The study of populist discourse shows that the news media can play an important role in mobilizing for populist causes. The in-group vs. outgroup or, exclusionary, discourse links populism to the immigration issue through how immigrants are presented. We apply this framework to study the media coverage before and after the Brexit, and ask how were UK and EU citizens represented by the media. Citizens from EU member states differ from citizens of third-party countries due to their right to move and reside freely in other member states. However, we show that EU citizens were represented more similar to immigrants rather than UK citizens in the campaign leading up to the Brexit vote, especially in tabloids and outlets advocating a Leave position. Conversely, post-Brexit, their media representation converges towards how UK citizens are depicted. We employ a combination of topic modelling and word embeddings, studying the typical representations of these, highlighting the changes in features deemed important by the media. Overall, we present quantitative evidence for out-group framing regarding EU citizens, linking these to the “us vs. them” discourse in Brexit coverage.
