It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished in such a short time. We’re able to learn about the culture of another country in a matter of minutes through instantaneous sharing and electronic communications. We’re able to talk to people from other countries every day.

We can now see the news from other countries in seconds. The convergence of people, cultures around the world, and technology have facilitated communication between us and our understanding of cultural diversity. It is imagined because it is essentially “created” by the human mind, and it is “political” because it expresses itself in a particular form of government.” What Makes Us a Global Village? The nation, according to one of the Benedict Andersons formulation, is an “imagined political community“. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group.

Wikipedia explains that “ An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book Imagined Communities, to analyze nationalism. When Marshall McLuhan coined the term ‘global village’ in the 1960s, it was a reference to the “ prevailing notion of global coexistence transformed by transnational trade, migration, and culture” (cited in Poll, 2012), and today we’ve moved beyond that.Įven though we’re all connected through social media and technology, have we really become closer? The Concept of ‘Imagined Community’ by Benedict Anderson