The Failed Guardianship and The Sunrise of Media-Reality: The Effect of the Media’s Political Participation in Affecting the Voter's Identity during Brexit

ABSTRACT:

Previous Brexit analyses showed that major British media significantly influenced the public’s opinion and substantially affected the vote outcome. However, this ‘mediacractic’ effect has not been studied in the comparative context between Leave and Remain media actors, dissecting their utilised approaches. Intrinsically, the preceding justifies the following research question: Compared to The Guardian’s failure, how did The Sun successfully construct and maintain the Leave identity for its readers during the Brexit campaign? The neutral-Remain The Guardian chose the role of an intermediary informer with limited commentary and expression of its position. In contrast, the pro-Leave The Sun became a vocal and highly persistent political actor, regularly declaring itself as an active political participant. My analysis shows that active participation in the political campaign in a referendum-type environment is more effective than the publication of restrainedly detached assessments. Specifically, The Sun’s three core approaches manifested in constructing a pro-Leave political media-reality. By creating and taking hold of the issue through priming and framing, The Sun established itself as a relevant and accessible issue entrepreneur. This created a foundation upon which the outlet constructed the bond of credibility while discrediting its ideological opposition via the stimulation of motivated scepticism. At last, given its nurtured ‘reputation for honesty’ and ‘likeability’, the tabloid consolidated its influence through a change to positive in-group messaging, leading to an imposition of a Eurosceptic media-reality. The Sun’s experience leads to a more general inference, the normative implications of which necessitate stringent regulation and future research on the viability of media-democracy.