Page 82 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE POLITICAL MEDIA

Labour lost. In 1997 and 2001, with considerably more than 50 per
cent, it won. This fact does not resolve the ‘chicken and egg’ prob-
lem, of course – which came first, press support or electoral popu-
larity? But it does mean that British political parties will pay even
more attention to wooing the press in the future than they have
tended to do in the past. The days (not long gone) when the Labour
Party, angered by the 1986 Wapping industrial dispute and gener-
ally hostile to News International, could ‘boycott’ journalists on the
Murdoch titles are over for good.
Opponents of the ‘it’s the Sun wot won it’ effects model in
political communication argue that, like other categories of media
output, as was noted in Chapter 3, information about politics can
have effects only in specific contexts, which structure and shape the
audience’s response. As noted by Ericson et al., ‘the effects of [news]
content vary substantially . . . according to whether the consumer is
directly involved in the story . . . [or] whether the events are local
or distant. There is substantial variation in how people attend
to particular news communications, and what they recall’ (1991,
p. 19).
A further objection to the ‘hypodermic’ effect of tabloid political
journalism would be the fact that if, as has been indicated, the
Labour Party in 1997 enjoyed the support of around 70 per cent
of national press circulation, why did that output not secure for
it 70 per cent of the popular vote? Why did so many Tory-tabloid
readers insist on voting for other parties?
This is a long-standing debate which has thus far evaded
resolution and will probably continue to do so. The evidence
assembled by Miller and others suggesting a link between reader-
ship of the press and voting behaviour is ambiguous and difficult to
interpret, as it is in all aspects of media effects research. To reach
firm conclusions, researchers would have to establish with much
greater certainty the extent to which working-class readers are
attracted to the political content of their newspapers, as opposed to
the football and racing results, and the extent to which they believe
the often ridiculous propaganda of some tabloids rather than read
it with tongue firmly in cheek.

THE MEDIA AND HEGEMONY

The ‘political effects’ of the media may be viewed in broader terms
than simply short- or medium-term behavioural or attitudinal

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