final essay2

1-Define what is meant by ‘national identity’ and discuss how the media may contribute to both the preservation and the destruction of national identity. Give examples from at least three countries that you have read about.




Have you ever been asked by someone “what is your identity”?!. The answer absolutely “yes” and you are very proud because of your national identity. In these days, we hear many people say “we have to keep our identity” or “developing our identity is developing our country”. However, we have never asked ourselves why do we stick to our identity. Unquestionably, identity has been the most significant thing in tribes’ lives either in the past or these days. In addition, there are many things that affects identity positively or negatively such as media that may preserve or destroy the national identity . Thus, the main questions I have to argue in this essay are, what is the meaning of identity and how the media can impact on the identity positively or negatively.




What does identity mean?.In the past, Stalin has five definitions for a nation that can explain something about identity(Stalin, 2006).First of all, he admitted that the nation is a historical group of people who live together, and it is not depend on tribal or racial factors(Stalin, 2006). However, he said that even if there are people came from different groups of people, This doesn’t mean they are a nation because they have to be a stable group of people. Secondly, he also, said the language that is very common could be one of the nation’s features. On the other hand, it could be there two or more nations speak the same language, but they are not considered as one nation. So, there is should be another factor beside the language, and it is the common territory. A nation will not be a nation unless the people have the same territory and live on it generation after generation. The forth definition was about “ economic life” and how it is important. Finally, he added that “psychological make-up” or “national character” is something that we cannot ignore even if it is intangible because it is obvious in the common culture. These five definitions give us more details about what is identity. “It is only when all these characteristics are together that we have a nation”(Stalin, 2006). Finally, I could say that many people believe that when we have these characteristic we’ll have identity, when we have a nation we’ll have national identity.




After giving the definition of identity we should recognize what are the things that affect this identity. As we all know, media has been the main effective and serious factor in our life. There are positive contributions of media for national identity as there are negative contributions. In positive way, the media can save or protect our tradition. In fact, we can keep it by having traditional media. For example, “T.V programs” can protect our tradition by traditional programs such as “nostalgia for a bygone series” – series that show people pre-oil when their lives were hard but they worked together and supported each other–(Holes, 2005) . This kind of series gives us traditional values that make us behave well and endure our hard life as our grandparents did. Moreover, we have “traditional magazines” that also contribute positively to our tradition. The second good contribution of media is protecting our language or traditional dialect. There has been many Gulf musalsalat ( series ) since 1980s(Holes, 2005). The language of those series were in a local dialect such as in Kuwaiti soaps that were imported in Oman in 1980s(Holes, 2005) . This local dialect is the protector of our traditional language. Until now, we still have these musalsalat that speak our traditional language. For instance, “musalsal FREEJ” that launched in September 2006 ( About FREEJ )(Al Mahmoud, 2006). many young and old people like this 3D animation which makes them try to imitate the characters especially young children. By this imitation, people can strengthen their language and this is what we mean by protecting our traditional language. These are some of media’s benefits for our identity.





Essentially, the media can give us many benefits. However, there are many negative contributions of it. This contribution includes both behavior and language. Initially, although we said that we can keep our tradition behavior by media, it can also destroy it. For instance, the big effect of western media on Arab countries. Nowadays, the Arabian people have started to behave like western people with a immense ignorance of their traditional life. They say it is globalization. However, it is not. We can say it is a destruction of identity. Additionally, some bad media leads to having a lot of bad people in the country .For example, increasing the number of smokers in Egypt(Islam SM, Johnson CA., 2007). Also, media can increase the violence among young Canadian children(Public Health Agency of Canada).Secondly, the language also could be damaged by media. For instance, because of the addiction to watch USA or foreign movies including young Emirati people, their language has been changed such as using English words in their own speech like “yes”, “no”, “please” and “thanks”. This means we lose our identity language whereas we have to keep it. Finally, it is very important to keep our behavior and language to save our identity.




In conclusion, national identity is that thing which requires many things to be defined. According to the five nation definitions that stalin put, we could understand something about national identity. Without a historically constituted, stable group of people, common language, territory, economic life and common national character, we will not have a nation and a national identity. At the side of this, there are many influences of media in national identity whether positively or negatively. Positively, it can save our traditional behavior and language. Negatively, it could destroy the identity by rising the bad behavior or spreading foreign language in our culture. In my opinion, identity is something we have to be aware about it, and we must protect it from any danger.





References:• Al Mahmoud, F. (2006, September 26). Freej: First 3D Animated Series In The Middle East From The UAE. UAE Community Blog. Retrieved April 30, 2009, from http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com/2006/09/freej-first-3d-animated-series-in.html.• Holes, C. (2005). Dialect and National Identity. In Monarchies and Nations (pp. 52-72). New York: I.B. Taurus.• Islam SM, Johnson CA. (2007, January). Western media's influence on Egyptian adolescents'...[Nicotine Tob Res. 2007] - PubMed Result. Retrieved May 21, 2009, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17365737.• Public Health Agency of Canada. (, n.d). Reducing Family Violence - A Comprehensive Federal Approach. The Family Violence Initiative . Retrieved May 21, 2009, from http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/initiative-eng.php.Stalin, J. (2006). Works - Volume 2 - socialism, revolution, and communism. Digital reprint, . Retrieved March 22, 2009, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/4025808/J-V-Stalin-Works-Volume-2.