Michael Billig Banal Nationalism Analysis

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Poli10, Megan Thomas Max, Thursday 6:00-7:10pm #3 Small Words, Vast Implications Small Words, Vast Implications Michael Billig’s book Banal Nationalism brings to light something we encountered every day, which eludes our consciousness, bypasses our filters, and without us even knowing, succeeds in morphing our very perception of what is real in the external world. This is done through homemaking language I employed in my first sentence; idioms such as “the”, “us” and “our” are but a few of the deixis words used to illustrate the concept known as banal nationalism. Deixis words are “articles in English which banally points out ‘the’ homeland” (Billig 94). Billig states that banal nationalism is present in our everyday lives with newspapers…show more content…
Directly underneath the “Nation Edition” and price of the paper is an article indicating the only time United States (unabbreviated) is directly mentioned, though inferred in the title by initials as the editor. Under the assumes everyone is aware that U.S. stands for United States, this is put another piece of evidence to add to the growing list. Flagging of the homeland seems almost explicit with reference to the U.S. and is found in every one of the five viewable paragraphs, using wordage such as (and in order of appearance) “the United States”, “the country’s history”, “a nation’s...”, “the country’s economy”, “the country is evolving”. Other in-article examples include mention of “the Census Bureau” and “the Oval Office” offering a plethora of information to the reader as to be certain they understand the article, and subsequently, the newspaper’s perspective in propagating the imagined community. Of the seven articles presented on the front page (I have counted the picture of John Edwards as an article as it is the preface to one) five display instances of banal nationalism in their first sentence, a clear example of Overt-Overt banal nationalism. Finding this out makes one almost hope it was done on purpose as it seems to perpetuate the patriotic doctrine that ‘the U.S. comes first’, otherwise if unintentional it demonstrates how ingrained banal…show more content…
Gender is not emphasized yet “the sports pages are [the] men’s pages, although they are not presented as such” (Billig 123, reader 132). Both sports and business a predominantly male audience is found (though that is changing in Business), and with it a violent rhetoric. In the Business Day an article about the Fed commented on how it “saw little reason to retreat” with ben Bernanke and “his lieutenants” concerning its “aggressive easing campaign”. More pronounce in Sports one sees it in the description of a hockey game that took place the previous evening. Describing returning players as “veterans”, hitting the puck with force as “shooting”, and skillful set of plays as “an unrelenting attack” evokes “a parallel between sport and warfare [that] seems obvious” (Billig 123, reader 132). The thing about this is if one were to bring-up these observations with a fan it is (as I have tried with my friend) dismissed as nitpicking and reading too much into something which isn’t there. The subtle aspect of sports which promotes banal nationalism is unseen because of how obvious it is. The sports reported on are mainly baseball, football, hockey, and basketball. These sports are made up of teams such as the San Francisco 49ers, Boston Celtics, or Anaheim Ducks all carrying the name place of where they’re from. All these

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