Critics argue that the fight for audiences in the mass media, has led to audience dispersion, having important implications for politics. Politics is not a large ‘audience puller’, thus political and current affairs programmes are being shipped out of prime time slots. Commercial companies have to maximise their audiences in order to maximise their revenue by demanding more money for advertising slots. In 1978, ITV researchers asked people about nine topics they thought should get more or less coverage in TV news and documentaries. These covered areas such as Industrial news, Northern Ireland and Immigrant’ affairs. The research showed that yes, people thought these issues were important, however they did not want to watch more about them (Seymour-Ure, C. 1992). “The poll found a clear difference between what people thought should be available and what they personally wanted to watch” (Seymour-Ure, C. 1992 p118). The BBC, which runs from the T.V licence, is highly sensitive to diminishing audiences, furthermore the News at Ten on ITV was recently moved out of its peak time slot.
Britain has a high degree of regulation, e.g. The Broadcasting Standards Commission, ITC and The Board of Governors (BBC). These groups were implemented in order to assure quality and continuity of broadcasting in Britain. The ITC were responsible for getting the News at Ten moved back to its original peak time slot, thus having implications for an informed electorate (Gavin, N. 31.09.02). Television is particularly important to politicians, as even a mere two minutes of exposure at peak time enables them to reach more people than they could ever meet in a lifetime of canvassing or addressing public meetings (Jones, B. 2001, Ch 10.).
The three main forms of mass media, the radio, the newspaper and the television can prove vital to politics, however they have also been proven to be highly destructive. The television was in fact the cause of Nixon’s downfall in 1960. The first television debate where Nixon had discussions with Kennedy proved catastrophic to his election campaign. As the discussions were televised, people were able to see both Kennedy and Nixon close to each other. The public preferred to look at Kennedy and it has been said that his good looks and strong profile gave him the edge, thus suggesting that the appearance is as important as the message.
Since the arrival of the television, appearances have been crucial (Jones, B. 2001. Ch 10.) A study carried quoted by Bruce in 1992, suggested ‘the impact we make on others depends on… how we look and behave – 55 per cent; how we speak – 38 per cent and what we say only 7 per cent. Content and form must therefore synchronise for, if they don’t, form will usually dominate or undermine content’ (Jones, B. 2001. Ch10. Quoting Bruce 1992, p41). This can have huge implications for British Politics. It has been suggested that Margaret Thatcher was transformed and her appearance manipulated in order to adhere to a so-called acceptable political image. Peter Mandelson commented that by the mid-1980’s: ‘every part of her had been transformed: her hair, her teeth, her nose I suspect, her eyebrows. Not a part of Margaret Thatcher was unaltered’ (Jones, B. 2001. Ch10).
Neil Kinnock and Robin Cook who both boast red hair are said to “put people off”. Can it really be said that people in the media spotlight, particularly politicians, only get so far because of their looks? This may be one factor, however, newspapers also play a role in how politicians and their parties are perceived and this can have implications especially at election time.
The type of politics written about in the newspapers varies greatly depending on the newspaper. There is of course the standard divide between ‘The Tabloids and ‘The Broadsheets’. There are now as many tabloid papers in Britain as there are broadsheets, however it is the tabloids that pull in the most readers. This has implications for politics as a whole and for an informed electorate. The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Financial Times and The Times, which are all predominantly Conservative papers, have steadily lost right wing readers since 1992. The Sun, which was originally a Conservative paper became critical of John Major’s Government and switched to Labour in 1997 (Kavanagh, D. 2000). The remaining papers, The Daily Star, The Independent, The Daily Mirror and The Guardian, which are all left papers, have had a significant increase of left wing readers on all their papers since 1992.
Political bias in the press has long been a cause for concern to politicians. They all claim to be balanced and impartial, however there is no question that these papers are written from different perspectives, thus bringing this statement into disrepute. Most of the complaints have come from the left as the majority of the national newspapers supported the conservatives. The Sun switched to Conservatives in 1974, driving an even bigger wedge between the balances. 80 per cent of the working class read a tabloid paper, thus most Labour voters were exposed to a Tory-supporting paper. In addition to this, as Labour was “the party of the working classes” this could have serious political implications. In 1997 due to The Sun’s second switch, Labour had support from most of the national daily newspapers for the first time ever.
The Sun’s headline in 1992 ‘IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT’, brought the questions of press bias to a head. The paper had campaigned ruthlessly against Labour and Neil Kinnock and ran a nine-page special, with the front page reading ‘NIGHTMARE ON KINNOCK STREET’ on polling day. Neil Kinnock attacked the bias sections of the press when he announced his resignation as Labour Leader, however Lord McAlpine, a former Treasurer of the Conservative Party, called the Tory editors ‘heroes’ because of their strong support for the party (Kavanagh, D. 2000. p205). This was only to be a honeymoon period however. In 1992 the pound sterling fell out of the European ERM and most newspapers concluded that Major’s central economic policy had been shattered. During 1993 the Daily Express was really the only one of Britain’s eleven national dailies that was supporting Prime Minister John Major (Tunstall, J. 1996, p254).
Regular radio broadcasting started in 1922 and the BBC was founded in 1926. From its early days, broadcasting was therefore seen to be a legitimate field of public policy and its development was shaped by periodic government inquiries (Seymour-Ure, C. 1992 p60), however radio is by far the least popular of the three main mediums today. Its popularity declined after the war with the introduction of the television. In its day, the radio proved worrying to the world of politics and organisations such as the Sykes Committee and the Crawford Committee imposed certain principles. The first was that radio should be run as a monopoly and secondly, the monopoly was controlled by the Government, however as radio caught on, politicians became increasingly aware also of the latent, intangible influence of the medium and its possible danger if unchecked (Seymour-Ure, C. 1992 p62). After 1945 however, the radio bowed down significantly to the television, thus proving little problem for politics across the spectrum.
In spite of the many tensions, which exist between politicians and the media, there is also a mutual dependence between them. The former need publicity for their policies, speeches and initiatives, while the latter need co-operation of political actors to write their stories (Kavanagh, D. 2000. p206). Agenda setting is particularly important as it assumes that what is carried in the media, determines what the public regard as the most important issues (Kavanagh, D. 2000). This can have huge political implications and is especially sensitive during election time.
Political residences swarm with ‘spin doctors’, who are specialists in dealing with the media and it is their job to put a “favourable spin” (Kavanagh, D. 2000.) on relevant news items. The interdependence of politicians and the media makes for some pretty tense situations, which is only accentuated with the addition of spin-doctors and lobby journalists. Lobby journalists are briefed twice a day by the Number 10 Secretary when the House of Commons is sitting, however the relationship between the two is often fraught, thus echoing that this is due to their interdependence. Politicians are interested in how they are reported and on the other side “journalists depend on access to key party figures for information” (Kavanagh, D, 2000. p211). Tension arises when manipulative games come into play. Naturally this can have implications for how politics, a politician or a political party are portrayed in the media. “Politicians reward ‘friendly’ journalists with information and access, and deny the same to journalists who display insufficient sympathy or understanding. Journalists in turn often resent the sense of being used or manipulated by the spin-doctors, or being supplied with misleading and self-service information. They may also ‘unmask’ the hidden agendas that lie behind politicians’ activities and speeches” (Kavanagh, D. 2000. p211).
Whether the media can actually change a persons voting behaviour is still very much in question. It has been suggested that people’s attitudes are not changed in response to propaganda, but their pre-existing beliefs are merely reinforced. This is a minimalist approach to mass media. Blumer and McQuail argued in 1967 that people do not react directly to political media messages, but apply a filter effect. These effects were summarised by Denver under the headings, selective exposure, selective perception and selective retention. Selective exposure suggests that many people avoid politics altogether when on television or in the press, while those who are interested favour those newspapers or television programmes which support rather than challenge their views. Selective perception suggests that the views and values of which people have serve to ‘edit’ incoming information, so that they tend to accept what they want to believe and ignore what they do not. Similarly with selective retention, the same editing process is applied to what people choose to remember of what they have read or viewed (Jones, B. 2001. Ch10. p190).
The hypodermic model claimed that if you control the media, you could control the propaganda that is dispersed there, and then thereafter, control the hearts and minds of the public. This was named the hypodermic model as it suggested that it had a direct impact on the population, however post war surveys found very little change in peoples attitudes and voting behaviour, thus undermining the hypodermic model (Gavin, N. 31.09.02).
The expansion of media output in the UK between 1988 and 1999 increased dramatically. For example magazine titles were up 19 per cent, T.V channels 1400 per cent, commercial radio 213 per cent, cinema multiplex 743 per cent, CD ROM titles 4198 per cent and web pages a staggering infinity per cent (Scammel, M. 2002. Ch10). Current research has suggested that ‘good news counts’. This research showed that if you expose people to good news about a political party, it tended to make them more positive towards them; however, negative news about a political party did not have an impact on peoples view.
Thus we can conclude that although the extent of the media’s influence on politics is still frequently argued, research to date does suggest that the media does not succeed in changing the political beliefs of the electorate in response to propaganda. The mutual dependence between politicians and the media can largely determine what is news, with bad news attracting the greatest coverage, however there is no evidence to suggest that this does in fact change the views of the mass public. There are very few rigid followers of parties today, with figures steadily declining for the last twenty to thirty years, thus giving way to a more broad minded Britain, who cannot be influenced by something they are not exposed to.
Dunleavy, P et al. (2002). Developments in British Politics – Revised Edition. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Harris, B. (1996). Politics an the Rise of the Press – Britain and France, 1620-1800. London: Routledge.
Jones, B et al. (2001). Politics UK – 4th Edition. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Kavanagh, D. (2000). British Politics – Continuities and Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Negrine, R. (1992). Politics and the Mass Media in Britain. London: Routledge.
Seaton, J et al. (1987). The Media in British Politics. Aldershot: Avebury.
Seymour-Ure, C. (1992). The British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Seymour-Ure, C. (1968). The Press, Politics and the Public. London: Methuen & Co Ltd.
Tunstall, J. (1996). Newspaper Power – The New National Press in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
