For more, I'm joined in the studio by my colleague Yang Di.
Q1. The result shows that votes for both campaign are actually very close, which also indicates a country split. Who are actually voting for leave and who are choosing to stay?
A1. The Prime Minister is resigning, the pound is plummeting…Turns out the voting wasn’t as tight as most people predicted. Now that it’s official the UK has voted to leave the EU and social media across the world seems to have gone into melt down as everyone is posting comments about what they think it means to the UK, Europe and even us here in China.
What happens next is unchartered water for the UK but one thing we can say for sure is social media played a massive role in this referendum and it looks like it hasn’t stopped since the result has come in.
First of all a graphic displaying a breakdown of voting along age lines has been trending.
The graphic from YouGov shows that there is a massive difference between the voting habits of older and younger people.
64% of people between 18-24 were thought to have voted to remain in the UK while 0nly 33% of people over 65 voted to Remain in the UK. In the battle of the generations it seems as if the older generation definitely won today. As one twitter user, Emily Walsh, wrote: If the #EUref is proving anything, it's that there is a massive generation gap!
Another major consequence of the EU Referendum is that it shows a country split along geographic lines. England and Wales voted to leave the EU while Scotland and Northern Ireland massively voted to Remain. This could mean Scotland might push for independence again so they could remain in the EU and Northern Ireland now seems to have more in common with its southern neighbor than the rest of the UK
Chen-Yi Tu a PhD student at a Taiwan university was typical of the views of many people when he tweeted: Next: Scotland independence and Ireland reunify?
If the EU referendum highlighted the differences in the UK along geographic and generational lines the other big split was an urban rural divide. With most people in the large cities voting to remain in the EU while people outside the cities voting to leave.
Again this has proved to be a major source of tweets with one twitter user from London, Darren, posting: As anticipated, there's the painful irony of multicultural cities voting Remain but monocultural towns and villages voting Leave.
Q2. Thousands of kilometers away, the Chinese people are also closely monitering the historic referendum, with mass different voices from social media. What can you share with us?
A2. While social media inside the UK have been highlighting a country divided, a lot of Chinese social media conversations have been about the consequences for ordinary Chinese people. And that has focused on the falling value of the pound due to the Referendum result
On Wechat, China’s equivalent to Whatsapp, #Rebbie wrote: There is nothting outsiders can do about the Brexit. Except for to take advantage of the depreciation of sterlings and kick off a shopping spree!
While other people on the Chinese version of twitter, Weibo, have used it as an opportunity to comment on the state of western democracy: #Thinboy on weibo posted: Is this true democracy, letting misled people to vote for the future of their country? I don't think those who voted trully understand what is really behind their decisions. Will this spell the dissemblence for the EU?
In the coming days, weeks and even months the full consequences of the referendum will become to emerge, but while uncertainty definitely seems to be the order of the day what is certain is social media will continue to pay a major role in whatever happens next. And we will continue to monitor those trending and welcome to follow us on social media #CCTVNews for more information .
