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.