Local specificity and regional unity under siege: territorial identity and the television news of Aquitaine

Abstract

This article addresses the depiction of regional and local identity in terms of France and Europe, in the March 1999 weekday evening news transmissions of FR3 Aquitaine and M6 Bordeaux in Aquitaine, France. It begins with a discussion of current debates surrounding different forms of territorial identity. This is followed by an overview of televisual policy at a national and regional level. The ensuing analysis of the March 1999 programmes demonstrates that, despite the different aims, agendas, target audience and ownership of the two Aquitaine-based channels, the dominant form of regionalism is based upon a sense of opposition to unsympathetic and overly centralized national and European policy. This `oppositional regionalism', stronger in the state-owned FR3 Aquitaine regional news than in the privately owned M6 Bordeaux local bulletins, supersedes even `neo-regionalism', which is based upon a sense of a shared economic future.