Az identitás maga az üzenet. A tömegmédiumok szerepe a nemzeti nagycsoportok identitásának hagyományozásában

Marshall McLuhan’s work in communication theory has drawn our attention to the fact that mass media, beyond transmitting knowledge, also shape our thinking. The same effect can be assumed for the way we think about our communities. Indeed, mass media have played and still play a crucial role in the birth and maintenance of historical large groups. Not only because our knowledge of the nation is fundamentally derived from the mass media, but also because these media have created a new language in which inter-group relations are inherently encoded. Media logic, not just the author, has a crucial role to play in shaping the representation of collective memory in history textbooks. As the most influential medium of mass communication, the textbook reconstructs and transmits the pattern of representation of national identity for future generations. In this way, identity becomes a message. The paper demonstrates this process through the example of the textbook transmission of a national trauma.