Page 98 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE MEDIA AS POLITICAL ACTORS

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worst two words in the English language’ can only be viewed in
this light.
In the case of Northern Ireland, and on a wide range of current
political issues – racism, sexual harassment and assault, the future
of the British welfare state – newspapers use their power as infor-
mation disseminators to influence the policy-making environment;
to move their readers in certain directions if they can; and to
put pressure on decision-makers in government. Hall et al.’s still
valuable study, Policing the Crisis, showed how, on the issue of law
and order, British newspapers in the 1970s intervened in and
contributed to a debate about the crime of mugging (1978). In a
‘spiral of deviance’ the press first highlighted the ‘problem’ – which,
these authors showed, emerged primarily as a consequence of
changes in policing policy in London – and gave it a meaning in
terms of the UK’s ‘copying’ of American crime waves (a pattern
repeated in more recent discussions of ‘crack’, ‘yardies’, and the rise
in illegally held firearms). Then they articulated ‘public outrage’
about this crime wave, and encouraged the judiciary to come
down hard on convicted ‘muggers’. In short, the press were major
contributors to the creation of a moral and political climate of
enhanced police repression, which had very real consequences for
young blacks in Britain. Following the massacre of schoolchildren
and their teacher by a gunman at Dunblane in 1996, the press
actively campaigned for the introduction of draconian restrictions
on firearms – even those used by competitors in Olympic shooting
competitions. Like the case of ‘devil dogs’ in the early 1990s, when
a save of savaging incidents by pit-bull terriers and Rottweilers
resulted in ill-thought out and ineffective legislation to clamp down
on ‘dangerous dogs’, the anger and revulsion caused by the
Dunblane incident was seized on by the press to push politicians
into what many observers regarded as hasty, vote-catching
legislation of little practical relevance to the circumstances which
caused the killings in Dunblane to occur.

THE PUBLIC VOICE OF THE PRESS

While news can be and frequently is used in the manner described
here, there are more ‘authored’ forms of political intervention
available to the press. The most important ‘voice’ of a newspaper
is its editorial, which embodies its political identity. It also, as Hall

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