Mediatizing the Nation, Ordering the World: Struggles for Redemption in Britain and the United States

This book offers a timely and engaging account of how technologies of communication media impact nationalist challenges to global order, shedding new light on how they matter, how they have changed, and how their evolution transforms the conditions of possibility for nationalist order challengers. In the 21st century, we have become accustomed to close entanglements between resurgent nationalism and digital media. In Mediatizing the Nation, Ordering the World, Andrew Dougall shows that the relationship between media and nationalist order contestation is far older. Comparing Trump's breakthrough in the 21st century United States with a similar - but unsuccessful - movement in 19th century Britain, the book argues that communication media shaped these episodes by differently patterning the constitution and distribution of meaning on which they relied. Underpinning this argument is a novel theorization of media in world politics that draws on insights from media and communications scholarship, in addition to international relations. Among the book's key contributions are to explain how media affect vertical challenges to the structure of international orders; to reframe IR's theoretical engagement with the relationship between media and order; and to situate the internet within a longer history of this relationship, contributing to a more balanced view of its impact.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Introduction and Theory 1: Introduction 2: Redemptive nationalism, communication media, and order transformation Part II. Greater Britain 3: 'From Empire to Union': The imperial press system and the idea of Greater Britain 4: Realizing Greater Britain: National-imperialism and the domestic press Part III. The American New Right 5: Exile and enmity: The post-war roots of the American New Right 6: America First: The breakthrough of the New Right Part IV. Conclusion 7: Affording redemption

About the Author :
Andrew Dougall is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies at the University of Queensland, where he is also a member of the School of Political Science and International Studies. He received his PhD in International Relations from the University of Queensland in 2022. His research focuses on the intersection between technologies of communication media and the constitution and evolution of international orders.

Review :
This interesting book develops a fresh and original understanding of the relationship between nationalism, declining powers, and communication media. Far from mere conduits of connection, this book shows how media influence and sometimes redirect the course of revisionist ideologies and become instigators of challenges to international order. In this remarkably sophisticated analysis of the role of communication technologies in world politics, Andrew Dougall makes a major contribution toward understanding some of the most important and often misunderstood issues of our time. Rich in historical insight and contemporary relevance, Mediatizing the Nation, Ordering the World is an essential guide to the complex relationship between nationalism and media, the impact of digital media on rise of today's national-populist and radical conservative movements, and the future of the international order. With this insightful and thought-provoking book, Andrew Dougall joins Karl Deutsch, Ron Deibert, and Mathias Albert as a leading theorist of communication in world politics. The book explores the crucial role of communicative media in adopting and spreading "redemptive nationalism" by nations that attempt to reconfigure world orders as they grapple with decline. By skilfully comparing two historical periods and geographic contexts--the campaign for a Greater Britain in the late 19th century United Kingdom and the New Right movement in the contemporary United States -- Dougall demonstrates that media, from the print media of the British Empire to the digital platforms of modern America, intervenes as a conduct of meanings in the communicative construction of world orders. The case studies are not parallel but rather approached in a unique manner. Reading the US sections of this book, with its emphasis on the 2020 election, after the 2024 election provides an interesting example of the ability of social scientists to predict the future.