« Wales is an artefact created by Broadcasting » : la BBC comme acteur d’une identité galloise ?

Abstract

On 13 February 1923, the British Broadcasting Company, the British Broadcasting Corporation to be, started broadcasting programmes in Wales and it became a single unit in the BBC’s organisation in 1937, until BBC Wales Cymru was launched in 1964. Over the course of the 20th century, the BBC, through its programmes, made Wales more visible and shaped a Welsh identity, while fulfilling its three main missions, ie to inform, to educate, and to entertain. Yet, this Welshness, founded on pillars as coalmining and rugby, turns out to be more imagined and fabricated than real.

Keywords

• Wales
• BBC
• national identity
• imagined community
• information
• entertainment