Political Entrepreneurs and Regioneers: A Netnographic Study of Regional Identity and

Soft regionalism and regional identities in Great Britain has seldom been explored beyond the national debates of Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. Many recent local studies in England have, too, been neglected. This study is set against the backdrop of the ongoing debates around devolution within the United Kingdom and the creation of new regional authorities and city-regions. This thesis investigates how material culture, place-myths, and 'identity-talk' is used by two different social agents to inform, conceptualise, create legitimacy for, and challenge regional identity, using the case study of Somerset, England. A different methodology than is usually applied to regional studies, virtual ethnography or netnography, is used to demonstrate the method's significance in the future of regional studies due to the increasing number of people using social media and the internet to exhibit their identity. Regional identity is problematised through the use of two distinct types of agents discovered in Somerset, political entrepreneurs and regioneers. Originating from Thomas O'Dell's concept of the regionaut, this study introduces the regioneer that actively handles and produces material culture within their region to exhibit their regional identity. The existence of these new agents is indicative of the ever growing tourist and heritage industries i