Untitled - socium.ge

388 Imma Tubellaand through symbolic displays of their values and traditions. Collective identityis much more than a collection of individuals who share history and spaceand speak the same language. Collective identities are complex and distinctivecultural narratives, mythical stories that people tell themselves. In this context,the role of the mass media is clear as an instrument for creating an image ofthe collective identity for insiders and for outsiders, and in doing so, theycontribute to the construction of the identity itself.In the information society, the symbolic character of cultural identity,increasingly built, represented, and promoted by the media, stimulates levelsof emotional involvement that contribute to the viability of any individualcountry. The nation-states understand this premise very well, and they do theirbest to control the mass media. Indeed, the mass media have long played animportant role in the process of identity building, creating, ritualizing, andbroadcasting who we are, and who the other is.American anthropologist Conrad Kottak (1990) argues that soccer, television,and carnival create a democracy in Brazil that is lacking in most areas ofBrazilian life. Television provides, in general, an equality of access, except inAfrica where radio plays a cohesive role for people in ways that the politicalpowers cannot achieve. Events like the death of Princess Diana or theSeptember 11 disaster constitute symbolic displays of common feelings andpurpose. Anti-war demonstrations around the world broadcast by the media inthe winter of 2003 created a sense of global citizenship unknown before thismoment.European theorists are still very influenced by the classic Marxist concernabout the role of ideology. New theories coming from South America offer abroad conception of communication and identity which proposes that mediationshould be a central category for analysis. Martin Barbero (1993) suggeststhat, for South America, the syncretic nature of popular practices contributesboth to the preservation of cultural identities and to their adaptation to newdemands. One implication of this analysis for the processes of construction ofcultural identity is that “the culture industry, by producing new hybrids resultingfrom the erasing of boundaries between high and popular culture, traditionaland modern, and domestic and foreign is reorganizing collectiveidentities and forms of symbolic differentiation.”If we consider cultural identity a symbolic construction rather than a thingalready there to be described, we shall understand that identity formation in aglobal communication environment is highly influenced by the media, whichconstruct our everyday perceptions of the other and ourselves. People live ina symbolic environment, a world of meaning, and it is clear that the massmedia play a critical role in people’s perceptions and attitudes in industrialsocieties and even more so in the information society where they play a centralrole.