Media, State and Nation: Political Violence and Collective Identities

In this incisive text on media and collective identity, Philip Schlesinger develops our understanding of the contemporary struggles over political discourse. Three key themes are presented. Firstly the concepts of `violence' and `terrorism' are shown to be fundamentally rooted in the competing communicative strategies of the state and of its opponents. The second part considers the external enemies of both nation-state and ideological bloc, and the final part addresses the involvement of media and state with collective identities, including those which transcend the boundaries of the state. By combining analyses of particular political issues and case studies of media-state relations, the book demonstrates the complexity of political communication and its part in the way in which states construct their enemies, both internal and external.