  "imagined communities" is a concept coined by benedict anderson. an imagined community is different from an actual community because it is not (and, for practical reasons, cannot be) based on everyday face-to-face interaction between its members. for example, anderson believes that a nation is a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. anderson's book, imagined communities, in which he explains the concept in depth, was first published in 1983, and reissued with additional chapters in 1991 and a further revised version in 2006. even though the term was coined to specifically talk about nationalism, it is now used more broadly, almost blurring it with community of interest. for instance, it can be used to refer to a community based on sexual orientation,ross, c. (2012). imagined communities: initiatives around lgbtq ageing in italy. modern italy, 17(4), 449-464. doi:10.1080/13532944.2012.706997 or awareness of global risk factors.beck, u 2011, 'cosmopolitanism as imagined communities of global risk', american behavioral scientist, 55, 10, pp. 1346-1361, academic search complete, ebscohost, viewed 2 february 2013. ==overview== benedict anderson defined a nation as "an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign". members hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity: for example, the nationhood felt with other members of your nation when your "imagined community" participates in a larger event such as the olympic games. as anderson puts it, a nation "is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion".anderson, benedict. imagined communities, p. 6-7. isbn 0-86091-329-5 members of the community probably will never know each of the other members face to face; however, they may have similar interests or identify as part of the same nation. the media also create imagined communities, through usually targeting a mass audience or generalizing and addressing citizens as the public. these communities are imagined as both limited and sovereign. they are limited in that nations have "finite, if elastic boundaries, beyond which lie other nations". they are sovereign since no dynastic monarchy can claim authority over them, in the modern period: {{quote|text=...[t]he concept was born in an
Books_about_nationalism Community Neologisms Political_philosophy Political_science_terms Sociological_theories