Patterns of Uptake and Public Opinion How Framing may have helped Newspapers steer the Public to the Exit

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate a possible relationship between uptake and public opinion during the 10-week Brexit referendum campaign. Previous research on this time period has demonstrated that the three most discussed issues during the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 were the economy, immigration and sovereignty (Moore & Ramsay 34), while the NHS, employment and national security were also high on the list of most important issues (Duncan). In this thesis, 200 articles from the British red-top newspaper The Sun and black-top newspaper the Daily Mail are analysed and compared to the results of public opinion polls to find any patterns of similarity. This study demonstrates that the uptake by newspapers of terms such as 'Brexit', 'EU' and 'immigration' increased closer to the final week of the campaign, while attention to health care issues proved to remain low during the course of the 10-week campaign. For both newspapers and voters, control of the EU and immigration levels proved to be the most important issues in the campaign. The rising pattern in uptake of the term 'unemployment' found in the content analysis of The Sun was paralleled by rising percentages, representing levels of importance, in public opinion polls. These findings suggest a relationship between patterns of uptake in newspapers and patterns of public opinion. Since direct relationships between public opinion and the media cannot be studied, it is argued that demographic information may provide us with an indirect way to track uptake of mediatized texts and their effect on public opinion.