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We suspected that agriculture didn’t feature highly in UK voters considerations in the Brexit referendum and a study undertaken by the Loughborough University Centre for Research in Communication and Culture confirms this.
They studied the content analysis of news coverage of the EU Referendum produced on the weekdays (i.e. Monday to Friday inclusive) between 6 May and 22 June 2016 in all the main print and broadcasting media outlets in the UK.
The big issues across all media were conduct of the referendum itself (30%) followed by the economy on 19% and immigration 13%.
Agriculture trailed in 18th out of the top twenty issues with 0.6% of coverage. Interestingly, agriculture got twice as much coverage in papers advocating for a Remain vote than papers advocating an exit. However, environment and education were lower on 0.5%. This is a broad reflection of the low priority farming is in the UK and is the key reason why farmers have to be concerned about the level of direct support and government priority they will receive after Brexit.
Source: Loughborough University Centre for Research in Communication and Culture
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