British Public Service Broadcasting, the EU and Brexit

Berry, M, Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin, Garcia-Blanco, I, Bennett, Lucy and Cable, Jonathan ORCID: 0000-0002-2585-3419 (2021) British Public Service Broadcasting, the EU and Brexit. Journalism Studies, 22 (15). pp. 2082-2102. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2021.1981154

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Abstract

This paper analyses the historic role of Britain’s major public service broadcaster, the BBC, in reporting the European Union. To do this it combines a content analysis of two datasets of BBC broadcast and online coverage from 2007 and 2012 with a series of semistructured interviews conducted with former and current senior BBC editors and journalists. The research finds that BBC coverage in the pre-referendum period was closely tied to major events – such as summits – and elite party conflict. These patterns in coverage were primarily a consequence of the lack of traditional news values inherent in most EU stories and the impact of the wider political and media landscape. The consequence of these patterns in coverage was to present audiences with a restricted, negative and largely conflictual picture of Britain’s relationship with the EU which is likely to have fuelled rather than inhibited the growth of Euroscepticism.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Brexit; European Union; British public broadcasting; Television journalism
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN4699 Journalism
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Research Priority Areas:	Creative Practice and Theory
Depositing User:	Joe Cable
Date Deposited:	08 Nov 2021 15:44
Last Modified:	08 Aug 2023 15:53
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/10342

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