This paper explores how the maritime border dispute between Albania and Greece is framed through nationalist narratives and media discourse, revealing the persistence of banal nationalism in contemporary Southeast Europe. While formally a legal and diplomatic issue, the dispute has become a symbolic battleground for the articulation of sovereignty, national dignity, and historical justice. Drawing on theories of banal nationalism, symbolic borders, and cultural nationalism , the paper argues that the dispute is embedded in everyday discursive practices that sustain national imaginaries and perpetuate the symbolic boundaries of the nation-state. Through a comparative analysis of media and political discourse in both countries, the paper demonstrates how the maritime border functions not only as a site of geopolitical negotiation, but as a space where the nation is routinely imagined, performed, and defended.

In this paper, we analyze football fans’ online discussions over a racially motivated conflict between a White Czech player Kúdela, and a Black Finnish player Kamara, during the Europa League Football Match in 2021. The conflict resulted in UEFA bans for both players: ten for Kúdela and three for Kamara. We observe how, through the shared conviction that such a decision is unjust and UEFA prioritizes its no-racism agenda over fair play, the fans build and sustain a community in which their messages are understood, and their perception of ingroup and outgroup, as well as accepted and rejected practices, is supported. The fans employed numerous ways to express their dissatisfaction, ranging from open disgust to simulated bursts of laughter to declarations that the world must have gone mad. To reconstruct the inner logic of fans’ discourse, we bear upon the concepts of emotions and banal nationalism. Methodologically, we employ Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) and work with 2425 Facebook comments.

Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) kindred banners, hof district banners, and crests/coats of arms strategically combine Germanic symbolism with medieval heraldic tradition and motifs to assert an ideological narrative that presents and claims: (1) cultural legitimacy; (2) historical continuity to European history and mythology; and (3) a distinct ethnic identity. This effort at visual piety is not mindless but deliberate collective memory construction imbued with political identity meaning(s). Heraldic symbolism in this case: (1) attempts to legitimize AFA mythic conceptualizations of ancestral bloodline and claims to an Aryan identity; (2) represents a form of banal nationalism; (3) signals white European identity to others; and (4) functions as a tool for collective organization and community building and formation.

This study examines the visual and discursive construction of patriotic narratives in advertising art, situating commercial imagery within broader theoretical frameworks of nationalism and visual culture. Drawing on the concepts of imagined communities and banal nationalism, the research investigates how national symbols, collective identity narratives, and affective appeals to belonging are embedded within contemporary advertising visuals. A mixed-methods design integrating critical visual analysis, semiotic interpretation, and quantitative content analysis was employed to analyze a purposively selected corpus of print, digital, and outdoor advertisements produced between 2019 and 2024. The findings reveal that advertising art frequently mobilizes aestheticized and emotionally coded forms of nationalism, privileging subtle visual cues over overt political iconography. Statistical analysis further indicates a significant association between the presence of patriotic imagery and higher levels of audience engagement, underscoring the persuasive efficacy of national symbolism in commercial communication. The study contributes to scholarship on visual culture and media nationalism by demonstrating how advertising operates as a key site for the everyday reproduction and commodification of national identity. The findings have implications for critical media studies, advertising ethics, and the broader understanding of how nationalism is normalized within consumer visual culture.

In this study, the social representations approach is employed to investigate how primary school children understand societal concepts, believing that social representations are crucial for explaining these concepts regardless of developmental stages. State is one such concept that extends throughout our lives. This research aimed to determine the cognitive structures of 183 fourth-grade students (9-year-olds) from Bolu Central District, Turkey, related to the concept of “state” through the analysis of their drawings. The drawings were categorized and analyzed based on the structural elements of the state: Nation, Country, and Sovereignty. The findings indicate that children’s political socialization is predominantly influenced by school and reflects the content of Turkish life studies and social studies curricula and textbooks. Their primary representations focused on the state’s functional roles in daily life, such as education (f:42), health (f:37), and security (f:16). They also strongly associated the state with national symbols (Turkish Flag f:22, Atatürk f:7), suggesting a significant influence of "banal nationalism". Turkish fourth graders demonstrated a substantial awareness of the state, linking key political concepts to concrete institutions and national identity.

The classic division of sociological approaches distinguishes between structural theories and theories of social action, which explain society’s complex functioning based on the primary role of either actors or structures. This division also influences the study of nationalism, which is most often seen as a product of (elite) structural forces that disseminate the idea (or ideology) of nationalism among the population through various mechanisms. The contribution focuses on the relationship between the sociological theories, which emphasise the interconnected roles of structure and agency, and the theories of everyday and banal nationalism, which study nationalism and its influence on individual members of society.

This article examines nationalism on the Internet, asking how “Finland” was imagined on YouTube. The article shows that Finland’s first world championship gold medal in men’s ice hockey (WC95), a celebrated national milestone, is insightful in studying Finnish nationalism online and on YouTube. The first WC 95 videos were uploaded on YouTube in 2006, a year after YouTube was launched. The WC95 videos were uploaded on YouTube mostly by an amateur user. Michael Billig’s and Benedict Anderson’s theories of nationalism are used as a theoretical framework in the article. The source material consists of more than 50 WC95 videos. In the article, the videos are situated in the larger context of “Finnish” YouTube. Their content and the comment section are also analysed, showing that there have been many different uses for the WC95 videos. These different uses have produced a banal nationalism. However, “Finland” has also been consciously imagined on YouTube, where the WC95 videos have been a constant source of joy, memories, and “shivers”, even after the three world championship gold medals Finland has won in the 2000s. Keywords: nationalism; banal; internet; YouTube; Finland; sports; extremism

The purpose of the article is to study the perception and reflection of the fundamental differences between Ukrainians and Russians in narrative sources of the imperial era. The methodological basis of study is the concept of «banal nationalism» by Michael Billig, adapted to study everyday practices as markers of identity. The study is based on general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, generalization, comparative analysis) and historical source studies, in particular internal criticism of sources. The scientific novelty lies in proving the ineffectiveness of the imperial policy of Russification outside the urban space and the preservation of Ukrainians’ own identity, which can be traced through the prism of the sources under consideration. The conclusions demonstrate that regardless of the nationality of the authors, the sources systematically note cardinal differences between Ukrainians and Russians on anthropological grounds, household traditions, features of housing, language, character, as well as ideological and mental concepts. European travellers mostly focused on the elements of material culture as markers of uniqueness. Instead, Russian observers expressed surprise at the existing linguistic and mental abyss, which contradicted the prevailing imperial ideologemes of «fraternal peoples» or a single nation. They also noted the negative attitude of ordinary Ukrainians towards their northeastern neighbours. Ukrainian authors, representatives of the predominantly noble elite and scientific intelligentsia, emphasized the uniqueness and separateness of their own people, as well as the destructive influence of imperial policy on Ukrainian culture and national self-awareness. The results of the study confirm the sustainable preservation and awareness of Ukrainian national identity in the face of imperial pressure, which contradicted the official narratives of assimilation and unity.

Banal Nationalism, 30 Years On—A Review

ABSTRACT In contrast to the literature on nationalist narrative construction by the media during significant events such as wars and terrorist attacks, this study investigates the deployment of nationalist tropes in everyday stories. It focuses on monologues that blur the “sacred” boundary between news and views, examining the editorialisation of stories against the backdrop of rising right-wing nationalist politics and the BJP government’s increasing control over mainstream TV news in India. Monologues from one of India’s most-watched English-language news channels – Republic TV – were selected for analysis. The study employed a set of frameworks for analysing the data: nationalism as a contextual framework and “banal nationalism” as a theoretical framework. Combining computer-assisted textual analysis with qualitative thematic analysis, the study reveals two major nationalist tropes on prime-time news every day: (i) opposition parties as “anti-national”, and (ii) foreign conspiracy against the motherland. This study of 346 episodes concludes that (a) monologues, through a dramatic presentation style, attempt to manufacture a sense of nationalism daily and (b) reminders of nationalism are not subtle and “banal” but often aggressive and virulent.

This paper is intended to examine the mediation of Chinese national identity through China Global Television Network (CGTN) to a wide range of linguistic and cultural viewers, as a refutation of Western-dominated media discourses during a period of increased global competition. This study discusses this complex act of the CGTN building a messianic and friendly image about China, combating notions of isolationism with discourse and framing. The methodology is based on the theoretical framework of a qualitative linguistic approach grounded on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Framing Theory, which deals with thematically coded analysis of a 75-item corpus of 2020-2025 CGTN broadcasts, articles, and posts, including such themes as the stories of the Belt and Road Initiative and COVID-19. Among its main findings, there is commonly used discourse strategies such as the one promising cohesion that is chain-ganged (like the 45 times in English content) with the rubrics of framing as analyzing diagnostically a geometrically presently where the West failed and arterializing prognostically how the Chinese can improve with adaptation by channeling motive to accommodate cultural conditions. These tactics share many similarities with the theoretical paradigms of banal nationalism and soft power by adding to the diagnostic and motivational power of the Framing Theory and further developing strategies of CDA through cross-linguistic knowledge of ideology reproduction in international media. Its implications are that it informs media diplomacy, encourages the expansion of media literacy across the globe, and there can be developments in the field of linguistics, i.e., by using qualitative tools to examine the role of state media in mediating identity, the role of CGTN in a multipolar media environment.

This research presents a critical metaphor and metonymy analysis of how national names in economic reporting carry nationalist ideology and persuade public opinion. Adapting Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis (2004, 2018), this research analyzes the linguistic, conceptual and communicative level of the metaphoric and metonymic use of ‘China’ and ‘Australia’ in Australian media coverage of a high-profile transnational business deal. A consistent pattern of country for company metonymy and country is a person metaphor was identified to naturalize nationalist ideology in the business domain. The strategic use of these metonyms and metaphors can strengthen the argument by diverting attention from crucial facts, confusing business and political entities, and imposing national stereotypes. Contemporary economic nationalism reflects a globalization paradox where states maintain regulatory roles while facing constraints from global interdependencies, with discourse strategically blending market principles with national interests to maintain legitimacy. This study highlights how country names, as linguistic signifier of banal nationalism, provide the rhetorical foundation that underpins and legitimizes economic nationalist arguments and actions, particularly during trade disputes. Beyond the case study, our findings reveal the linguistic mechanisms through which seemingly neutral economic reporting legitimizes contemporary protectionist policies from Australia–China resource tensions to "America First" trade rhetoric in today's era of resurgent economic nationalism.

National identity is a part of one’s self constructed by experience, memory, and cultural surroundings. This study explores how two generations of Indian immigrants express their nationalism in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. Using a postcolonial lens, this study applies Benedict Anderson's theory of imagined communities to examine the first-generation immigrants, Ashoke and Ashima, who maintain strong emotional ties to India by preserving Indian culture through food, clothing, language, habits, rituals, and resisting aspects of American customs. Meanwhile, their children, Gogol and Sonia, represent the second-generation immigrants who grew up in the United States and adopted American lifestyles. Their nationalism appears in more subtle and unconscious ways, more like Americans in terms of food preferences, habits, and holiday celebrations. Upon analysis, it was found that Gogol and Sonia did not wholly abandon their roots, as they persisted in Indian traditions such as wearing traditional attire and following a mourning diet ritual. Michael Billig's concept of banal nationalism is used to analyze how this generation blends American influence with selective participation in Indian customs. The study shows that nationalism can still be expressed abroad and does not have to be shown through overt or political acts.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how our imagining of the nation has evolved from the 1600s to this day. Reviewing the well‐known analysis of Benedict Anderson, this paper carries the argument further, investigating how our imagining of our national communities has changed alongside sociopolitical, economic and technological transformations. After offering a review of Anderson's argument, this paper discusses the ways in which the emergence of mass communication and mass electronic media, notably radio and, most importantly, television, has shaped our imagination in the direction of ‘banal nationalism’ as Billig argued in 1995. Considering more recent and quite dramatic changes in our communication technologies and the emergence of social media, this paper considers how our imagination of the nation has also been reshaped. The new interactive mediatic environment offers new possibilities of imagining the national community. Such possibilities carry within them the potential for both fragmentation and rupture, as well as that for pro‐social mobilisation. This paper concludes by discussing whether this new technological environment necessarily breeds polarisation or also contains within it the seeds of depolarisation.

ABSTRACTWhile pubs have long been celebrated as a quintessential part of British culture, the ongoing and increasingly rapid closure of British pubs has raised concerns about the impacts of their loss on the wider cultural life and identity of the nation. The article explores how pub closures are narrated in British print news media through the analysis of a sample of news stories spanning 2000–2023. Time series analysis shows that pub closures have been a steady concern in UK print media, albeit with several notable peaks in coverage aligned to key events impacting the sector. Findings suggest that the causes of pub closure are presented as an economic issue, while the consequences of pub closures are typical framed in social and cultural terms. Using Billig's concept of ‘banal nationalism’, the article analyses a sub‐set of this data to examine how the narratives used to explain pub closures make regular and emotive reference to the nation and associated concepts. Pub closures are therefore presented as a threat to the nation and a loss of national identity. These emotive narratives of loss, we argue, work to homogenise both the idealised pub and the wider national community in a manner which occludes the complexity of both.

This conceptually focused article advances scholarship on hospitality by developing a novel framework for capturing nationalist inhospitality and growing exclusions that have been widely reported by EU citizens living in post-Brexit Britain. The discussion synthesizes two seminal social theoretical models (i.e. derived from Michael Billig’s Banal Nationalism and Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of crises transforming doxa into discourse, respectively) to create an analytical grid consisting of four quadrants that correspond to different, internally nuanced nationalist constellations. Through a discussion of two discursive ‘snapshots’, of the European football championship in 2021 and of Boris Johnson’s last speech as departing prime minister in September 2022, the analytical focus then moves on to the workings of two hitherto under-researched forms of inhospitality: first, a lesser-known, though historically not new sub-type of reflexively hot nationalism; second, a novel configuration of non-reflexively hot nationalism. These ideological constellations add new nuance to our understanding of the different forms nationalist inhospitality can take.

Abstract This article argues that the late Soviet period saw a new form of Ukrainian nationhood emerge, one based less on ethno-historical commonalities than on territorial and institutional cohesion. Combining Michael Billig’s notion of “banal nationalism” with Alexei Yurchak’s analysis of “hypernormalized authoritative discourse,” it shows that Soviet Ukrainian leaders reproduced the assumption of Ukrainian nationhood even as they deprived it of concrete political and cultural content. While First Secretary Petro Shelest still promoted ethno-historical topoi alongside pride in Ukraine’s republican quasi-statehood, his successor Volodymyr Shcherbytsʹkyi preferred an image of Ukraine as a productive economic space free of ethnic specificity. Late Soviet Ukrainian banal nationalism left traces in everyday life, whether in sports reporting, school curricula, or in a specific visual language combining institutional emblems with politically empty ethnic symbols. During perestroika, late Soviet banal nationalism was appropriated and instrumentalized first by the national-democratic opposition, and later by “national communists.”

This article investigates the dialogic construction of Jordanian identity discourse as reflected through the production of everyday discourse on the nation, following both Anderson’s (1983) idea of nation as a ‘socially constructed community’ and Billig’s (1995) concept of ‘banal nationalism’. Against both the narrative of unifying regime initiatives and Transjordanian ethnic exclusivism, we delve deeper into the narrative of everyday nationalism, revolving around everyday practices through which ordinary people ‘choose the nation’ by means of popular culture. We draw on nationalist songs, memes, graffiti and social media hashtags where Jordanian ‘everyday nationalism’ involves a dialogic construction of identity that can draw on either Transjordanian or Palestinian symbolism. This discourse of nationhood is dialogic through its constitutive, if oppositional, relationship between symbols representing Transjordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin. Here, 'choosing the nation’ goes beyond simple narratives of unity or exclusion, reproducing constitutive identity fractures yet remaining dependent on their continued existence.

This study investigates the portrayal of Japaneseness in Japanese newspapers, employing Billig’s framework to analyze both “hot” and “banal” nationalism, with a particular emphasis on the prevalence of ethnic nationalism in Japan. This approach marks a significant departure from the prevailing discourse in nationalism studies, which typically assumes a civic orientation within established Western democracies. The results indicate that Japanese newspapers consistently flag the nation, similar to their counterparts in other established nation-states. They organize and present news to differentiate “them” (foreign) from “us” (domestic). Moreover, all discussions are conducted within the context of the nation, irrespective of the newspapers’ ideological affiliation. By examining Japan as an established non-Western democracy, this study contributes a distinct perspective to the discourse on nationalism, illuminating the depiction of Japaneseness within Billig’s framework, encompassing both “hot” and “banal” nationalism.

ABSTRACT Michael Billig’s theory of banal nationalism describes mundane practices that implicitly flag and reproduce nationhood. This article applies his theory within Translation Studies by examining the role of the National Center for Translation in Egypt’s nation-building processes. While ‘hot nationalism’, often appearing in times of conflict and crisis, dominates translation research, the article shifts the perspective toward subtler processes of everyday nationalism. Three methodological implications arise from this study. First, it expands the scope of translation history to include routine translation activities that reinforce national identity over time. Second, it suggests a relational approach linking such mundane practices to broader ideological phenomena. Third, it deploys the conceptual tools of banal nationalism to uncover how translation discreetly conveys nationalist ideologies. In arguing for these implications, the study analyzes three of the Center’s translations. The analysis shows that Sufism and Deconstruction promotes religious nationalism by categorizing Sufism as enlightened Islam, which aligns with the state’s preferences. The Journey of the Holy Family in Egypt constructs a narrative of cultural justice by depicting Egypt as a sanctuary for the oppressed and minorities. The October Victory in Israeli Documents embeds narratives of military victory into the national consciousness to sustain a memory of triumph.