Tabloid Tales: How the British Tabloid Press Shaped the Brexit Vote

Abstract

This article focuses on the role of the British tabloid press (BTP), and specifically the eurosceptic press, as a 'supply-side' influence on the 2016 EU referendum. First, we focus on the BTP and its role as an 'agenda-setter' in shaping eurosceptic discourse regarding the UK's relationship with the EU. Second, we use content analysis of five tabloid newspapers -The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express and The Daily Star to demonstrate the disproportionate pro-Brexit discourse prior to, and during, the EU referendum campaign. Third, drawing on opinion poll data, we show how this 'bombardment' approach influenced the electorate in the referendum campaign. Given the 'knowledge deficit' about the EU in the UK, we conclude that the BTP had a significant bearing on tipping the referendum vote towards Brexit.

Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

“…These results were robust to the inclusion of household fixed-effects (Column 4 of Table S2). The newspapers people use for their information about news and current affairs, consistent with previous research, also had a large effect on voting behavior as evidenced in Column 1 of Table S2 (Simpson & Startin, 2023). Specifically, relative to those who don't read newspapers, the tabloid newspapers-regarded as sensationalist outlets-reduced the probability of voting Remain by between 14 and 20 percentage points, depending on the type of tabloid newspaper.…”

“…These controls included age (in cubic form); gender; ethnicity, education; labour force status; interview mode; the number of sources used for information about news and current affairs; type of newspapers used for information about news and current affairs; political party supports/most aligned to; self-assessed general health; whether the respondent suffers from long-term health problems; personality traits-openness, neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness-measured using the short 15-item Big-Five inventory (BFI-15); the logarithm of deflated household income (adjusted by the OECDmodified equivalence scale); marital status; the number of dependent children in the household; the square root of household size; housing tenure; whether the respondent is the household financial decision maker; whether the respondent lives in an urban location as well as a set of region of residence dummy variables. These factors have been shown to be strong predictors of voting behaviour (Becker et al, 2017;Arnorsson & Zoega, 2018;Alabrese et al, 2019;Simpson & Startin, 2023).…”

“…The information provided to the public, in the months leading up to the referendum on the UK's membership in the EU, has been characterized as contradictory, false, and often fraudulent. This has been found to be especially true regarding the pro-Leave campaign (Höller, 2021;Simpson & Startin). In particular, Höller (2021) found that misleading information was even shared by leading UK politicians, especially the politicians who were arguing the case for a vote to Leave the EU.…”

“…Additionally, recent work by Simpson & Startin (2023) examined the influential role that the British Tabloid Press (BTP) had in shaping the pro-Leave campaign. In a content analysis of BTP headlines leading up to the referendum, Startin & Simpson (2023) categorise almost all of the headlines as 'Questionable' or 'Speculative' with respect to their interpretation of underlying evidence or lack thereof. Indeed, Partheymüller, Kritzinger and Plescia (2022) find that misinformedness is strongly associated with a preference to Leave the EU, while the wellinformed prefer to Remain.…”

Conversations: Yulia Nesterova with Marta Moskal

“…Brexit was a significant event for the country and EU citizens residing in it, and the runup to it -political and media campaigns to "Take Back Control" in particular -set the tone for how immigration has been perceived and discussed in the British society. As Simpson and Startin (2022) assert, for example, the coverage of European affairs has become "vigorously partisan, nationalist and at times xenophobic" (p. 3). In this Conversation, Dr Moskal and I discuss how Brexit and the media and political discourse around it have affected the experiences of young people from Central and Eastern European backgrounds living in the UK.…”