Role of the media Flashcards
Broadcasting (TV debates)
- Political parties uses TV and Radio as a method to get their message across.
- All required by law to remain neutral, offering balanced reports. Yet, BBC sometimes accused of a left-wing bias.
- TV debates = A common feature of elections, held by BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4 under scrupulous conditions.
- Not clear if it has a significant impact on voters or if they gain an advantage (Corbyn-Johnson TV debate watched by 6.7M people).
Broadcasting - a positive televisual image of the leader is important
- Neil Kinnock’s triumphalist shreiking of ‘We’re all right’ at the Sheffield Rally in 1992 may have put doubts in voters that he could be trusted to lead the country. (1)
- Major was seen as boring compared to Blair.
- The 2010 debate between the three main parties was credited with denying the Tories a parli majority. Nick Clegg’s strong showing and the resultant ‘Cleggmania’ raised his profile at the expense of David Cameron, resulting in a hung parliament. (2)
- Theresa May’s refusal to participate in a live TV debate became a means of attacking her leadership. The Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas MP stated ‘The first rule of leadership is that you show up’. (3)
Broadcasting - a positive televisual image of the leader is not important
- The Sheffield Rally happened only a week before the 1992 GE and it’s unlikely that this alone accounts for the different levels of support between the opinion polls and election results.
- Nick Clegg’s good performance in 2010 still led to a decline his party’s share of the votes - only increased by 1% in 2010 and lost seats compard to 2005. (2)
- In BBC Challenger’s debate of 2015 - Ed Milliband won opinion polls as Cameron didn’t attend, yet Conservatives won the general election.
The Press
- Unlike TV/Radio - no regulation of political bias but more newspapers support the Conservatives.
- Fairly close correlation between newspaper bias and reader preference, supporting the same party. Possible illusion it influences the way people vote, but there is no evidence = simply reflects reader’s typical views.
- However, the Sun has backed the winning party at every election between 1979-2015 - raise questions about influence.
- Potentially how newspapers portray the actions’ of the govt influences the more likely a person will support them.
- Negative coverage of Jeremy Corybyn continued in the press, similarly to 2017 - led to a fall in Labour vote.
- In decline = young voters increasingly rely on social media for information - so press influence is waning.
Examples of Conservative Newspapers in the UK
+ Daily Mail - Strongly Con - 74% readers support.
+ The Times - Moderate Conservative - 58% support.
Examples of Labour Newspapers in the UK
+ Guardian = Moderate Labour - 73% support
Examples of UKIP Newspapers in the UK
Daily Express - Strongly UKIP = 73% support
Social media
Increasingly used by the govt and parties to communicate with the public and listen to public opinion.
Argument against the role of social media
- It’s too early to assess its influence.
- As an open medium, it’s difficult to gain a political advantage.
- Biased as its mainly used by the youth.
- In 2019, the Lib Dems paid for 3000 paid ads on Facebook, more than the Tory Party, but lost seats.
- Unlikely to win over new voters but rather ‘preach to the converted’, as the content consumed by users largely affirms their own views - SM is an echo chamber.
Support for use of social media
- Useful for small parties (Green/UKIP) w/o resources to compete with larger parties to gain political traction. Gives an opportunity for political aspirants to gain a footing.
- Modern aspect of how people gain political knowledge - likely to replace traditional media in the future.
- 2015 = UKIP began to reach to its voters on Facebook, spending much of its campaign money on social media campaigning, helping them win 3.8 million votes.
- 2015 GE = Labour used social media platforms such as Twitter to encourage and inspire young people to vote. Effective - 60% of those aged 18–24 voted Labour.
- 2019 = Cons had 2500 live ads about Brexit on Facebook while Labour had 250 - Tories won a majority of 80 seats.
Opinion polls
Feature of British political life since the 1940, predicting correctly a Labour win. Since then, it’s often used to gauge political opinion before election to predict the winner or on a particular issue (gather public opinion).
1) Opinion Polls - Do they affect voting behaviour?
- Some evidence that polling figures affect voting.
+ 2015 election predicted a hung parliament between Labour and Tories; SNP heading for a victory in Scotland - potential coalition of Labour-SNP. As a result, SNP became dominant and the Tories began to campaign, hoping to gain votes and victory. - However = most likely doesn’t affect voting behavior as, in 1979, Labour PM James Callaghan led by 20% in the popularity polls against Margret Thatcher yet still lost the election.
Final opinion poll before the 2015 election - Populous
+ Con = 33%
+ Lab = 33%
+ Lib Dem = 10%
+ UKIP = 14%
+ Green = 5%
2015 actual results
+ Con = 37%
+ Lab = 30%
+ UKIP = 13%
+ Lib Dem = 8%
+ Green = 4%
2) Opinion Polls - Does it matter if they are inaccurate?
2015 General Election
- Overestimated Labour and underestimated Tories.
- IMPACT = possibly leads to tactical voting as people change who they vote depending on a party’s popularity (or lack of):
- Late surge for Tories as voters didn’t want a hung parliament with the SNP in control.
- Lib Dem did poorly in the opinion polls - possible defections from voters and decided to vote tactically.
