Scotland’s Referendum and the Media: National and International Perspectives

After the Referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country in September 2014 – and following a momentous mobilisation of voters by both the Yes and No campaigns – Scotland’s political environment has been fundamentally energised. But how was the Referendum campaign reported and structured in the media in Scotland, the wider United Kingdom, and in other parts of the world, and was it a matter of ‘construction’ rather than ‘representation’? In this book scholars, commentators and journalists from Britain, Europe and beyond examine how the media across the world presented the debate itself and the shifting nature of Scottish – and British – identity which that debate revealed. Several of the contributors also explore how the emphases and constructions which were put on the debate in their particular countries illuminated these countries’ own responses to nationalism and separatism. The consequences of the Referendum’s No result are traced in the media through until the May general election of 2015.