The Constitutive Rhetoric of Late Nationalism: Imagined Communities after the Digital Revolution

ABSTRACT

This article responds to the global resurgence of nationalist rhetoric, forgoing prior scholarship’s equation of such rhetoric with demagoguery to instead position nationalism as a form of social organization within shifting rhetorical contexts. Using the framework of constitutive rhetoric, the article shows how material changes in our routine discursive infrastructure impact the ability of people to imagine themselves as composing a unified community. Following the digital revolution, nationalism now reflects its technological basis, a transformation that upends traditional forms of identification and leads to what the author dubs “late nationalism,” a reactionary turn that has exacerbated global crises.

Notes

1. Many thanks to my RR reviewers Hugh Burns, James Kimble, and James Zappen for all their insight and guidance in sharpening my argument, as well as to Elise Hurley, whose patience and persistence has been invaluable throughout the revision process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jake Cowan

Jake Cowan ([email protected]) is an Assistant Professor of Marketing & Communications at Saint Mary’s College of California. His current research interests revolve around the impact of emergent technologies on contemporary communication practices, instances of the modern unconscious within digital media, and the rhetorical efficacy of online identifications and ideologies. Integrating Lacanian psychoanalysis with posthumanist rhetorical theories, his wide-ranging scholarship has appeared in journals such as enculturation, Miranda, as well as various edited collections.