Introduction

Koller, Veronika; Kopf, Susanne; Miglbauer, Marlene

doi:10.4324/9781351041867-1

Cited by 24 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Bhambra, 2017; McKenzie, 2017). Two compilations, which have purported to offer comprehensive social analyses of Brexit from a multitude of authors (Koller et al, 2019; Outhwaite, 2017) ignore the significance of Facebook altogether. As with the broader field of populism and hate online (see Jacobs et al, 2020), a disproportionate number of studies into the relationship between Brexit and social media have focused on Twitter.…”

Section: Brexit and Facebookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Brexit on Facebook: Developing Close-up, Qualitative Methodologies for Social Media Research

Hall

2021

Sociological Research Online

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Facebook has frequently been implicated in the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum result, and support for Leave has been linked to wider nativist and populist mobilisations online. However, close-up, qualitative sociological research has not been conducted into the relationship between Brexit and social media use. This is, in part, due to the computational turn in online research, which has led to a disproportionate focus on quantitative big data analysis. This article argues for the value of close-up, qualitative enquiry to facilitate situated understandings of the reality of social media use and what it means to individuals. It outlines one such methodology developed to investigate pro-Leave Facebook users, to demonstrate how challenges posed by such research can be overcome, and the opportunities such enquiry affords for studying the role of social media in contentious politics. Invaluable insights gained include the way Facebook provides an empowering tool for making claims to political knowledge in the context of growing transnational nativist and populist grievances.

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Section: Brexit and Facebookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Brexit on Facebook: Developing Close-up, Qualitative Methodologies for Social Media Research

Hall

2021

Sociological Research Online

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“…Brexit has been increasingly studied by discourse analysts as a political and linguistic phenomenon (e.g. Koller et al, 2019;Zappettini and Krzyżanowski, 2019). Moreover, while there have been a number of scholarly contributions on the democratic qualities of the process leading to the referendum (Bellamy, 2019;Kröger, 2019) and on how the UK Parliament performed poorly as regards accountability after the vote (Chalmers, 2017), relatively little has been written about the democracy of the post-referendum Brexit processes.…”

Section: Fundingmentioning

confidence: 99%

How a lack of truthfulness can undermine democratic representation: The case of post-referendum Brexit discourses

Hansson

Kröger

2020

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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This article draws attention to how the ethics of democratic representation operates as a discreet factor in a crisis of representation afflicting Western democracies by identifying the ways a disregard for truthfulness can harm democratic representation. We argue that such a disregard undermines democratic representation by (1) reducing freedom and equality, (2) weakening accountability, (3) undermining citizens’ trust in democratic institutions, and (4) jeopardising the ability to compromise. We illustrate the processes that produce these effects by analysing examples of untruthful communication about Brexit by senior British politicians in the post-referendum debates. We show how all four of these effects were triggered by the ways they misled the public by (1) making claims about overwhelming popular support for their policy, (2) misrepresenting the power relations between the European Union and the national government, and (3) seriously downplaying the complexity of negotiations involved in leaving the European Union and reaching trade deals thereafter.

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“…The Brexit referendum, narrowly won by the Leavers, has been widely examined (Beaumont, 2017; Clarke et al, 2017; Curtis, 2020; Evans and Menon, 2017; Finlayson, 2018; Fuchs, 2018; Henderson et al, 2017; Iakhnis et al, 2018; Kellner, 2017; Khalili, 2017; Koller et al, 2019; Martill and Staiger, 2018; Musolff, 2017; Norris and Inglehart, 2019; Schaffner, 2020; Taylor, 2017). This section focuses on the representative claims of the figureheads of the Vote Leave Campaign, MPs Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Gisela Stuart, Priti Patel and Iain Duncan Smith, who, I argue, participated actively in a practice of social ignorance regarding the European project, British history, nationhood and sovereignty.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foundational Moments, Representative Claims and the Ecology of Social Ignorance

Mihai

2021

Political Studies

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This article identifies a blind spot in constructivist theories of representation and their account of legitimacy in terms of the challenge posed by ecologies of social ignorance, generally and especially during foundational moments. Social ignorance is conceptualised here not merely as the absence of knowledge or true belief but as a social practice of legitimising epistemically problematic political imaginaries and the institutional systems they underpin. In dialogue with social epistemologists and phenomenologists, the article shows how representation can nurture social ignorance, despite the availability of ample opportunities for political contestation and alternative opinion formation. A permanent feature of democratic politics, this problem becomes most salient during moments of constitutional re-founding, such as regime change, post-conflict reconstruction or constitutional referenda, when representative claims can reconfigure a community’s political imaginary, rendering it more or less ignorant. The representative claims made by the Vote Leave’s key figures during the Brexit referendum campaign serve as illustration.

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Introduction

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

Understanding Brexit on Facebook: Developing Close-up, Qualitative Methodologies for Social Media Research

Understanding Brexit on Facebook: Developing Close-up, Qualitative Methodologies for Social Media Research

How a lack of truthfulness can undermine democratic representation: The case of post-referendum Brexit discourses

Foundational Moments, Representative Claims and the Ecology of Social Ignorance

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