Identity, Inequality, and the Media in Brexit-COVID-19-Britain

1 June 2020 - 31 December 2021

PI/s in Exeter: Professor Katharine Tyler

CI/s in Exeter: Professor Susan Banducci, Dr Joshua Blamire Dr Laszlo Horvath Professor Dan Stevens

Research partners: Prof. Cathrine Degnen (Newcastle, Social Anthropology), Helen Snell, resident artist

Funding awarded: £394046

Sponsor(s): ESRC

Project webpage(s)

Identity, Inequality, and the Media in Brexit-COVID-19-Britain

About the research

Covid-19 and Brexit are extraordinary social and political processes that are occurring simultaneously. These events are exposing the major inequalities that underpin British society across class, ethnic, racial, national, migrant, generational and geographical identities. They are also both high profile public events and processes that generate media and government attention.

Building on the team’s existing project on Brexit, the research sets out to examine the resonances and contrasts in the ways in which the inequalities of covid-19 and Brexit have been framed by the media, and people’s everyday experiences. Understanding these inequalities and their potential effects on social and political polarisation is crucial to answering how and in what shape British society and democracy will emerge from both Brexit and Covid-19.