Brexit, Voting, and the Partisan Popular Press
Open AccessBefore the 2016 Brexit referendum, the partisan popular press made strong, repeated calls for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Whether these calls had any influence on British voters still needs empirical examination. This thesis uses British Election Study panel data to track voters' newspaper consumption and vote intention on EU membership in the year before the referendum. It finds that readers of Eurosceptic papers displayed a 15-point larger swing toward a Leave vote compared to those who did not read a partisan paper. Further, it finds that this swing was preceded by exposure to clear editorial cues from their preferred newspaper of its Leave support. The effects of Remain papers on readers were much smaller. This thesis extends previous direct media effects research by examining the influence of ideological press on voting preferences outside of party-centred electoral contests and in the context of an asymmetric partisan media environment.
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