New Publication: UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 40

Shazlin Amir Hamzah. 2015. Branding the Malaysian nation: Tracing the role of popular music in the construction of an imagined community. UKM Ethnic Studies Paper Series No. 40, August. Bangi: Institute of Ethnic Studies. ISBN: 978-967-0741-16-1

Abstract: Popular music plays an important role in the dissemination of a nation brand. In this context, it is imperative we understand the meaning of a nation brand and how popular music functions as a vehicle for the propagation of it. Music is an apparatus for the construction of a nation and for this reason there has been numerous songs composed heavily laced with narrations of an/a imagined post-colonial nation that is Malaysia. It is the intention of this paper to trace the history of the creation of these songs and a brief comment on its public impact in the larger context of the state’s effort at nation branding. This is an initial attempt at addressing the question of what is the role played by popular national songs in the process of sustaining the imaginings of the Malaysian brand.

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