Brexit on Facebook How was Facebook used to gain votes on Brexit?

Abstract

This dissertation analyses a national political campaign on social media to explore its role in 21stcentury politics. The European Union Referendum 2016 is the selected election, Facebook is the platform, and the United Kingdom is the nation. Political campaigning, social media, and public opinion are the three main topics of this dissertation, forming a triangle for investigation. To ensure impartiality and fairness, the study considers both sides of the campaign: Leave and Remain. On the Leave side, there is a Facebook page called Vote Leave, and on the Remain side, one which is called Labour Party. Since supporters often create many digital pages on social media for political campaigns, it is impossible to analyse them all. The criteria for this research involved selecting the two main official pages from each campaign, based on a scientific analysis of how both sides conducted their campaigns online. These two teams are examined through their Facebook posts during the campaign for the British Referendum. Facebook was the dominant social media platform in the UK at the time, according to the Office of Communications (OFCOM). The analysis focuses particularly on posts shared on Facebook. The research design is centred on content analysis, drawing on previous studies. The content analysis employs a hybrid model over six months, examining Facebook posts from both the Brexit and Bremain sides. The mixed model includes all posts from 1 January 2016 to 23 June 2016, the day of the Referendum. Before the main analysis, a pilot study was conducted to examine each post’s content and identify key themes such as Immigration, Economy, the NHS, the European Union, Industry, Education, and Housing. These topics were comprehensively included in the official analysis as they highlighted the principal tactics used by both groups on social media. For example, during the pilot, immigration emerged as a prominent issue, leading to its inclusion in the thematic categories to capture Brexit-related subjects. The refined model ensured that all themes relevant to the Referendum were accurately identified. The results indicated that immigration was the primary concern for British voters. The study found that the Vote Leave Facebook page was more organised and consistent than the Labour Party, which may have contributed to its victory over Remain. Furthermore, marketing, propaganda, persuasion, and semiotics are essential tools for clarifying the reasons that led Vote Leave to work better than the Labour Party in the digital world. Eventually, data collected from both Facebook pages demonstrated that Vote Leave shared 597 posts while the Labour Party shared 296 posts, which presents a larger difference between them. So, the highest level of activity was achieved by Vote Leave Facebook, which had a percentage of 67% of all posts published, whereas the Labour Party had just 33%. It was found that the winner utilised the canon theories from political campaigns in social media to change voters’ minds. Thus, it can be considered: how was Facebook used to influence votes on the Brexit Referendum 2016?