Skip to navigation | Skip to main content | Skip to footer
Menu
Search the University of Manchester siteSearch Menu StaffNet

EU Referendum: untangling the results

29 Jun 2016

Experts from the University have been much in demand to speak to the media about the constitutional, political and economic implications on Britain

The University's Media Relations Officers worked tirelessly on the EU Referendum, with a huge amount of coverage from numerous University experts. From 6am, Humanities Media Relations Officer Kath Paddison set up live reaction to Brexit on the website and drove traffic to it from Twitter, as well as issuing expert comment to the media.

The UoM News digital activity on Friday resulted in:

  • 135% increase in Twitter impressions for UoMNews (compared with the previous Thursday/Friday);
  • 269% increase in interactions (retweets/likes) for UoMNews content;

The live reaction to the Brexit on the corporate website produced 26% of all traffic to news stories on Friday with users spending 2 mins 20 secs versus a news average of 1 min 3 secs.

In terms of media commentary, expert comments were issued in the run-up to the Referendum and also from 6am the day after the vote. This substantially increased the level of media coverage for the University’s economic, political and sociology experts – there was wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC. The experts fielded by the University included:

  • Andrew Russell (Professor of Politics), who was on BBC Breakfast, BBC 5 Live doing ‘presenter’s friend’ duties for Adrian Chiles, and then spoke to the Electoral Commission's conference for Election Administrators and Observers in Manchester. He also covered the results for BBC 5 Live on Friday. He has also been interviewed by Swedish and Dutch national TV, and reviewed Sunday’s papers on BBC Breakfast.
  • Rob Ford’s (Professor of Political Science) comments have appeared in a series of national and international titles including The Guardian, Daily Mail, New Statesmen, THE, Reuters. He has also appeared on BBC 5 Live.
  • Jane Green (Professor of Politics) was on the ITV Referendum Result Live Programme, giving expert analysis as the results came in. Jane also spoke to Channel 4 News and appeared twice on BBC Breakfast.
  • Dimitris Papadimitriou (Professor of Politics) participated in Granada Reports’ live ITV debate on the EU referendum at Manchester Town Hall, and worked with Granada Reports on an EU Special.
  • Kathryn Simpson (Research Associate, CCSR) gave live reaction on the French channel BFM TV, and has also done BBC Breakfast and the Sunday Politics Show.
  • Diane Coyle’s (Professor of Economics) comments have appeared in the FT, The Times and Bloomberg News.
  • Colin Talbot (Professor of Government and Public Policy) did 16 local BBC interviews last Friday back-to-back, in our studio here. He is continuing to comment on the governance and legal implications of Brexit.
  • There was also coverage from the British Election Study (BES).