Scottish Media Research Articles

Social wellbeing in Scotland – the ‘career network’ of a policy concept

Scotland presents a case where ‘social wellbeing’ as a policy concept and a societal aspiration has had considerable traction over the past decade. Wellbeing is now, according to Scotland’s outcomes-based National Performance Framework, at the centre of local and national policy-making. This article, by employing the analytical lens of governance networks, discusses how wellbeing has become such a prominent policy concept in Scotland. The article first maps the development of the concept through an analysis of the actors which make up the ‘wellbeing coalition’ and then discusses the role that these different actors played. Interviews and published documents form the basis for the analysis and also feed into software-supported social network analysis.The analysis shows that the Scottish Government is taking a central position in a fairly extensive wellbeing network composed almost exclusively of public and third sector organisations, with a very limited number of organisations being particularly prominent over the past decade. Contrary to expectations, the Scottish media took relatively little interest in the ‘wellbeing debate’, and academics played only a very minor role. It also highlights how a number of concurrent domestic and international political developments contributed to putting wellbeing on the agenda in Scotland, in particular the Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent recession.

Review: The First Decade of the Scottish Parliament

You will perhaps forgive me an unwarranted digression of my own. McNair's opening comment suggested that 'for decades, indeed centuries, the Scottish media have been a source of national pride.' How touching. As a media practitioner for decades, if not yet centuries, I had not thought our efforts had generated such a response. To be fair for a moment, I appreciate entirely what McNair means. He is talking of the icons of Scottish national identity which coalesced around the recreation of Scotland's Parliament. This book intelligently assesses how that Parliament has done in its first decade. In pursuing such a task, the initial challenge was to define a benchmark against which to measure progress. Quite reasonably, many of the essayists choose the aspirations set out by the Consultative Steering Group (CSG), chaired by Henry McLeish and steered by civil servants, headed by the astute Robert Gordon.

The HBSC study in Scotland: can the study influence policy and practice in schools?

This paper reviews the role of the HBSC study in Scotland and suggests that the HBSC study has growing status and relevance in Scotland for a number of reasons as it continues to provide insights for politicians, policy makers, education professionals and health promotion practitioners. The paper will set out the historical background to the HBSC study and the associated research and health promoting school developments in Scotland. It will explore the factors that have been important in its influential role in contributing to health promotion policy developments in the education and health sectors in Scotland. It is suggested that this role has been shaped by: The changing political context and the developing political will to improve Scotland's health. The close practical links between the HBSC study and the national agency for health promotion. The growing credibility of the study in the education sector in Scotland as well as the health sector. The growing evidence of the study's influence through: references to the study in government reports; representation of HBSC researchers on government policy and strategy committees; deputy chief medical Officer being on HBSC committee; increased use of HBSC outputs in schools and education authorities; linked developments in the health promoting schools movement in Scotland. The development of a training and capacity building resource for teachers which draws extensively on data from the HBSC study. The continuity of the study over nineteen years resulting in a unique and valued data set. The development of good communication strategies which has resulted in high awareness of the data in the education and health sectors and the Scottish media. The growing understanding that HBSC is an important international study and that Scotland has played a significant role in co-ordinating the international dimension of the study and the close links between Scotland and the European Regional Office of The World Health Organization (WHO).

Public Sector Spending and the Scottish Economy: Crowding Out or Adding Value?

NTRODUCTION A recent debate in Scottish media and business circles has been highly critical of the role of the public sector in the Scottish economy. The debate has revolved around the extent to which public sector expenditure and investment has ‘crowded out’ the private sector, leading to poor national economic performance. This article suggests that there is little evidence for such a claim, whilst it could be argued that the opposite is actually more accurate; i.e. there is a link between the total gross domestic product (GDP) change and total government expenditure change during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Furthermore, there is only a small negative relationship between corporation tax rates and economic growth although outliers suggest this is not statistically significant. Perhaps more significant is the relationship between tax receipts and income equality. Countries with higher state involvement generally have lower levels of income inequality, suggesting that government intervention remains important in ensuring wealth is fairly distributed. The reason this is important is that inequality produces detrimental social effects, whilst

Learning lessons? The registration of lobbyists at the Scottish parliament

PurposeThe Scottish Parliament was founded on principles of openness and accessibility and signalled the potential for a new style of politics after devolution. In the aftermath of allegations of political sleaze early in the life of the new institution, the Standards Committee of the Scottish Parliament conducted an inquiry into the registration of lobbyists. This process attracted much comment and criticism from public affairs practitioners and the Scottish media. Based on original empirical research, numerous interviews and first‐hand observation, the purpose of this paper is to offer a response to some of these criticisms.Design/methodology/approachThe research reported here is based upon extended fieldwork and observation of the developing lobbying industry around the new Scottish Parliament, spanning the period from late 1998 until summer 2003. It involved some 73 interviews with various corporate and voluntary sector lobbyists, public servants and elected representatives. It also draws on participant observation at more than 70 official, public and private meetings for those involved in public affairs in Scotland. In addition, the paper monitored the popular and specialist media in Scotland for news and analyses of issues relating to lobbying at the new Parliament, undertook focus group research to test public opinion on the issue of registration, designed and administered an e‐mail survey of public servants in the USA and Canada charged with maintaining registers of lobbyists and conducted archival research at the Scottish Executive's library at Saughton House in Edinburgh.FindingsThe paper suggests the efforts by parliamentarians to regulate their relations with lobbyists need to be grounded in principles that apply to all outside interests seeking to influence the democratic process.Originality/valueThe paper challenges the assertions that lobbying is misunderstood by elected representatives and that the lobbying industry is entirely committed to increasing transparency.

Gaelic in the Media

In January 1993 the first television programmes funded by the Comataidh Telebhisein Gdidhlig (CTG) were broadcast in Scotland. In the ten years since, much has changed in Scotland, in the Gaelic world, and in the continuing transformation of the media by digital technology and globalisation, with these different aspects meeting in the current controversy over the government's reluctance to fully fund a Gaelic digital television channel. It is a suitable moment to step back and consider what presence Gaelic has in the Scottish media, what has been achieved over the last ten years, and what difference this is likely to make to the survival of the language itself.

Political Journalists and Nationalist Parties in Scotland and Quebec

In studies of nationalism, journalists are frequently identified as important figures in the promotion of national identity. They are, says Tom Nairn, among 'the loose screws who cause the trouble' (Nairn 1997, p. 188), the symbol-operators who communicate the vision of a national movement by translating it into everyday political and social realities or so the theory goes. But is this what actually happens? A closer study of the relationship between journalists and modern nationalist political parties would seem to indicate that the process is much more complex than that, subject as it is to the influence of a variety of social, political and economic factors. In the case of Scotland and Quebec, political journalists have played quite different roles in the promulgation of nationalism. Francophone journalists in Quebec, for example, were supporters of the independence movement from its earliest beginnings, and have long seen it as their responsibility to examine both federalism and sovereignty equally, while Scottish journalists have taken a much more critical stance towards independence, and, until very recently, have not seen the necessity of exploring the independence option in depth. The reasons lie in deep-rooted cultural and social differences, which have affected how Scots and Quebcccrs sec themselves, and, in turn, how the journalists in these two places report nationalism. To understand why this is so, it is necessary to examine not only their respective cultural and political norms, but also the social norms of the Quebec and Scottish media.

Internet, intranet, extranet: managing the information bazaar

The web has brought to the business world an inexpensive way of distributing corporate information to employees, business partners and customers. The term intranet describes a closed computer network built upon World Wide Web technology in which access is restricted to a particular group of users, typically employees of a company. The term extranet is used when access is extended to a privileged user group: customers and suppliers for example. This paper examines the role of the World Wide Web in the Research Library at Scottish Media Newspapers, in particular how it complements the portfolio of traditional online sources, CD Roms and books. It also describes the extent to which searching has moved from the intermediary to the end user. In the mid 1990s, just as the web was beginning its spectacular rise to fame, Scottish Media Newspapers developed a browser‐based interface to the in‐house database of newspaper stories, a process that led to the creation of a corporate intranet. The creation of the intranet has been accompanied by a redefining of staff roles in an attempt to change the image from passive librarian to dynamic research specialist. The paper concludes by examining the role of the information professional/librarian in a world where end users will have a vast range of information from internal and external sources at their fingertips.

A Committee Again: The First Year of the Revived Select Committee on Scottish Affairs

The impending revival of the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Select Committee in the summer of 1992 brought a mixed reaction from politicians and political commentators. The opposition parties in Scotland welcomed the resurrection of this organ of parliamentary scrutiny while stressing that it was no substitute for broad constitutional reform in Scotland. The Conservatives generally expressed satisfaction that the Scottish Office was to be placed once again on the same footing as other departments of state. Nonetheless, two Tory backbenchers (Bill Walker and Sir Nicholas Fairbairn) reiterated their refusal to have any truck with the committee, on the grounds that it was likely to be used as a political vehicle by the opposition, particularly if William McKelvey assumed the chair. Fairbairn subsequently relented, and agreed to join the committee. The Scottish media gave two cheers, but withheld the third on the grounds that the committee's predecessor was, in the words of The Scotsman , too partisan, its members unable to set aside party loyalties, and too parochial; they, in turn, chose subjects for investigation that had marginal