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This strand of the research compares the ways in which the mass media in England and Scotland develop and mobilise national identities. It examines the content of what they produce, their organisational structure, their marketing strategies and their construction of the national character of their audiences.
National identities are not created by the institutions of the mass media, nor do the media act as a mirror faithfully reflecting a national identity back to its audience. They are institutions providing important raw material for the development of new forms of national identity and responding to changes in popular awareness. The media pursue, under political, economic and ideological constraints, a changing relationship to the national character they imagine their audience and market to possess. A study of their operation reveals the changing content and dynamics of national identity.
We are undertaking content analysis of randomly collected articles from Scottish and London-based broadsheet and tabloid papers, and a smaller number of radio and television news broadcasts. We are examining the changing boundaries, content and salience of the images of national identity deployed in these media, analysing the language used to describe, and the relationship between, state and nation; and the markers used to distinguish 'national' community/ies from others. Although we are analysing news reporting of the devolution process itself, our more general aim is to examine the ways in which changing constructions of national boundaries and communities may extend to issues of 'national' concern more generally. Hence we also analyse the reporting of emerging international and domestic events which foreground issues of national identity.
Of central concern are differences between media representations of state and nation in Scotland and in England. The Scottish media are already characterised by a more explicit concern with specifically national imagery than are the London-based papers and broadcasters. We anticipate a growing divergence both in the substance and spatial location of what is reported, and in the way this news and comment is embedded in the context of the concepts of nation, boundaries and 'national' interests. For example, over the last two decades, newspapers and broadcasters based in Scotland have defined both themselves and their audience as primarily Scottish. It would be quite unthinkable for London-based media organisations to appeal to 'Englishness' in similar ways. We are examining whether the effect of constitutional change will be to heighten this contrast or, conversely, to encourage an assertion of complementary 'Englishness', and, if so, what forms this will take. In order to place these changes in their broader historical context we are analysing comparative material from news reporting at key periods from 1945 onwards.
We also consider issues pertaining to both the production and reception of these media accounts. In terms of production, we are exploring factors which lead newspaper publishing and news and current affairs broadcasting organisations to define a national perspective as relevant, important and saleable. These are material constraints (such as ownership and organisational structure, labour and product markets, technology and changing political institutions) and the political and ideological contexts. For example the stress on 'national' frames of reference is tempered in Scotland by the urban identity of each major newspaper, while technological change has facilitated more diverse editions of papers and programmes across the UK.
We already have comprehensive data on changing ownership and control. We are supplementing this with interviews with key figures about the responses of their organisations to technological, economic and political change over the last decade.
Finally, audience retention and interpretation of media accounts are explored in two ways. First, questions pertaining to recent 'national' news events will be incorporated into the qualitative interviews outlined under individual inclusion and exclusion (see study 2a and study 2b). Secondly, new multi-media technology developed by Reicher are investigating audience reactions to the different national language and imagery used in newspapers, radio and television over time. This enables us to test the extent to which audience recognition and evaluation of various national symbols fits with the assumptions often made about such processes by social researchers.
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Introduction
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and Significance |
Study 1 | Study 2a | Study 2b | Study 3 | Study 4 | Study 6
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email: Nations and Regions research programme
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