Maike Dinger

My PhD research project is an interdisciplinary study, which combines different perspectives in the Humanities, and is being carried out under the supervision of Dr Scott Hames (University of Stirling) and Dr Michael Higgins (University of Strathclyde).

The project is partially funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities and commenced in October 2019. 

My PhD research project, entitled Fiction(s) of Political Participation: Literature, Media and the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum, combines cultural, media, and literary studies perspectives with contemporary politics to analyse how political participation was mediated during the Scottish independence referendum campaign from 2012 to 2014. As such, it investigates modes of representation and myth-making in and through literature and media texts, with a specific focus on the links between political developments, cultural practices, emerging narratives, social representation, and public voice. 

In order to discern text-based practices of public opinion formation processes between national institutions and Scottish citizens, a corpus of literary texts, media representations, grassroots interventions, personal statements, and oral history interviews with cultural actors and journalists will be analysed. By comparing literary and media representations of ‘popular participation’ to first-hand accounts by cultural and media elites as well as citizens, this project adds a crucial new dimension to the critical engagement with the different voices of the Scottish independence debate. 

Cultural and Media Studies, Cultural Theory, Literature 

GTA for: Introduction to Journalism, Media and Communicaton