Kybich Y. Brexit in the European media discourse: prerequisites, nature, consequences

The dissertation includes a comprehensive study of Brexit in the European media discourse, the historical and political preconditions of this process, the nature of coverage in the media space of Great Britain, the member states of the European Union, the United States and Canada, and its impact on the geopolitical situation in Europe and the world. The theoretical and conceptual foundations of the integration/disintegration processes of the middle of the 20th century in Europe are analyzed. The author considered the most famous conceptual approaches of European integration, and outlined their theoretical justification, general development, differences, comparative relationship and practical application. The author characterized the regularities of the formation of the British special approach to the process of integration into the European Community. The influence of the Eurosceptic position of British political parties and governments on the positioning of the United Kingdom in Europe and therefore the corresponding attitude towards expanding the borders of EU integration not only in the economic but also in the political direction was assessed. The main emphasis of the work is on the study of the media discourse caused by the exit of the United Kingdom from the EU. The study of this topic, due to its novelty, is only gaining momentum. The author carried out a comprehensive analysis of the British, European, Canadian, and American media space, which made it possible to show how the world's leading media broadcast this historical stage, and how this process influenced public opinion. It was found that the media played a particularly important role in the spread of Eurosceptic sentiments among the population of Great Britain. The author processed the materials of the leading British periodicals and tabloids. Research data show that Brexit has become an example of masterful manipulation of facts and figures, effective production and distribution of «viral information» with the help of mass media, which in the era of digital communication technologies have become a particularly effective tool for influencing public opinion and political attitudes. It has been proven that the success of the “Leave campaign” was largely a result of the fact that much of the public was already Eurosceptic through the media long before the Brexit campaign began. The pro-Brexit campaign was able to build its strategy around pre-established, painful and relevant topics of sovereignty and immigration for the British. This approach became the key to victory, as their arguments were perceived by the public in an extremely positive way. The author described how Brexit was reinterpreted in British public opinion. Data from sociological surveys of leading analytical research centres, including YouGov, British Election Study, British Social Attitudes Survey, Deltapoll, Kantar, NatCen Social Research, Savanta ComRes, and Opinium, were analyzed. The Brexit process in the media discourse of the leading European mass media also was analyzed. It was established that less than 10% of the European media that took a clear position on Brexit spoke positively about Brexit. In contrast, 74% of those representatives of the European media segment were against and actively criticized this decision. The author assessed the impact of Brexit on the position of allies regarding the new role of Great Britain in Europe (using the example of the USA and Canada). The Anglo-American “special relationship” is characterized in terms of the new reality. It has been established that the negotiations on Brexit were of great concern to the American government and the state leadership, who were openly against the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU considering this step reckless and wrong. The materials of the American news outlet CNN were analyzed. It has been established that the vast majority of analytical materials on this news channel are devoted to covering criticism of official London, Prime Minister B. Johnson and his government due to the difficult economic situation that arose after the signing of a new trade agreement with the EU. At the same time a study of the Canadian media space, the position of the political establishment and the public regarding the withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU showed that Canada is interested in a close partnership with both the United Kingdom and the European Union after Brexit. The problem of Brexit is considered through the prism of the Ukrainian European integration course. It is worth saying that the methods and strategy of the British model of cooperation in the direction of European integration of the state are not a standard for use by Ukraine. Since Great Britain fought for exit from the EU on equal rights, Ukraine directed its foreign policy course to achieve equal membership.