media influence on party success is limited Flashcards
symbiotic relationship
-Politicians need journalists to report on them to progress, journalists need access for stories yet seek to critically interrogate politicians, journalists often complicit in the rise of politicians e.g.Johnson’s time on TV
-Yet, the broadcast media can negative shift perceptions of party leaders/parties generally e.g. Andrew Neil’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn ahead of the 2019 General Election
-Outside election cycle,broadcast journalists such as Andrew Marr interviews with senior political figures and the questioning better than in the House of Commons during PMQs
symbiotic evaluation
Increasingly, politicians are refusing to take part in broadcast interviews. For example, Boris Johnson refused to take part in the Andrew Neil interview
prior to the 2019 General Election for fear of being portrayed negatively. In the long run, if the trend continues then the public may have access to less non-partisan information and may be more heavily swayed by other partisan forms of media.
hypodermic needle model
-voters don’t live in a vacuum,absorb political information from the media. The press often produces propaganda in favour of one party, and against another e.g.2015-19 Corbyn was portrayed as a far-left ‘Marxist’ extremist in the right-wing media, despite him being part of the Social Democratic wing,right-wing parts of the electorate became convinced that Corbyn was ‘extreme.’
-2017 74% of Daily Mail readers voted conservative, as instructed on its front-page.
-voters can be ‘injected’ with partisan arguments made by the media (hyperdermic needle model).
hypodermic evaluation
The hyperdermic needle model of media is recognised as ‘absurd’ by media-expert Professor Heffernan. For instance, the citizens of the Soviet Union did not embrace communism despite 69 years of Pravda propaganda extolling its virtues. According to Heffernan, the effects of media are more subtle: the media reinforces our existing beliefs. We tend to seek out media that reflects and validates our world view (e.g., left-wing voters may read The Guardian).
media is finely balanced
-one section of the press promotes a conservative political view,always a liberal counterview e.g. right-wing analysis of The Sun is countered by the left-wing analysis of The Daily Mirror.
-If media was very influential,in a country in which the right-wing media is in the majority,expect the electorate to tilt right,not the case recent GEs majority supported left-wing parties, social media presents a greater diversity of views too
-this suggests political parties should not blame the print press for political underperformance and may have to seek out other reasons
finely balanced evaluation
Although it may not shift the views of the electorate en masse, even minor influence can be enough to shift the election result decisively one way or
another. For example, in 2017, the Conservatives received 42.4% of the vote and failed to gain a majority. Two years later, with more positive media coverage of Boris Johnson, a slight-uptick in the vote share (43.6%) led to a 80-seat majority.
marginal impact model
- political scientists e.g. Prof. Heffernan suggest it can have a marginal impact, may be decisive
in elections.
-The day after the unexpected defeat of the Labour in the 1992 election, the Murdoch-owned tabloid The Sun’s headline read: ‘It’s The Sun wot won it’.
-1992 campaign seemed as if the Tories would lose, The Sun’s campaign to discredit Kinnock did not necessarily shift the views of millions readers, it perhaps shifted a small percentage of the paper’s Labour voters (3-4%) to the tories which may have had an impact on the election result.
marginal impact evaluation
When he researched it, Professor John Curtice found that “the pattern of vote switching during the campaign amongst readers of The Sun or any other ex-Tory newspaper proved to be much like that of those who did not read a newspaper at all”. In relation to 1992, Professor Heffernan has argued that just 3-4% of The Sun readers changed from Labour to the Conservatives.
