The established-outsider model: mediated discursive constructions and established-outsider relations

The study of discourse has endeavoured to explore how social practices are related to social structures of power and control (Fairclough, 1995). In particular, Foucault (1978) has examined how discourses refer to systems of thought that seek to reflect particular knowledge claims. Indeed, they perform an important role in aiding the individual through particular social encounters and constructing the individual’s own subjectivity (Foucault, 1978). Similarly, Hall (1988d) argues that discourse ‘gives questions of culture and ideology, and the scenarios of representation – subjectivity, identity, politics – a formative, not merely an expressive, place in the constitution of social and political life’ (1988d: 27 cited in Wetherell and Potter, 1992: 63).

To this extent, it is possible to examine how the ‘psychological field [is]

constituted through the social domain of discourse’ (Wetherell and Potter, 1992: 75).

Here, language has the capacity to present various forms of reality as well as organise and construct reality in various interpretive contexts (Barthes, 1972). Relations within texts, the combining of its various elements and grammatical forms (Fairclough, 2003), are enveloped with cultural meanings that serve to organise social settings through which particular discourses can be identified and analysed (Van Dijk, 1997). Indeed, such understandings are not dependent solely on language but ‘are performed, enacted and embodied through a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic means’ (De Fina et al., 2006 : 3). As a result, discourses of national culture provide ‘a way of constructing meanings which influences and organises both our actions and our conceptions of ourselves’ (Hall, 1995 : 613) across space and time as well as in relation to other national groups (Maguire, 1995). These discursive contexts provide

national identity a social and psychological significance (Wetherell and Potter, 1992) through which language, collective memories and national behaviours are conveyed.

Here, routine habits, personal expressions and ways of living (Rapport, 2012) form part of the nation’s long-term development ‘and should be perceived as individual and social at the same time’ (Van Daalen, 2013).

Nevertheless, De Cillia et al. (1999) note that ‘if we regard national identities purely as discursive constructs which are made up of specifically constructed national-identity narratives, the question remains why somebody will produce a specific given discursive construction’ (1999: 155-156).²⁵ Indeed, the work of Giddens (1991) provides one answer by allowing us to consider that national identity is not just located at a discursive level but also occupies a real and emotional vocabulary at the practical level too. Giddens’s (1991) elaborates:

All human beings continuously monitor the circumstances of their activities as a feature of doing what they do, and such monitoring always has discursive features … The knowledgeability of human agents, however, is not confined to discursive consciousness of the conditions of their action. Many of the elements of being able to ‘go on’ are carried at the level of practical consciousness, incorporated within the continuity of everyday activities. Practical consciousness is integral to the reflexive monitoring of action, but it is ‘non-conscious’, rather than unconscious. Most forms of practical consciousness could not be ‘held in mind’ during the course of social activities, since their tactic or taken-for-granted qualities form the essential condition which allows actors to concentrate on tasks at hand (1991: 36)

In such instances, Giddens’s (1991) practical and discursive levels of consciousness can be compared with Freud’s structural model of the psyche. Giddens (1993) notes that ‘the use of “I” [or “ego”] develops out of, and is … associated with, the positioning of the agent in social encounters’ (1993: 94). However, while Giddens’s (1991) analysis views both discursive and practical consciousness as separate, through an Eliasian lens, the positioning of the ‘I’ forms part of on-going balance between the

‘I-identity’ (ego-image) and ‘we-identity’ (super-ego-image). Accordingly, in contrast to Giddens (1991), the construction of I/we identities are interdependently formed ‘through discursive practices and practical actions, both of which have an unacknowledged affective component’ (Maguire, 2005: 132).

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25 Whereas, De Cillia et al. (1999) draw upon the work of Martin (1995), this thesis will refer to the work of Giddens (1991) which has commonly been used within studies of the media, national identity and process sociology (Maguire, 1999; 2005; Maguire and Poulton, 1999; Maguire and Tuck, 1998;

Poulton, 2004; Tuck, 2003).

Subsequently, when examining national identity/habitus, one is essentially dealing with interconnected funds of social knowledge that operate at both practical and discursive levels of consciousness (Maguire and Poulton, 1999; Maguire and Burrows, 2005). To this extent, national habitus/character is framed, constructed and represented by and through the discursive practices of the media and which are interwoven with activities occurring at the level of practical consciousness (Maguire and Burrows, 2005).²⁶ As a result, a two-way traffic emerges between the two levels;

a ‘mental traffic’ that reawakens sleeping memories, and which, at the practical level, makes the nation seem more real (Maguire and Burrows, 2005; Maguire and Tuck, 1998). Here, national newspapers can play an important role in discursively constructing the nation (Anderson, 2006; Billig, 1995; Maguire, 2005). That is, the media ‘perform a “gate-keeping” role, filtering and restricting news input’ (Fowler, 1991: 13). Fowler (1991) elaborates:

News values … are to be regarded as intersubjective mental categories. In determining the significance of events, the papers and their readers make reference, explicit or more usually implicit, to what are variously called, in cognitive psychology and in semantics, ‘frames’, ‘paradigms’, ‘stereotypes’,

‘schemata’ and ‘general propositions’ (1991: 17)

Here, the ideological categories and classifications, which are familiar to certain groups within society, can be identified through particular themes that delineate between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Fairclough, 1995). Consequently, within a newspaper article, the overall organization of its contents forms part of a larger thematic structure (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Fairclough, 1995; Joffe and Yardley, 2004; Lee and Maguire, 2009). Locating these structures is, as Fairclough (1995) notes, intrinsic to understanding:

the mental models of events and situations which reports bring to bear in interpreting events and source texts, models which reporters try to convey to audiences in the way they write reports, and models which audiences (readers etc.) draw upon in interpreting reports. This cognitive perspective helps to

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26 In such instances, the framing of a newspaper article by the news producer and its decoding by an individual involves drawing upon a wide range of literal and cultural symbols (Hall, 1997). Bullock et al. (2001) reveal that ‘in addition to using rhetorical devices such as metaphors, catch phrases, and imagery, news handlers frame stories by using reasoning devices that draw on causal attributions, consequences, and appeals to principle’ (2001: 233). Accordingly, framing involves the ‘subtle selection of certain aspects of an issue by the media to make them more important and thus to

emphasize a particular cause of some phenomena’ (Dearing and Rogers, 1996: 64 cited in Collins et al., 2006: 91 [italics removed]).

specify how exactly the ‘news values’ that have been identified as shaping news coverage influence the way particular reports are produced (1995: 30)

The ‘mental models’ that Fairclough (1995) comments upon provide a similar account of the ‘mental traffic’ (Maguire and Burrows, 2005; Maguire and Tuck, 1998; Tuck, 2003) that occurs between both the practical and discursive levels of consciousness.

If news stories are to be ‘constructed on the basis of mental categories which are present in readers and built on by the media’ (Fowler, 1991: 19) one can assume that the ‘mental models’ employed by journalists within media discourse can be investigated as one form of discursive practice whereby the constitutive role of discourse seeks ‘to construct and reconstruct social identities, relations and structures’

(Amer, 2012: 118; see also Fairclough, 1995; Maguire and Burrows, 2005; Tuck, 2003; Wodak et al., 1999). Consequently, in regards to the British Empire, imperial representations and the discursive construction of the empire’s colonial ‘others’

formed a regular part of British newspaper discourses and were included in the carried information on board British ships (Lester, 2001). Therefore, through the discursive construction of the empire, both the colonies and the metropole were interdependently linked, but, also, more importantly, discursively represented (Lester, 2001).

Such representations, however, are always ‘re-representations’ of a particular reality. Indeed:

There is always a mediating effect whereby an event is filtered through interpretative frameworks and acquires ideological significance. News, then, provides its audience with interpretive frameworks, ways of seeing the world and defining reality (Poole, 2002: 23 cited in Meer et al., 2010: 91)

Subsequently, by analysing such ‘interpretative frameworks’ in accordance with Elias’s (1978) conception of power, it is possible to examine how constructions of the nation are based upon established-outsider relations, at various levels of interdependence. Indeed, this complex interplay between Britain’s domestic and Commonwealth figurations works against a conception of discourse as dictated solely by those who command social power through mechanisms of control (Foucault, 1978). Instead, these discourses can form part of wider interdiscursive processes through which the discursive construction of identity is contested, framed and re-invented (Scollon, 1998). In doing so, national identity is neither fixed nor static but processually negotiated in accordance with past and present contexts. Wetherell and Potter (1992) argue that:

identity and forms of subjectivity which become instantiated in discourse at any given moment should be seen as a sedimentation of past discursive practices. A sense of identity and subjectivity is constructed from the interpretative resources – the stories and narratives of identity – which are available, in circulation, in our culture (1992: 78 [italics added])

Indeed, the use of ‘past discursive practices’ forms part of ‘the stories and narrative of identity’ (Wetherell and Potter, 1992: 78) that construct the nation and its national identity. In fact, Schumpeter (1976) argues that ‘life habits of the dim past’ play an important role in constructing the nation (1976: 73).

However, whereas discursive constructions seek to frame the nation through, amongst other means, continuities with the nation’s past (Conboy, 2005; Falcous and Silk, 2010) they can also reveal dis-continuities and debates regarding the national self (Wodak et al., 2009). Here, Lavi (2013) explains that:

The national flag flying in front of a house, for example, takes place in concrete time and space. However, it receives its national meanings since it is embedded in the national historical narrative. This is not to say that this narrative is given or static; the national narrative loads the flag with its national meanings while the flag (re)affirm the national narrative. In a different context, the same flag could have been considered as strange or even subversive. (2013: 6)

Accordingly, while Lavi’s (2013) comments serve to highlight how national meanings are appropriated from earlier generations and are acquired personally, it also reveals how differing levels of integration (‘different context[s]’) can provide variations in national meaning. By extension, Lavi’s (2013) comments can be used to explore the variations in national narratives and national meanings amongst established and outsider groups. Here, changes in the balance of power between established and outsider groups (processes of functional democratization) can result in reinterpretations of the nation and its past. In such instances, national identities ‘are discursively, by means of language and other semiotic systems, produced, reproduced, transformed and destructed’ via social institutions such as the media (De Cillia et al., 1999: 153 [italics in original]).

Indeed, these reproductions, transformations and deconstructions can be considered in the relationship between the past and contemporary constructions of the nation. Consequently, the dissemination of national symbols, national traditions and nationalist images, during sporting and royal events, are themselves simultaneously present in the discursive and practical levels of consciousness that help to preserve

collective memory (Tuck, 2003). Indeed, Conboy (2007) has explored how tabloid newspapers serve to present ‘a particular sort of history’ (2007: 257) that represents past occasions, events and individuals as myth (see also Barthes, 1972). However, while myths are often connected ‘to the present in a highly significant and politically charged way’ they can also ‘be brought up against real experience of the past’

(Conboy, 2007: 268).

Whereas, Billig’s (1995) ‘banal nationalism’ highlights the banal nature of such actions, these actions can be made ‘real’ through the reifying and figurative discourses that frame national news media (De Cillia et al., 1999; see also Poulton, 2004). An analysis of these discourses can allow us to examine how particular events can become constructed by the ‘memories that connect a nation’s present with its past’ and which serve as a reflection of the deeply enmeshed processes that structure the national habitus (Maguire, 1999: 177; see also McCormack, 2012; Poulton, 2004;

Tuck, 2003). As a result, rather than merely reflecting repetitive performances (Butler, 1990) the discursive construction of the nation, its history, and, in particular, its national identity, is constructed and (re)constructed through interdependent relations, past and present tensions and balances of power.

Therefore, taking the above into consideration, it is evident that the discursive construction of the nation in newspaper discourses posits a valuable source of enquiry regarding the construction, representation and framing of Britain. More importantly, however, when considered through an established-outsider lens there is the potential to examine how the discursive construction of Britain is related to broader balances of power within the British state as well between its former dominions. To this extent, this thesis argues for an extension of Elias and Scotson’s (1994) original model in order to examine how established-outsider relations form part of the discursive construction of the nation and national identity. Indeed, rather than focusing on one particular population (Winston Parva) forthcoming chapters will seek to expose how established-outsider relations are shaped as well as re-shaped in accordance with changes in figurational interdependence. It is here that accounts of the British past can prove particularly elusive in examining contemporary constructions of Britain as well as elucidating upon forms of attachment and (dis)attachment. Indeed, Schumpeter (1976) argues that:

customary modes of political thought and feeling in a given age can never be mere ‘reflexes’ of, or counterparts to, the production situation of that age.

Because of the persistence of such habits, they will always, to a considerable degree, be dominated by the production context of past ages. (1976: 71)

Here, the persistence of the past, and, more specifically, Britain’s imperial past, can prove effective in examining how the decline of established groups (England/Britain) are reflected in newspaper discourses (Conboy, 2007). That is, how far back within history does the national habitus relate too and to what extent is national habitus shaped and affected by processes of development and transformations in social relations? In doing so, one can ‘consider how memories of empire did not simply neatly disappear but could be reactivated in more modern environments’ (Littler, 2006: 25).

Conclusion

Alongside chapter two, the overarching purpose of the above sections has been to trace, from 1707 onwards, the interrelated processes underlying Britain’s state formation, imperial expansion and subsequent decline. With regards to British identity, Thompson (2005) argues that:

‘Imperial Britishness’ was not something superimposed over an array of disparate cultures and identities that made up the United Kingdom. Rather, to varying degrees, the Scottish, the Welsh, the Irish and the English regions were to find in the empire a form of self-affirmation that helped them better contend with the political and cultural challenges they were facing (2005: 200)

However, while Thompson’s (2005) remarks highlight how both ‘national’ and ‘imperial’

dimensions served to underlie British ‘self-affirmation’ (2005: 2000), the contents of this chapter has sought to expose how contending political, cultural and historical challenges and tensions have formed an important part of the construction of Britain. Indeed, to a large extent, this approach has been structured by the requirements of the project and the problems it proposes. Primarily, this involved accounting for a multi-national analysis of Britain, which based upon its diverse and international history, could provide numerous constructions and representations. As a result, this chapter has sought to focus attention on the balances of power between the British home nations and former dominions in order to examine how past and present interdependencies continue to construct and frame Britain and British identity.

Consequently, in order to make sense of these characteristics, the above sections

have explored how an established-outsider model can be used to elucidate upon the discursive construction of Britain, both within the domestic and imperial/commonwealth figurations. More importantly, however, it is through the interdependencies between these figurations that the established-outsider model can provide an insight into the various

‘national’ discourses that construct, frame and represent national and international events.

Indeed, these discourses are not fixed but are dependent upon changes in the interdependencies between groups. Accordingly, while ‘the formation of habitus is a function of social interdependencies’ it is a formation that varies ‘as the structure of the society varies’ (Van Krieken, 1998: 58). Therefore, in accordance with changes in the balance of power between established and outsider groups, it is possible to observe how the discursive construction of Britain has been shaped and re-shaped by its imperial past and multi-national relations (Thompson, 2000). Indeed, this is of particular importance when analysing the long-term processes that underlie national identity formation (Colls, 2012; Elias, 1996).

Furthermore, in the case of global media events, the symbolic operation of the media can help to produce and re-produce national ideologies (Blain et al., 1993), providing important ‘anchors of meanings’ for the nation (Maguire and Tuck, 1998: 112). In particular, the media coverage surrounding sporting and royal events can prove useful when ‘studying beliefs, attitudes and human relations’ (Andriotis, 2010). These attributes become communicated through a media discourse, which portrays the stories, memories and images that help form part of the ‘narrative of the nation’ (Maguire and Tuck, 1998:

105; see also Lee and Maguire, 2009). As a result, section 3.2.3. served to highlight how an analysis of newspaper discourses can serve to elucidate upon such narratives. By referring deliberately to narratives in the plural, one can direct attention to Britain’s domestic and imperial (Commonwealth) histories as well as the interdependent relations, shared identity characteristics and power struggles that form part of the construction of Britain.

Consequently, by drawing upon a processually relational analysis of Britain (chapter one) and by providing a multi-national analysis of British identity (chapter two), it became apparent that Britain’s imperial past has formed an important part of the discursive construction of Britain. In such instances, a historical perspective offers a useful way of communicating and understanding the changing interdependencies, power balances and spacial orientations that impede upon the nation. By historically locating social research (Dunning, 1992), social investigations can avoid perceiving social life as timeless or

radically different in post-modern times (Maguire and Young, 2002 see Bauman, 2000 and Giddens, 1985; 1991). Furthermore, Dunning (1992) and others (Maguire, 1995;

Maguire and Young, 1992) have noted that by understanding how present circumstances are ‘historically’ formed, a greater level of detachment by the researcher can be achieved (Elias, 1987).

Ultimately, therefore, this proposes a complex analysis of British identity and a focus upon the ambiguities that envelop multi-national identifications, such as, Britain.

Indeed:

any long-term enquiry into state-formation and nation-building processes can show that every spurt towards greater interdependence, towards closer integration of human groups which were previously independent – or less dependent, or less reciprocally dependent – on each other runs through a series of specific integration tensions and conflicts, of balance of power struggles which are not accidental, but [rather] structural concomitants of these spurts towards greater functional interdependence of ‘parts’ within a ‘whole’. (Elias, 2008a: 111)

Accordingly, if one considers, the gradual emergence of the British state and empire as well as its eventual decline, then one can observe how long-term processes of integration and dis-integration form an important part of the construction of Britain. To this extent, analyses of Britain should pay attention to the historical complexity of particular events as well as the changes and continuities that they propose. Here, identification processes form part of complex national and transnational contexts through which representations are

Accordingly, if one considers, the gradual emergence of the British state and empire as well as its eventual decline, then one can observe how long-term processes of integration and dis-integration form an important part of the construction of Britain. To this extent, analyses of Britain should pay attention to the historical complexity of particular events as well as the changes and continuities that they propose. Here, identification processes form part of complex national and transnational contexts through which representations are