Media coverage of the EU referendum campaign was dominated by the three men at the heart of the struggle for the Conservative party, David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson.
The debate in the run-up to Thursday’s vote was largely male, nearly all-white and tended to be led by representatives of the Tory party, according to Loughborough University research published on Friday.
Of more than 2,000 media appearances in the press and on television recorded by the research, more than half were either Cameron – who on Friday announced he would step down as prime minister – Johnson, the man who might replace him, and chancellor Osborne.
UK Independence party leader, Nigel Farage, and Conservative MP Michael Gove – along with Johnson, the most prominent Tory Brexit campaigner – made up the top five most-featured politicians.
While Cameron was featured 499 times between 6 May and 22 June – a quarter of the total media appearances according to the research – Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made only 123 appearances, a quarter of the outgoing Tory leader.
Seven of the top 10 people and half of the top 30 were Tories, according to the research.
Only nine of the top 30 were women and just one – Tory MP and leave campaigner Priti Patel – made the top 10.
Scottish National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, was 16th on the list, with 28 appearances, ahead of London mayor, Sadiq Khan, with 24.
The report analysed the main evening bulletins on BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, and a 30-minute evening slot on Sky News, as well as a representative sample of pages from all the national daily newspapers.
Top 10 appearances in TV and press referendum coverage, 6 May to 22 June:
- David Cameron – 499
- Boris Johnson – 379
- George Osborne – 230
- Nigel Farage – 182
- Michael Gove – 161
- Iain Duncan Smith – 124
- Jeremy Corbyn – 123
- Priti Patel – 65
- Gordon Brown – 52
- John Mayor – 47
