The study is available for free here, via. cambridge.org:
Abstract:
Whether powerful media outlets have effects on public opinion has been at the heart of theoretical and empirical discussions about the media’s role in political life. Yet, the effects of media campaigns are difficult to study because citizens self-select into media consumption. Using a quasi-experiment—the 30-year boycott of the most important Eurosceptic tabloid newspaper, The Sun, in Merseyside caused by the Hillsborough soccer disaster—we identify the effects of The Sun boycott on attitudes toward leaving the EU. Difference-in-differences designs using public opinion data spanning three decades, supplemented by referendum results, show that the boycott caused EU attitudes to become more positive in treated areas. This effect is driven by cohorts socialized under the boycott and by working-class voters who stopped reading The Sun. Our findings have implications for our understanding of public opinion, media influence, and ways to counter such influence in contemporary democracies.
There’s also a discussion with the authors here:
It’s almost like propaganda works. It’s nice to have a study that demonstrates it.
it baffles me how some people think they’re immune to propaganda, or seem to think they’ll know it when they see it. It’s not an over the top 1984 scenario where every public radio says “we all love the government, we obey the president”. It’s subtle, it’s the way you report on a thing that objectively happened, it’s the adjectives you describe people and things with, it’s the way you film public figures and cut the footage they appear in, and unless you’re looking for it - there’s a high chance you won’t notice
Exactly, modern propaganda is not like Uncle Sam’s “I want you” in your face anymore. It’s media silence or over coverage over specific issues, correct timings and particular vocabulary. And with social media it’s absolutely everywhere and impossible to escape.
I learned it when I was in the Iraq war. Each news source lies to you in slightly different ways. It’s why you should read multiple news sources from both sides of the political spectrum.
Fuck the S*n
I am Dutch and endorse this above statement. Also Kelvin MacKenzie…what a piece of shit he is, scum of the earth.
All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster. The only thing different we did was put it under the headline “The Truth”. I went on The World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn’t sorry then and I’m not sorry now because we told the truth.
Agreed. A truly vile person.
It’s wild that that story actually makes Rupert Murdoch into the good guy of the situation (even if he only did it for his own financial interest).
You still can’t really get the Sun anywhere around Liverpool. Even if you find a place that stocks it, if you were to buy a copy they’d look at you funny.
It’s all because of their reporting of the Hillsborough Disaster, where they blamed Liverpool FC fans for causing the press, rather than police not only mismanaging but restricting the emergency evacuation.
