Until the advent of the web 2.0 revolution, national identities had only been projected mostly offline (in the material world), or on web sites where news releases or other propaganda materials could also be disseminated. The recent spread of social media has also shifted the branding of states, cities and nations. This, I will argue, has forced nations (in my case Scotland) to adapt their strategies in different ways for the offline/online worlds. As the online becomes more ingrained in the way societies function, nationalism will be profoundly shaped by this difference in the projection of identities offline/online, and Scotland represents the ideal case, given the heavy reliance on social media of the two sides in the 2014 independence referendum. Methodologically I will look at promotional materials (both text and graphics) used offline and online to see how they differed in promoting Scotland’s identity at this juncture.
