legitimacy of a
principle of political self-determination [Omar Dahbour National Identity: An
Argument for the Strict Definition Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Jan.,
2002), 17-37]. ―National identity is a creditable form of identification. National
identities are essential for maintaining self-respect, belonging, a sense of security
and giving people meaning in their lives‖ [Nielsen, Kai, "Cultural Nationalism,
Neither Ethnic nor Civic," in Theorizing Nationalism, Ronald Beiner, Ed. Albany,
NY: SUNY Press, (1999) 119–30].
A nation on the other hand is a determinate thing. It is not defined by social
facts (e.g., kinship) but by the beliefs about what those facts are (i.e., convictions
about kinship ties). It is necessarily an ethnically self-defined and politically self-
conscious group, which is usually influenced by the factors of language, national
colors, symbols, history of nation, blood connections, culture, cuisine and music etc.
Conceptualizing National Identity Through Use of Media. Marketing and
branding combine the scientific clarity of thought and rigorous observation of
human psychology, culture and society with the most elusive factor of creativity. In
fact, these two activities bring commerce and culture together, as a potent force for
creating prosperity. Many researchers of cultural studies, mass communication and
journalism (Askew and Wilk 2002; Frosh 2007; Millard et al. 2002;) have conducted
researches and drawn conclusions that the media has been successful in constituting
nations and is a powerful tool in building and bringing communities together. The
imagined community concept recognizes the ―nationally unifying power of
communication technologies, particularly the print media, which allow
geographically dispersed people to feel part of a single, united group. The media
provides the means for circulating the stories those nations tell about themselves,
and that distinguish one nation from another‖ [Anderson, Benedict 1983]. Many
researchers believe that the advertising produces nationalism and informs the
process of conceptualizing a nation. Cultural studies scholars have also considered
the nation, with particular emphasis on television as a site of popular knowledge and
the leading resource for identity projects. However, there exist doubts as to whether
television can continue to be the unifier of the nation given the globalizing

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