Adolescents' Lived Experiences of the Role of Traditional and New Media in National Identity

National identity is the highest level of collective identity in every country. The current research aims to investigate the lived experiences of teenagers about the role of traditional and modern media in national identity and has been investigated by phenomenological method which is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in the nature of data. The statistical population of the research is all teenagers aged 12 to 18 in Ardabil city. The sample size included 17 teenage students who were selected by purposeful sampling based on the principle of theoretical saturation and the data was analyzed based on thematic analysis. The findings showed that, based on the lived experiences of the participants, the gap between knowledge, attitude and behavior towards national identity was evident in traditional and modern media, so that the national identity and its dimensions among the teenagers whose dominant media is the type of modern media is less than the teenagers whose dominant media is the type of traditional media. The national identity of teenagers who use traditional media is more formed, coherent and real, and the national identity of people who use modern media is unstable and numerous. An identity that can be called a transnational or global identity according to some characteristics. Teenagers with the dominant consumption of traditional media have tried to protect the traditional sources of national identity. On the other hand, the teenagers with the dominant consumption of modern media have represented themselves in favor of a global or cosmopolitan identity.