Abstract

After the British people voted for Brexit in June 2016, the role the media played was intensely debated. However, the research has focused so far on the issues of fake news and biased reporting. This paper will argue that a focus on the role story telling played in persuading voters needs to complement the existing research. The paper builds on insights from political psychology that showed under which conditions misrepresentations of the truth prevail even after they have been debunked. It further uses Roland Barthes’ definition of myth as “depoliticised speech” and Jack Lule’s analysis of archetypal mythologies in news stories to establish the effectiveness of the myth of the laughing, irreverent Briton in fake news stories on the EU in British newspapers, the so-called Euromyths. This insight is highly relevant for the teaching of journalism: Journalism students need to learn both: Fact-checking and to understand why debunked lies prevail.