Imagining an emotional nation: the print media and Anzac Day commemorations in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

This article explores affect, discourse and emotion in national life. Drawing on recent thinking on discourse and affect, alongside previous work on nation and communities of practice, we focus on the print media’s use of Anzac Day in Aotearoa New Zealand, as a site through which settler identity and cultural hegemony are reproduced. One hegemonic interpretive repertoire is observed throughout, that Anzac Day is a sacred day of respectful remembrance. Within this frame, a series of associated affective-discursive positions are deployed covering issues that range from inclusion and exclusion, to conformity and dissent. We argue that this repertoire and its associated positions constitute citizens engaging with the day as a homogeneous group of national subjects, bound together as a particular kind of affected community. This imagined community and the affective practices attributed to it, however, largely ignore the bicultural makeup of Aotearoa New Zealand, narrowing down the diverse range of potential emotional positions to a just a few. Popular journalism fails readers and limits debate though its thin portrayals of community, legitimate affect and engaged citizenship. National life is impoverished when print media lack the cultural competence necessary to effectively engage in broader debates and political discourse.