Influences on voting

Question 1

What influences how we vote?

Answer 1

• Populism parties have appealed to ‘left behind’ voters in recent years, for example in 2015 UKIP got over 3 million votes.
• The media. In 1992, The Sun published the headline ‘It’s the Sun wot won it’ after the Conservative’s won the election. Many Conservative MP’s partly credited their victory to the Sun. In 1997, the Sun changed its support to Labour, and Labour ended up winning the election. The media also led the Conservative party to be associated with ‘sleaze’ and the media helped swing public opinion to the anti sleaze Labour party.
• Age. For every ten years older a person is, the likelihood that they would vote Conservative increases by 9 points. However, for every ten years older a person is, the likelihood that they would vote Labour decreases by 9 points.

Question 2

Examples of the media influencing people what political party to support

Answer 2

• 79% of the Daily Telegraph readership support the paper’s preferred party (Conservative)
• 73% of the Guardian readership support the paper’s preferred party (Labour)

Question 3

Arguments that the media does not have a great influence on voting

Answer 3

• Younger voters are increasingly relying on social media for their information, so the influence of the press is waning. (Labour have much more support on social media than Conservative)
• In 2017, all of the major tabloids with the highest circulation backed the Conservatives (except the Mirror). However, the result was a hung parliament.
• Opinion polls tend to be inaccurate and mislead the public. In the 2016 EU referendum, most predicted a comfortable ‘remain’ win, however ‘leave’ ended up winning