Splendid isolation again? Brexit and the role of the press and online media in re-narrating the European discourse

ABSTRACT

Europe as an idea as well as a political and cultural project has been a vast subject in the British public debate, The relationship between Britain and Europe was mostly regarded as extremely cautious and parochially nationalist; however, whereas in the 1960s and 1970s opposition to the European Economic Community (ECC) was predominantly led by intelligentsias and maverick politicians, the present-day debate seems less intellectually-driven and academic in his language. This article draws attention to the role of traditional and online media in re-narrating the European question. Within this process, the re-semioticization of the role of Great Britain in the international scenario vis-à-vis the historical and cultural discourses of borders between the UK and the Continent play a pivotal function. Starting from here, the article considers, on the one hand, how the current re-narration of the European question is reproducing and reinterpreting historical arguments vis-à-vis old clichés. On the other, it deals primarily with the response to the profound transition taking place in the political landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• Brexit
• historical discourse analysis
• Anglosphere

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Marzia Maccaferri is Associate Lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research interests lie at the intersection of European political history (Twentieth century) and intellectual history. Her work has a particular focus on the history of Italian and British intellectuals and on the relationship between intellectuals, public sphere, and journals and media. Her forthcoming publication is The Democracy of Affluence. Intellectuals and the Affluent Society in Britain, Italy, and the US, 1958–1979, to be published by Routledge in late 2019.

Notes

1. Among the daily newspapers the biggest winners were the Guardian (with circulation up by 3.63%) and The Times (up 2.51%). Johnston Press’s I rose 2.97%, the pro-Brexit The Telegraph a more modest 1.12% while the Daily Mail could only muster a 0.28% rise (Sweney, 2016).

2. The term describes the foreign policy pursued by Britain during the late nineteenth century under the Conservative Party’s premierships of Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury.