How important has mass media been in deciding the outcome of recent general elections?

by canales (student)

In the digital age the media’s role in general elections is becoming more and more important. It is a way for parties to communicate their policy to the public and also enables mass media campaigns, a prime example being Blair’s in 1997. However, media can also act against parties in that they reveal scandals, such as MP’s expenses. On the other hand there is also a myriad of other factors which influence the outcome of general elections such as the economy and party leaders.

In the 1997 general election media played a fairly prominent role. Firstly, the media effectively created the ‘New Labour’ rebrand. This was as a result of Blair’s own election campaign but also his presentation by other media outlets to be a reinvigorated Labour and to be vibrant and energetic. On top of this the media portrayed the Conservatives to be corrupt and outdated, a stark contrast from the Labour rebrand. Another factor that contributed significantly to the downfall of Conservative and the rise of Labour was the revelation of sleaze allegations and sex scandals by the press which significantly damaged Conservative’s credibility and therefore lost them much of the vote and exacerbated their fall from power further and strengthened Labour’s power bid by discrediting their opposition and at general elections Conservatives are the only true opposition party to Labour and therefore if their threat is neutralised there is a clear route to power for Labour. However, a number of other factors also came into play. Firstly, the leadership of the parties played a big part. The Labour leader was a young, ‘man of the people’, Tony Blair who was perceived in the best possible light by the public. This contrasted hugely to the Conservative leadership which consisted of William Hague, a likeable man by all means but far from leadership material and far off the leadership qualities that Blair displayed; much of the British public wanted Blair, as a young and vibrant leader to represent the UK rather than Hague who represented a split and corrupt party. Moreover, the state of the parties influenced the result to a great extent. The Conservatives were split, outdated, and as previously mentioned, corrupt. The split in the party is illustrated as Michael Portillo undermined Hague by challenging for the leadership of the Conservative party. This contrasted to the emergence of ‘new Labour’, a party that people were far more willing to vote for due to its vibrant and energetic reinvigoration. Lastly, policy was also a key factor in determining the outcome of the 1997 general election. ‘New Labour’ was not only a rebranding but also a significant shift from a left-wing ideology to a far more central ideology and this change was reflected in policy as Labour attempted to become a catch-all party and therefore be applicable to as many people as possible, this shift in policy proved to be successful in Labour’s power bid and is reflected in the results as Labour achieved a giant majority of 179 seats and a 10.2% swing from Tory.

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The media was significant to a lesser extent in the 2001 and 2005 general elections. Labour was still hugely dominant and the Conservative party still in a sorry state of affairs that the results of the two elections were never far from doubt and therefore the media played less of a role due to the assumed foregone conclusion of the two elections. Labour also had the Daily Mirror, the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Guardian ‘on their side’ and this would therefore have kept a positive light on the Labour party, therefore showing that media did play a role. Labour’s dominance and the foregone conclusion is shown with the lowest election turnout since 1918 in 2001, a mere 59%. This shows the influence that the media had on the outcome of the election as they presented it to be a foregone conclusion. However, there was also a myriad of other factors which came into play in these elections. Firstly, the economy was doing well in 2001 under the Labour government and people tend to vote for the incumbent government if the economy is doing well under them as it is said that people tend to ‘vote with their pockets’. Another factor which was thought to affect the outcome in 2005 was the anti-Iraq war vote, and although this materialised into a loss of Labour seats they still had a commanding majority. Moreover, the leadership of the parties came into play in these elections once again with William Hague and Michael Howard representing the Tories at the 2001 and 2005 election respectively. The two leaders were both uninspiring and Tony Blair was still seen as more leadership material. Another factor which detracts from the notion that the media had the dominant influence in the outcome is that people still appeared to be voting with their natural class as is shown by the fact that 41% of people were doing so.

The media had a far more prominent role in the 2010 election than in the preceding two. There was a media first in this election and that was televised debates. These televised debates worked much to the benefit of Nick Clegg to a great extent, Cameron to a lesser extent and also detracted from Brown’s support, possibly because these debates favour the best orator. Contrary to popular belief the so-called ‘Clegg-mania’ did materialise despite the loss of 5 seats they did see an increase in votes of 1%, this was however much less than many were predicting. Another media role in the election was the breaking of the MP’s expenses scandal by The Daily Telegraph. This led to an overall loss of faith in politicians and this loss of faith was particularly seen with the three main parties. This loss of faith in the three main parties is seen as they collectively received a lower percentage of the seats than in the 2005 election. Another factor that would have impacted the decisions of voters at election time was the 2008 banking crisis. The electorate tend to vote against an incumbent if they have done badly with the economy because as previously mentioned ‘people vote with their pockets’ and the electorate is fickle; they vote for whoever will put them in the best financial position, as a general rule. However, the presentation by the media will no doubt have impacted people’s decisions and likely negatively impacted the current government as the blame was placed mainly with Gordon Brown, who was largely the media scapegoat for this and this also contributed to the downfall of Labour in this election and Conservatives gaining the most seats.

In summary, the media plays an important role depending on the circumstance; if the result is foregone the media tend to have little impact besides making the electorate even more apathetic. However, conversely the media play a vital role in giving the public almost all the information that has been cited above and therefore is almost the middle man between reasons to vote a certain way and the electorate and in this sense it is hugely important.

Julien Lepretre 12M