THE PRESS’ INFLUENCE ON THE UNITED KINGDOM’S REFERENDUM ON BREXIT

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to analyze the language used in the UK online press during the EU membership referendum campaign of 2016 to provide readers with a new perspective to visualize the outcome of the EU referendum. Norman Fairclough's model of CDA will be the appropriate approach for this study because it encompasses linguistics, social and political theories indispensable to make the connection between text and other aspects in social life. The findings reveal that the press’ discourse of both conflicting sides in the referendum campaign, the anti and the pro-EU, was in the same way determined by ideologies of racism and xenophobia. These ideologies shaped the newspapers discourse and contributed to the transformation of power relations in contemporary Britain