“可见的”共同体:报纸与民族国家的另一种叙述

The “Visible” Community: Another Discourse on Newspaper and Nation-State

作为报纸和民族国家叙述中最显著的概念,"想象的共同体"已成该议题的研究范式。但"想象"一词,语义模糊,其特定所指——与不能谋面的同胞的联结,常遭误解;同时,"想象的共同体"还遮蔽了另一个重要的提问,即国家如何显现于日常生活?借助人文地理学"地方可见性"概念,本文尝试推进报纸与民族国家的理论叙述。文章认为,报纸和现代民族国家兴起的步调一致。作为历史进程中的新媒介,报纸发明了"新闻",使国家从一个抽象空间,变成由现实事件构成、持续运动、拥有生命力的具体地方,从而在读者的日常生活中显现为"可见的共同体"。作为政治共同体,民族国家的可见性是实现现代政治生活的基本条件。

As the most famous theory, ＂imagined community＂ has been a main paradigm on the subject of newspaper and nation-state. But ＂Imagine＂ is obscure and ＂imagined community＂ had avoided another important question： how the nation-state being in daily life？Inspired by the concept ＂visible place＂ from Human Geography, this paper tries to promote the theoretical narration on newspaper and nation-state. It is argued that newspaper, as a new form of modern culture, have functioned the abstract nation-state into a concrete place by actual events and thus created a ＂visible＂ community in everyday life. The visibility of the nation-state is the basic condition for modem politics.