Page 81 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION

conservative (with a small ‘c’) British press to view Labour as a
party it can do business with. Still in dispute, however, is the impact
which media coverage has on political behaviour. Harrop and
Scammell state that ‘the Conservative tabloids generally, and the
Sun in particular, did a good propaganda job for the party in the last
crucial week of the [1992] campaign’ (1992, p. 180). They point
out, however, that the pro-Tory bias in 1992 was no less extreme
than in 1987 or 1983, when the Labour Party did considerably
worse at the polls. These observers doubt that the press had
a decisive impact on the campaign, which was won by the
Conservatives on an unexpected (and largely undetected by opinion
polls) ‘late swing’. On the other hand, the tabloids’ relentless and
vicious campaign of personal and political abuse of Labour leaders
and their policies, exemplified by the Sun’s ‘Nightmare on Kinnock
Street’ headline, was accredited with the Conservatives’ victory by
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leading member Lord McAlpine. The Sun, indeed, congratulated
itself and its readers after polling day on a job well done.
Political analyst Bill Miller has suggested that late swings to
the Tories in 1987 were most apparent among working-class Sun
readers of the type who reside in marginal seats such as Basildon.
Here in 1992, where Sun readers are said to be found in their
greatest numbers, the swing to the Tories was the largest in the
country. Miller notes of the 1987 election that working-class
readers of the Tory-supporting tabloids shifted in larger numbers to
the Conservatives than other groups of voters (1991). As this book
went to press convincing evidence of the impact of the newly pro-
Labour press on voting behaviour was not available. It is not clear,
for example, if Labour’s strong votes in the general elections of
1997 and 2001 were a consequence of press support and the impact
of that on voters’ intentions, or if press support for Labour was a
consequence of proprietors’ perceptions that the political environ-
ment in Britain had changed – that the Tory era was over, at least
for the present, and that readers wanted their newspapers to
reflect this shift in their editorial allegiances. In short, did the press
follow the people, or the people follow the press in 1997 and the
subsequent election?
If this question cannot be conclusively answered, the outcome
of the 1997 and 2001 campaigns did lend support to former
journalist and now Labour MP Martin Linton’s claim that it is
impossible for any party to win a British general election without a
majority of the press (as measured in share of circulation) behind
it. In 1992, with only 27 per cent of circulation in its support,
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