Portrayal of the Upcoming Scottish Referendum in Irish Newspapers
Research Question: With the upcoming Scottish Referendum, how have two Northern Irish newspapers, The Irish News and The Belfast Telegraph, reported on the issue? Can this portrayal be linked to contemporary unionist and nationalist identity in Northern Ireland?
In Autumn 2014 the Scottish people will go to the polls to decide on Scotland’s future independence from Britain. This topic is one which may have direct repercussions on the mind-set and identity of those in Northern Ireland, and therefore the media’s coverage of the issue and the debate which surrounds it thus far is paramount. My research project is based on the Northern Irish Press’ coverage of the proposed upcoming Scottish National Referendum, focusing specifically on the contrasts in position and portrayal between two of the North’s leading newspapers, namely the Irish News and the Belfast Telegraph.
I aim to compare the positions of the two selected newspapers using a selected representation of articles from each, and to investigate fully if the common conception that The Irish News leans more towards the Nationalist cause whilst the Belfast Telegraph has more unionist tendencies is still valid in contemporary society. My principle sources will be online newspaper databases and the Central Library newspaper collection, and my research method will be largely document based due to the nature of the project. It will involve collecting a representative number of newspaper articles and editorials, and using selected pieces in a qualitative manner in order to generate a balanced argument and an overview of each newspaper’s position. The sheer amount of information available on the Scottish referendum debate will mean that I will have to be selective with the articles I choose to examine. Furthermore finding specific articles which directly target the research question may be difficult.
As I as the researcher will be choosing which articles I use over the course of the project, and therefore it may
In Autumn 2014 the Scottish people will go to the polls to decide on Scotland’s future independence from Britain. This topic is one which may have direct repercussions on the mind-set and identity of those in Northern Ireland, and therefore the media’s coverage of the issue and the debate which surrounds it thus far is paramount. My research project is based on the Northern Irish Press’ coverage of the proposed upcoming Scottish National Referendum, focusing specifically on the contrasts in position and portrayal between two of the North’s leading newspapers, namely the Irish News and the Belfast Telegraph.
I aim to compare the positions of the two selected newspapers using a selected representation of articles from each, and to investigate fully if the common conception that The Irish News leans more towards the Nationalist cause whilst the Belfast Telegraph has more unionist tendencies is still valid in contemporary society. My principle sources will be online newspaper databases and the Central Library newspaper collection, and my research method will be largely document based due to the nature of the project. It will involve collecting a representative number of newspaper articles and editorials, and using selected pieces in a qualitative manner in order to generate a balanced argument and an overview of each newspaper’s position. The sheer amount of information available on the Scottish referendum debate will mean that I will have to be selective with the articles I choose to examine. Furthermore finding specific articles which directly target the research question may be difficult.
As I as the researcher will be choosing which articles I use over the course of the project, and therefore it may