Manchester University Press Framing Referendum Campaigns in the News

This book is about the media framing of referendum campaigns. It explores how mainstream print and broadcast media framed the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, through a content analysis of coverage and through in-depth interviews with broadcasters, political communicators and civil society actors. It uses this evidence to explain the frame building process in the context of a highly contested referendum and it proposes an original frame building model, using insights from this and from previous case studies in other countries. The book makes an original contribution to the study of frame building and political communication in the context of direct democratic campaigns, by identifying common ground between different cases and proposing a theoretical framework to help understand how media construct frames in this type of political event. Its topic is significant for the study of politics, as referendums are increasingly used to decide crucial national issues in Western countries – from European nations’ relationship with the European Union to national separation and independence. The book is essential reading for students and scholars, as well as media practitioners and anyone interested in the processes of political mediation in the mainstream media at the start of the twenty-first century.