Towards an Anatomy of 21st-Century British Culture: Case Studies from the Newspapers.

Abstract

This paper offers a framework of analysis to encompass the variety of contemporary British culture in newspapers, drawing attention upon its “order of discourse” within the history of the present.

Ten often overlapping categories are proposed: British national identity; local identities; ethnicity and religion; social classes; war and peace; work; leisure trends; the body; gender; home and family.

These combine variously and change across the periods 1901- 1945, 1946-1964, 1965-1979, and 1980-2000. The resulting grid, applied to news case studies, suggests the warps and wefts within the fabric of British culture, and a blueprint upon which 21st-century paradigms may rest.