Secessionism on the Rise: Frames, Media Bias, and Strategies of Political Parties in Catalonia (2010-2014) and Scotland (2012-2016)

Increasing calls for regional independence are being made in several European countries, and such calls are accompanied by growing public support for secessionism. Over the last decade, Catalonia and Scotland have enjoyed the highest level of political mobilization for secession in the European Union. This research highlights the role of the media in changing attitudes toward independence and studies regionalist parties' strategic choices to understand their electoral success at the regional elections at a time of fast growth of independence sentiments among the population. This study employs different methods: process tracing to focus on the specificities of the independence process in a view to understand how the secessionist agenda transformed the cases; frame analysis of media links the theoretical arguments and their representation in the public discourse; content analysis of regional parties’ electoral programs via Regional Manifesto Project approach helps to define the strategic choices of regionalist parties which brought success to their secessionist agenda at the regional elections; most-similar cases comparative analysis allows to identify commonality and differences between the cases of Catalonia and Scotland. This dissertation uncovers how: the media communicate regionalist arguments to the audience; the media justify independence claims; regionalist parties strategize their secessionist programs. First, a strong pro-region bias is the main feature of media coverage. Secondly, saliency in influenced by the political process as a largely exogeneous factor, but the framing process may also influence reality by giving particular meaning to the major political events and by framing them as political opportunities or as having transformative power. Third, the political competition structure contributes to the strategic choices of political parties. My research contributes to the framing literature by considering the role of diagnosis, prognostic, and motivational framing in the independence discourse. It highlights the extent of pro-region message flows vis-à-vis pro-center and neutral messages in media communication. My analysis contributes to previous research on regionalist parties by making an in-depth case study to differentiate between subsuming and blurring strategies adopted by secessionist actors.