Ebook: Consumer Nationalism and Barr’s Irn-Bru in Scotland
Author: David Leishman
- Tags: Social Sciences, Cultural Studies, Sociology of Culture, Branding, British Culture
- Series: Consumption and Public Life
- Year: 2020
- Publisher: Springer International Publishing
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Language: English
- pdf
This book connects a detailed analysis of Irn-Bru’s brand identity over time to theories of national identity, consumer studies, and banal nationalism. It situates the commercial history of Barr’s Irn-Bru in a transnational context and shows how Irn-Bru has become a symbol of Scotland through processes of rewriting, reframing and institutionalized forgetting, linking the consumption of what began as a trans-national generic product to a specific national community. As such, Leishman presents a longitudinal, cross-disciplinary approach to analysing branding and advertising as multi-modal forms of discourse, in order to underline the role of commercial, non-state actors and popular consumerism in the phenomenon of banal nationalism. It will be of interest to students and scholars researching nationalism, consumption, and Scottish studies.