Global communication and pluralization of identities

As a burning issue of the modern era, national identity is currently subjected to two main contradictory forces. Globalization processes from above and localization forces from below are simultaneously integrating and fragmenting national identities. This essay examines the negotiation of cultural identities in light of the historical transitions from premodern to modern and postmodern modalities and sensibilities. The essay argues that the commodity fetishism of the marketplace is as important an element in contemporary cultural formations as the identity fetishism of militant social movements. Both phenomena are fostered by global communication processes in which identity formations increasingly depend on commodification and distantiation. While global advertising focuses on consumption to frame status identities, mediated communication appears to primordial myths to structure civic and political identities within imagined communities. The two phenomena must be considered as dialectical twins in contemporary motivation, legitimation, and hegemonic crises. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.