How Brexit Referendum Voters Use News

Abstract

It’s been over three years since the United Kingdom narrowly voted to leave the European Union in June 2016 – and the role the news media played during the referendum campaign, and during the subsequent negotiations, continues to be debated. People ask, for example, whether new forms of online communication swung the result in favour of leave, whether parts of the news media are structurally biased towards a particular worldview, and whether people’s understanding of the EU has been shaped by decades of partisan coverage. The scope and magnitude of these questions can be daunting – especially given that we lack basic facts about how those on different sides typically access news. In this factsheet, we have compared the current media habits of those who voted to remain with those who voted to leave. In doing so, we uncover patterns that challenge some widely held assumptions.