July 2016 1 A generation apart: Were younger people left behind by the EU referendum? DATA TABLES Background On 23 rd June 2016, the UK voted in a referendum on whether to leave or remain in the European Union. One of the starkest differences in voting intention in the referendum to emerge was that by age, with around two-thirds of under 35s looking likely to vote to remain and a similar number of over 55s looking set to vote to leave. In this context, CoVi in partnership with FES conducted a research and analysis exercise to explore this divide and how it would play out in the referendum. We analysed the background to these attitudes and assessed the success (or lack thereof) of the campaigns in reaching out to younger people. You can watch the visual executive summary here and read the full report here. Methodology Further primary research was conducted in the form of sentiment and keyword analysis of media headlines. We chose online sources as these are accessed more by younger people than press or broadcast. Furthermore, social media is clearly an increasingly important mechanism for sharing news and messages during election campaigns. As articles in large online news websites are often shared on social media with the headlines given prominence on someone’s feed, these provide useful insight into the tone and content of the public debate. We chose six sources for these headlines. The Guardian, Telegraph and Mail Online were selected because they are the three most accessed press websites by 15-34 year olds, the BBC was chosen because it is the most accessed news site in Great Britain, and Huffington Post UK and Buzzfeed were chosen as two exclusively online outlets marketed at younger people. We sourced articles via an online search of the term "EU referendum" on these news outlets on a weekly basis throughout the three months leading up to the referendum (23rd March to 23rd June). We analysed a total of 4,399 articles across the 6 outlets which featured the phrase for the term "EU referendum" in either the headline or body of the article and estimate that this number is comprehensive of at least 90% of all news articles online across the six outlets. The gap is accounted for where articles are not identified by searches and human error. We then coded issues mentioned in the titles using some of the most important issues indicated by voters. We also identified all the people mentioned in the headlines by name (but not by title such as “Prime Minister”) and all the negative and positive words contained in the headlines. For more information about this please contact Katy Owen, Programme Manager, on [email protected].
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Transcript
July 2016
1
A generation apart: Were younger people left behind by the EU
referendum?
DATA TABLES
Background
On 23rd June 2016, the UK voted in a referendum on whether to leave or remain in the
European Union. One of the starkest differences in voting intention in the referendum to
emerge was that by age, with around two-thirds of under 35s looking likely to vote to
remain and a similar number of over 55s looking set to vote to leave.
In this context, CoVi in partnership with FES conducted a research and analysis exercise to
explore this divide and how it would play out in the referendum. We analysed the
background to these attitudes and assessed the success (or lack thereof) of the campaigns
in reaching out to younger people.
You can watch the visual executive summary here and read the full report here.
Methodology
Further primary research was conducted in the form of sentiment and keyword analysis of
media headlines. We chose online sources as these are accessed more by younger people
than press or broadcast. Furthermore, social media is clearly an increasingly important
mechanism for sharing news and messages during election campaigns. As articles in large
online news websites are often shared on social media with the headlines given prominence
on someone’s feed, these provide useful insight into the tone and content of the public
debate.
We chose six sources for these headlines. The Guardian, Telegraph and Mail Online were
selected because they are the three most accessed press websites by 15-34 year olds, the
BBC was chosen because it is the most accessed news site in Great Britain, and Huffington
Post UK and Buzzfeed were chosen as two exclusively online outlets marketed at younger
people.
We sourced articles via an online search of the term "EU referendum" on these news outlets
on a weekly basis throughout the three months leading up to the referendum (23rd March
to 23rd June). We analysed a total of 4,399 articles across the 6 outlets which featured the
phrase for the term "EU referendum" in either the headline or body of the article and
estimate that this number is comprehensive of at least 90% of all news articles online across
the six outlets. The gap is accounted for where articles are not identified by searches and
human error.
We then coded issues mentioned in the titles using some of the most important issues
indicated by voters. We also identified all the people mentioned in the headlines by name
(but not by title such as “Prime Minister”) and all the negative and positive words contained
in the headlines.
For more information about this please contact Katy Owen, Programme Manager, on