National civil religions are concerned primarily with creating a sense of national identity and unity, of reaffirming national mythologies, of reinforcing the elite’s narrative of the nation. It uses rites, stories, ceremonies, symbols (Parsons,2002, p.5-6) It is one of the ways a nation is represented to itself by the elite, part of ‘the spectacle’ referred to by the Situationists. Civil religion has been facilitated by almost universal access to television (in the
Anderson, B. (1991) ‘Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and spread of Nationalism’, 2nd edn.,
Dayan, D. and Katz, E. (1988) ‘Articulating consensus: the ritual and rhetoric of media events’ in Alexander, J. C. (ed), Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 161-86.
Parsons, G. (2002) ‘Introduction: the concept of civil religion’ in G. Parsons Perspectives on Civil Religion,