From Titanic to Game of Thrones: Promoting Belfast as a Global Media Capital

Abstract

Using information gathered through analysis of screen industry–related promotion material and fieldwork conducted in Belfast in June 2017, this article traces the ways in which screen economy connected to James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) and HBO’s Game of Thrones and the celebratory discourse around these works brand Belfast as a dynamic global media capital. This study inquires into the ways in which association with screen industries contributes to the spatial value of a region, especially a post-industrial city that actively seeks to alter its past global image and association with a violent civil conflict. It also aims to contribute to the debate about the discourse on labor in creative cities by showing that while manufacturing labor is waning, its discourse of social welfare, hard labor, and craftsmanship transfers itself to creative industries that then justify themselves through the claim to inherit traditional industries’ economic strength, job opportunities, and work ethics.