Fiction(s) of political participation: literature, media and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum

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The image of 'indyref' as a grassroots renewal of democracy which mobilised 'forgotten' segments of the Scottish nation was a journalistic commonplace throughout and after the debate. The 'positive' energy ascribed to this activism extended to Scottish writers and was depicted in the media as a compelling alternative to the rhetoric of the official campaigns, particularly the 'No side'. I argue that views of Scottish writers were accorded special 'representative' significance and authority, largely on terms inherited from the post-1979 paradigm of culture-driven devolution. Based on the analysis of literary texts and (media) accounts by writers and cultural commentators, I will critically examine the discursive production of the myth of 'popular participation' and analyse how it was deployed through (elite) channels of cultural and political representation. Consequently, actors and institutions are crucial to my analysis in their function to (de-)legitimatise cultural and political processes: Which cultural products and actors were referenced in media and political rhetoric? How is this (discursive) event and its cultural representatives depicted and memorialised in media discourse and (key) literary texts?