Of media consumption, collective imaginations and national identities

Arjun Appadurai and his book Modernity at Large is crowding my head this week, even though I have never met the man.
His thoughts, borrowed, applied and original, on the huge effect of electronic media on creating a "collective imagination", a "nostalgia of the present" revive with new meaning as I contemplate the obsession academia has with the French, and the obsession I have with the movies.

Enjoy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11728044  "The evil stupid little bastard" french writer dividing France (and that's his mother's and the media's words, not mine").

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11730522 Forrest Gump and the Marines