Page 72 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE POLITICAL MEDIA

journalistic distancing from the opinions expressed in political
debates, and a determination not to confuse the expression of
opinion with the reporting of fact. The broadcasters’ guiding
principle of impartiality went further in seeking to ensure, from as
early as 1923, ‘that on every occasion when political issues were
touched on the three parties should be given as nearly as possible
equal attention (ibid., p. 26).
The fact that airtime has been a scarce resource (at least until
the advent of cable, satellite and digital television) determined
that the impartiality principle be retained by British broadcasters
throughout the twentieth century, with some exceptions (such as
coverage of Northern Ireland). Opportunities for the expression of
political opinion by broadcasting journalists were thus extremely
limited. The press, by contrast, with its particular role in the free
exchange or ‘marketplace’ of ideas, were permitted, and indeed
expected, to take up political positions. They were ‘partial’, as
opposed to the studied impartiality of the broadcasters. This meant
that even after the British press abandoned direct organisational
links with political parties in the nineteenth century (Negrine,
1993), individual newspapers continued to have political views and
expressed them in their content. The democratic principle was
preserved in so far as newspapers and periodicals expressed a
plurality of opinions, corresponding to the variety of opinions
circulating in the public sphere. The diversity of the party system
was paralleled in the pluralism of the press.
In adhering to these principles, therefore – objectivity and
impartiality for broadcasting, partisanship and advocacy for the
press – the media performed, in their different ways, their demo-
cratic role. And indeed, as audience research and public opinion
surveys have consistently shown, the media have in the course of
the twentieth century come to represent for most people, most of
the time, their primary source of political information. The press
and broadcasting have become ‘the principal means of “mediat-
ing”, that is, standing between people and the world and reporting
to them what they could not see or experience themselves’ (Nimmo
and Combs, 1983, p. 12) [their emphasis]. As Jay Blumler puts it,
‘at a time when the public’s confidence in many social and political
institutions has steeply declined . . . voters have become more
dependent on media resources . . . for impressions of what is at
stake, as previous suppliers of guiding frameworks have lost their
credibility’ (1987, p. 170). The media not only provide cognitive
knowledge, informing us about what is happening, but they also

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