The Media and the Construction of an `Imagined Community'

Abstract

This article is part of a wider research into the role of Greek television in the articulation of national identity. Its aim is to examine and illuminate ways in which broadcast television, and in particular Greek broadcast television, constructs an `imagined community' (Anderson, 1983). Firstly, it offers a discussion of the BBC's portrayal of the British Royal Family in a consciously orchestrated attempt to build up national unity. Secondly, this is compared and contrasted to the appropriateness and ability of the royal institution to become a forger of national identity in Greece. Finally, the individual case studies are discussed as alternative markers of nation-building: the big military (and student) annual parade in Athens on 25 March (together with another in Thessalonica on 28 October and bearing equally significant connotations) along with the mass that precedes it, broadcast on state television, and Melina Mercouri's funeral, broadcast on state television and on major private channels.