The issue of Euroscepticism has been racking the European Union for many years, and the United Kingdom’s exit from the block came as a shock for many. Carried by a campaign on social media, the Leave campaign’s success has highlighted a number of issues that risk not only the EU, but democratic society itself. Focusing on public opinion formation on the EU and political polarisation, this paper explores the question of how a political entrepreneur can polarise a society in a desired fashion. Based on a content analysis performed on 1,100 tweets posted by the Leave campaign, the study attempts to map out topical and polarising tendencies of the campaign, together with a propensity to employ misinformation. The results show a focus on certain topics pertaining to public opinion formation on the EU and a tendency to tweet on them in a polarising manner across the board. Finally, false claims were found throughout the dataset, propelling an argument that there is a relationship between misinformation and polarisation which risks further polarising a given polity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-456292 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Huldin, Daniel |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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