Constructing "The Other" During Brexit: How The Guardian and The Telegraph have discursively constructed Northern Ireland since the Brexit referendum
(2025) STVK12 20251Department of Political Science
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Northern Ireland has long been a case that has interested researchers in different disciplines. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, it has attracted attention as a politically rare case within the UK. Its land border with the Republic of Ireland and history of conflict results in unique consequences post-Brexit. Analyzing the impact of the British media in shaping the way Northern Ireland was constructed is not a new research field and has been done both during the conflict and after its end. But there is a clear gap in research both from the conflict and in the post-Brexit era. A postcolonial framework is rarely used to analyze the role of the British media in reproducing previous discursive patterns of “othering”. This thesis sought to... (More)
- Northern Ireland has long been a case that has interested researchers in different disciplines. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, it has attracted attention as a politically rare case within the UK. Its land border with the Republic of Ireland and history of conflict results in unique consequences post-Brexit. Analyzing the impact of the British media in shaping the way Northern Ireland was constructed is not a new research field and has been done both during the conflict and after its end. But there is a clear gap in research both from the conflict and in the post-Brexit era. A postcolonial framework is rarely used to analyze the role of the British media in reproducing previous discursive patterns of “othering”. This thesis sought to apply this framework to analyze the construction of Northern Ireland in two ideologically opposite British newspapers: The Guardian and The Telegraph. The analysis uses a post-structuralist discourse analysis to identify key textual constructions and broader themes of “othering” in opinion articles in both newspapers since 2016. The results show a clear “othering” of Northern Ireland by constructing it as a politically unstable periphery. The Telegraph constructs the Irish nationalists as violent, irrational subjects, whereas the unionists are constructed as a useful political tool. In The Guardian, the Irish nationalists are simply excluded completely, and unionists are heavily criticized, with their concerns being delegitimized. The most frequently occurring discursive strategy is therefore an exclusion of Irish nationalist voices, both in the more liberal and the more conservative newspapers. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9189561
- author
- Strandberg, Helena LU
- supervisor
-
- Orlanda Siow LU
- organization
- course
- STVK12 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Northern Ireland, postcolonial theory, British media, Brexit, post-structuralism
- language
- English
- id
- 9189561
- date added to LUP
- 2025-08-07 16:28:11
- date last changed
- 2025-08-07 16:28:11
@misc{9189561,
abstract = {{Northern Ireland has long been a case that has interested researchers in different disciplines. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, it has attracted attention as a politically rare case within the UK. Its land border with the Republic of Ireland and history of conflict results in unique consequences post-Brexit. Analyzing the impact of the British media in shaping the way Northern Ireland was constructed is not a new research field and has been done both during the conflict and after its end. But there is a clear gap in research both from the conflict and in the post-Brexit era. A postcolonial framework is rarely used to analyze the role of the British media in reproducing previous discursive patterns of “othering”. This thesis sought to apply this framework to analyze the construction of Northern Ireland in two ideologically opposite British newspapers: The Guardian and The Telegraph. The analysis uses a post-structuralist discourse analysis to identify key textual constructions and broader themes of “othering” in opinion articles in both newspapers since 2016. The results show a clear “othering” of Northern Ireland by constructing it as a politically unstable periphery. The Telegraph constructs the Irish nationalists as violent, irrational subjects, whereas the unionists are constructed as a useful political tool. In The Guardian, the Irish nationalists are simply excluded completely, and unionists are heavily criticized, with their concerns being delegitimized. The most frequently occurring discursive strategy is therefore an exclusion of Irish nationalist voices, both in the more liberal and the more conservative newspapers.}},
author = {{Strandberg, Helena}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Constructing "The Other" During Brexit: How The Guardian and The Telegraph have discursively constructed Northern Ireland since the Brexit referendum}},
year = {{2025}},
}