Mr Scriven - Voting Behaviour Flashcards
Explain and analyse three ways in which the media can have an influence upon the outcome of elections - 9 marks
P1 - 2017 election - labour used twitter to influence young voters
- 60% turnout for 18-24 year olds
- known as a ‘youthquake’
- Labour also used the media to invest on adverts attacking the conservatives ‘dementia-tax’
P2 - the sun has backed the winning party since 1974
- 1997 - Tony Blair landslide victory
- Rupert Murdoch owner of the sun and Fox News influenced Tony Blair
- Blair flew to Australia to make Murdoch the god father to his child
- 179 seat majority
P3 - 1979
- Saatchi and Saatchi iconic ‘Labour isn’t working’
-rattled the party that much it cost them the election
- however - it could be the case that the winter of discontent massively damaged the governments economic policy and it’s standing in the polls - labour had already lost electorates trust!
What are recency factors
Short term factors that affect how people vote
Primacy factors
Long term issues/factors that affect how people vote
Working class Tory/c2 voters
Traditional working class conservative support
Embourgeoisement
Affluent working class adopt middle class mentality
Class assignment
How class does/does not align with the different parties
Personalities rather than policies determine election outcomes in the uk - 25 marks
Agree:
- 1997 black Wednesday - retrospective - conservative leader and chancellor of exchequer tarnished their reputation and lost trust
- 2019 media attacks on Corbin ‘chuck britian in the cor-bin’ lost to conservatives
- 2010 ‘bigot’ gate - Gordon brown
- Lib Dem ‘clegg mania’ and ‘British Obama’ allowed them into govt - did televised debates
Disagree:
- 1997 labour focused on salient issues compared to conservatives who focused on devolution + trade unions = benefitted labours huge win
- 2019 boris - ‘get brexit done’ - however people did like boris’ humour and charismatic persona
- 1983 labour manifesto = longest suicide note in history
Class alignment
People identifying as a class
1970s - decade of dealignment
Age and voting behaviour
Under 35 - tend to vote Labour
65+ - generally vote conservative
18-25 - lowest turnout
Region and voting behaviour
Cities - tend to vote Labour
South/rural - generally vote Conservative
Ethnicity and voting behaviour
BME - Labour, representative
Live in cities so follow trend
Labour = more diverse
Gender and voting behaviour
Women - more vote Labour, more representative
Men - vote Conservative
Social structures model
States society is structured into groups that do not change
Determine which groups vote for who - factors always been there
Safe seat
A seat that is always won by a certain party
Media that influences voting behaviour
Newspapers
Social media
Radio
TV broadcast
Media example
The Sun: 1992 ‘will the last person please turn out the light’ (if Kinnock won)
1992: ‘Its the Sun wot won it’
Agenda setting theory
Force certain parties agendas to contain certain issues
Reinforcement theory
Reinforce views rather than changing them
TV debates examples: impacting voting behaviour
2010 - Cleggmania (23% of votes)
2015 - air time to minor parties
TV debates examples: not impacting voting behaviour
2010 - Lib dems recieve only 1% more than previous election
2015 - viewing figures down
Issue voting
An issue or event that runs the election eg. 2015 immigration
Voting influence - psephology
-ethnicity
-gender
-class
-social groups
-social media
-city of residence
-family
-education level
Electoral deserts
Areas of the uk where parties have significant support but don’t win the seats
Rational-choice
This theory suggests voters are influenced by short term factors such as party image, party leader, party policies, and how they personally fell or are affected by these
Sociological model
This theory links voting to group membership e.g age, gender, social class
Party identification model
This theory links voting to voters long term and loyal attachment to specific parties
Dominant ideology
This theory suggests voters are ideologically manipulated and controlled through institutions like the media
General elections 2019
- the election was called early following the passing of the early parliamentary election act 2019
- 34% of women elected (highest ever)
- 66 non-whites
- results show conservatives won the highest share of votes for a single party since thatcher
- labour and conservatives won a total of 76%
Sociological model - 2019 GE evidence
Highest number of women elected ever - labour
66 non whites elected
Retired = highly conservative
Religious voting in NI - unionist (Protestant) DUP = stay - nationalists (catholic) Sinn Fein=leave
London = heavily labour
Party identification model - 2019 GE evidence
‘Life long voters’
More use of social media
Unionist/nationalist voting in NI
2/3 had pre decided
Rational choice model - 2019 GE evidence
Brexit
Labours anti semantic comments
Corybn/swinson = not popular
Independence for Scotland
Impact of economic policies - voting is retrospective
Dominant ideology model - 2019 GE evidence
‘Red wall’ break down
Media attacks on Corbyn
Conservatives backed by murdoch (owner of sun,sky and the times)
Unions e.g teacher strikes
Environmentalism
What did peter pulzer say
‘Class is the basis of British politics - all else is embellishments and detail’
What did Ivor Crewe say
Skilled working class were the shock troops of Thatcherism
Deviant voters
Don’t vote for their natural class party e.g working class Tory
2017 election - age
Age is a clear dividing line
18-19 are 47% over conservatives whereas 70+ are 50% ahead of labour
Every 10 years = 9% more conservatives
The crossover age in 2017 was 47
70+ has the highest turnout - 84%
2017 GE - class
No longer a very good indication of voting
Conservatives still do better with AB
Labour do best with DE- only 3% more
Conservatives do best with ABC1
2017 GE - education level
Low education (gcse) = conservative = 22%
High education (degree) = labour = 17%
Links to age
2017 GE - gender
Small gender gap
Women for labour/conservative was equal
2017 GE - employment status
Links to age
Retired = conservatives-39% ahead
Students = labour 45% ahead
Labour ahead with all working groups and unemployed
2017 - conservative rely on ‘grey retired vote’
Ethnicity
BAME voters = labour due to legislation like race relations act whereas conservatives take a firm stance on immigration
77% bame voted labour in 2017 compared to white = 37%
69% BAME = remain compared to 46% whites
Impacts turnout as only 64% bame voters who are registered voted compared to 96% white
2017 result
Labour and conservatives had their biggest combined share of the vote since 1970 = 82.4%
90% of seats - 2-party politics ???
10 govt ministers lost their seats (unusually high number)
‘Youthquake’ 2017
May called a snap election to try gain a bigger majority but backfired due to unpopular manifesto ‘dementia tax’ and labour ran a good campaign on social media and utilised twitter = drew in young voters
Conservative won with a reduced majority so had supply and confidence deal with DUP (gave them £2b)
Shy Tory factor
Conservatives reluctant to admit they will vote conservative
Lazy labour
Labours core vote in the north less likely to turn out than conservatives core vote in the south
Bandwagon effect
Some vote for winning party and use opinion polls to guide them
Boomerang effect
Polls predicting a victory for a party may decrease turnout e.g 2001 = 59%
1992 + 2015 = opinion polls got it dramatically wrong as they both predicted a close labour victory
Agenda setting theory
Media dictates what we think about issues and individuals
Reinforcement theory
We access media sources that match our own political views
Marxist theory
Media controlled by the rich and powerful, used as a tool to protect their interests
Pluralist theory
Media is biased but across a wide variety of ideologies/viewpoints
The media - voting influence
Dominant ideology
Whichever party the sun has backed has won every GE since 1974 (owned by Rupert murdoch)
Before 1997 election Blair flew twice to Australia to persuade murdoch to back labour - even made him the god father to his child
Evidence suggesting media doesn’t influence election outcome
Newspapers = declining readership (irrelevant and don’t influence voting)
Broadcast media have a legal obligation to be neutral
Social media is less significant to the older generation so only represents younger
Explain and analyse 3 factors influencing voting behaviour - 9
- age
-media
-religion
