Nationalism as public imagination: The media's routine contribution to latent and manifest nationalism in China

This study investigates latent and manifest dimensions of nationalism and their theoretical and empirical relationships with patterns of media use in the everyday life context of metropolitan China. Data from a face-to-face survey conducted with a random sample of 600 Shanghai residents show that the mass media's appeal to the public perception of nationalism acts effectively and differentially on both event-triggered and banal everyday forms of nationalism. It is also found that attention to news has a direct effect on manifest nationalism, but a largely indirect effect on latent nationalism through specific knowledge, mental complexity, patterns of information processing and interpersonal communication.