Screening Wales: portrayal, representation and identity: a case study

The essay begins with an overview of some recent thinking and writing about national identity and culture, drawing on both academic sources and broadcasters. It then argues, using evidence from textual analysis and audience surveys conducted as part of a research project funded by the BBC Trust Audience Council Wales (Screening the Nation: Landmark Television in Wales), with Doctor Who (1963-89; 1996) and Torchwood (2006-present) as its main case studies, that television representations of place, space and identity provoke complex responses from audiences, that both intersect with and complicate the idea of the national, but are not bound by it.