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Putting together ruralities: Towards a symbolic analysis of rurality in the British mass media

Phillips, M., Fish, R, Agg, J. (2001) Putting together ruralities: Towards a symbolic analysis of rurality in the British mass media. Journal of Rural Studies, 17 (1). pp. 1-27. ISSN 0743-0167. (doi:10.1016/S0743-0167(00)00015-2) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:59890)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0743-0167(00)00015-2

Abstract

In recent years rural geography has become increasingly sensitised to the significance of rurality as a cultural construct. This paper examines the production and reception of mediated representations of rurality: that is, it focuses on senses of the rural conveyed by mass media such as television. The paper discusses claims that images of rurality can be understood as socio-spatialisations. It then focuses on the rurality of British rural drama programmes, and particularly on three such drama series: Dangerfield, Heartbeat and Peak Practice. Drawing together a textual analysis of these programmes with research on their production and consumption, we explore the rurality produced through these television dramas, paying particular attention to the presence, and absence, of idyllic notions of the countryside. We suggest that while these programmes do enact idyllic constructions of rurality, their rurality is not simply reducible to this. We will also highlight how these programmes may also enact particular social identities, including, but not exclusively, those of class. We argue in particular that the three drama series can be read as conveying, in a range of ways, senses of middle-classness. The overall argument of this paper is hence that the mediated ruralities of British rural drama programmes are enactments of social and spatial imaginaries, the complexity and effect of which are often ignored in their textual reduction to a middle class idyll. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/S0743-0167(00)00015-2
Additional information: Unmapped bibliographic data: AD - Department of Geography, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LEI 7RH, United Kingdom [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry CVI 5FB, United Kingdom [Field not mapped to EPrints] DB - Scopus [Field not mapped to EPrints] M3 - Article [Field not mapped to EPrints]
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: Robert Fish
Date Deposited: 17 Jan 2017 10:42 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:24 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/59890 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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