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This article explores the role of location formulation in the expression of nationhood in six Scottish newspapers’ coverage of a domestic political event. The article draws upon a corpus analysis comparing the incidence of ‘location lexical tokens’ in the Scottish papers with a selection from the UK and England. It finds that the Scottish papers stress the national character of the political process, occasionally doing so alongside an inclusive rhetoric. The article also finds that the Scottish papers mobilize an internal political vocabulary around the expression of location, manifest in the widespread adoption of the political metonym ‘Holyrood’ for the Scottish parliament, and in the use of localized political discourses. The article therefore suggests that explicit reference to the home nation is an important component of news discourse, and that the systematic study of location formulation also offers an insight into the generation of an internal and nation-specific political vocabulary.

This article uses content analysis to characterize the performance of the media in a national public sphere, by setting apart those qualities that typify internal press coverage of a political event. The article looks at the coverage of the 1999 devolved Scottish election from the day before the election until the day after. It uses a word count to measure the election material in Scottish newspapers the Herald, the Press and Journal and the Scotsman, and United Kingdom newspapers the Guardian, the Independent and The Times, and categorizes that material according to discourse type, day and page selection. The article finds a number of qualities that typify the Scottish sample in particular, and might be broadly indicative of a political public sphere in action. Firstly, and not unexpectedly, it finds that the Scottish newspapers carry significantly more election coverage. Just as tellingly, though, the article finds that the Scottish papers offer a greater proportion of advice and background information, in the form of opinion columns and feature articles. It also finds that the Scottish papers place a greater concentration of both informative and evaluative material in the period before the vote, consistent with their making a contribution to informed political action. Lastly, the article finds that the Scottish sample situates coverage nearer the front of the paper and places a greater proportion on recto pages. The article therefore argues that the Scottish papers display features that distinguish them from the UK papers, and are broadly consistent with their forming part of a deliberative public sphere, and suggests that these qualities might be explored as a means of judging future media performance.KEY WORDS content analysis democracy political coverage public sphere Scottish devolutionThe public sphere and the democratic space Much critical appraisal of the role of the various institutions of the press has turned on the neglect or the realization of their democratic potential. Journalism

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The 2010 general election was the first in the UK in which a series of televised leaders' debates were broadcast. This article takes forward research on mediated political performance and the relationship between celebrity and politics through an analysis of these debates. By discussing how the candidates perform 'personality', the article highlights the use of performance in constructing informality and a personalised audience address, contrasting these with where candidates engage in conventional political speech-making. The article also examines the strategic use of language, particularly where it is designed to align speakers with the public in opposition to the political establishment. The article argues that celebrity should not be viewed as an innate quality but instead as an interpretative set of frames, the terms of which are established through performance. The article concludes by reflecting upon the implications that can be drawn about the relationship between performance, framing and political celebrity.