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.

Andrew Dougall, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Queensland

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.