"Here be monsters (and journalists)" - the UK press and the construction of the Weird Sea

Abstract

The UK national press likes nothing more than a sea monster. Whether it’s a giant squid, a sighting (or not) of a strange cryptid, a whale wandering up the Thames or a fossilised prehistoric creature from the depths, British newspapers seem driven to report and so construct the sea in terms of its otherness, a source of alien threat or whimsical curiosity where the rules and norms of the mainland no longer apply.

In part, this is the result of news values – the sighting of a basking shark will always be more interesting than an uneventful ferry crossing or a fishing boat picking up a school of cod. Yet it also demonstrates a curious distancing from the sea, which is ironic given the essential maritime nature of an island like Britain.

Here the press creates a sense of ‘otherness’ which both reflects and further emphasises this dislocation from the sea. After all, if the sea is rendered unfamiliar, it is also rendered a threat and the sea itself is often portrayed as a destructive, unpredictable force, as demonstrated in the coverage of the 2013 storms.

Meanwhile, what might be termed a ‘perilous isolationism’ abounds in the public imagination, where invasive threats – from rabid foxes to the would-be asylum seekers of Calais – are held back only by the dubious barrier of the sea.

The paper will therefore critique and discuss this ongoing antagonism between press and sea and will argue that the nature of UK journalism itself means that the other will always be portrayed as a threat.

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