DRAFT @ June 21, 1997 For Anthony King (ed.) Britain at the Polls, 1997 (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, forthcoming) The Battle for the Campaign Agenda (*) Pippa Norris The
1997
election
control the campaign
was
a
struggle,
not
just
for
votes,
but
also
to
agenda. Significant, but contradictory, challenges faced
the media, parties and the public. For journalists, the problem was how to engender any zip into the campaign. Ever since Black Wednesday, in September 1992,
Labour
had
seemed
assured
floundered in the doldrums.
of
victory
while
Conservative
support
For five years, perhaps it just seemed like
longer, pundits had been writing of the end of the Conservative era, bolstered by all the accumulated evidence from opinion polls, by -elections and local elections. By the start of the six -week official campaign, the horse -race story was almost lifeless.
Moreover, to the dismay of leader -writers, commentators and columnists, Blair's strategic shift towards the centre -left had removed much of the drama of serious policy conflicts between the major parties. Few issues remained where one could discern clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives devolution and constitutional reform, perhaps the faint ghost of trade union rights and spending priorities - but on so much the contest was a classic case of an echo not a choice. Lastly, at the outset the campaign promised tight party control, in as gaffe-free an environment as could be humanly managed.
At
the start the Labour party seemed insecure and sweaty despite its enormous lead in the polls, and the professional Mandelson machine at Millbank Tower left almost nothing to chance, as though the souffle of support might suddenly collapse.
Based
on
their
formidable
track -record
during
the
1980s,
the
Conservatives had a reputation for running highly professional campaigns. Given the
palpable
sense
of
public
boredom
and
impatience,
a
feeling
of
oh-do-lets-get-on-with-it, the challenge for journalists was to find something fresh and interesting to hold the attention of their readers and viewers. During the six week campaign there was, on average, about ten hours of regular
1
1 BBC and ITN television news and current affairs programmes every weekday , not
including election specials, nor Sky News, CNN, Radi o 4, Five Live, newspapers and magazines, the internet election web pages, and all the other plethora of media outlets. Something had to fill the ravenous news hole.
For the public, the primary urge seemed to be to get it all over with. But voters also needed to make sense of the choice before them, when policy differences Thatcher
between
v.
Foot
the
to
a
parties middle
had
of
shaded
the
road
from
the
wishy -washy
red -and-blue mauve.
days
Many
of
issues
confronting voters were complex, technical and subt le, with no easy answers: what will happen to the economy if Britain enters, or stays out, of the ERM? How
can
the
peace
process
move
ahead
in
Northern
Ireland,
given
the
intractability of all sides? Can Britain afford an effective and comprehensive health service, given ever-increasing demands on the system and spending limits accepted
by
all
parties?
These,
and
related,
issues
facing
Britain
have
critical consequences for the lives of citizens, but they admit of no simple sound-bite panaceas.
The needs of the news media and the public were at odds with those of the parties. Given their lead, the primary challenge for Labour was to manage their media environment against unexpected crises, in a play -safe reactive mode. The watchword was control. Memories of the polling fiasco in 1992, and Neil
Kinnock's
false
expectation
of
victory
in
that
campaign
("We're
allright!"), dominated strategy in 1997. The challenge for the Conservatives was to staunch grassroots morale, and even build momentum, by emphasising eth positive economic performance of the government, by reassuring voters to trust Prime Minister John Major against the inexperienced and unknown Tony Blair, and by attacking Labour on the old bugaboos of taxes and trade unions. To gain traction the Conservatives had to take more risks than Labour. The challenge facing all the minor parties, but particularly the Liberal Democrats, was to avoid being squeezed by Labour's smothering slither centre -left.
2
Who won? The aim of this chapter is to examine this ba ttle and evaluate the outcome. The first section sets out the long -term context by considering how campaigning has been transformed in the post -war era. The 1997 election represented another critical step, it can be argued, in the transition to the post-modern campaign in Britain, -- characterised by partisan dealignment in the
press,
growing
fragmentation
in
the
electronic
media,
and
strategic
communications in parties. The second section goes on to analyse what was covered in the national press and televi sion during the campaign, and whether this suggests Labour won the battle of the campaign agenda, as well as the election. Lastly, we consider how the public reacted to the coverage, whether they
felt
that
journalists
generated
interesting,
fair
and
informative
coverage, and the implications of this analysis for the struggle over campaign communications.
The Evolution of the Post-Modern Campaign
Modernisation theory suggests that during the post -war era the political communication process has been transf ormed by the decline of direct linkages between citizens and parties, and the rise of mediated relationships. and
Mancini
argue
that
similar,
although
not
identical,
Swanson
developments
are
2 recognisable across industrialised democracies . In the earliest stage, the
premodern campaign in Britain was characterised by the predominance of the partisan press; a loose organizational network of grassroots party volunteers in local constituencies; and a short, ad -hoc national campaign run by the party leader with a few close advisers. This period of campaigning gradually evolved in
the
mid-nineteenth
century
following
the
development
of
mass
party
organizations registering and mobilising the newly enfranchised electorate. Despite the introduction of wireless broadcasting in 1922, this pattern was 3 maintained in largely identifiable form until the late fifties . The critical
watershed
came in 1959, with the first television coverage of a British
general election, symbolising the transition to the next stage.
3
The evolution central
location
of of
the modern campaign election
was
marked
communications,
from
by
a
shift
newspapers
in
the
towards
television, from the constituency grassroots to the party leadership, and from amateurs towards professionals. The press entered an era of long -term decline: circulation of national newspapers peaked in the late fifties and sales have subsequently dropped by one -third (see Figure 1). The fall was sharpest among tabloids, pushing these further downmarket in the search for reader s4. This fierce
competition
transformed
the
nature
of
the
British
press,
producing
growing sensationalism, and more journalism with attitude, while changes in ownership ratcheted the partisan balance further in the Conservative direction.
One major factor contributing towards declining circulation was the rise of television. The political effects of this new technology were strongly mediated by the regulations governing broadcasting in each country. In Britain the legal framework for the BBC/ITV duopolywas suffused by a strong public service
ethos
which
required
broadcasters
to
maintain
'party
balance'
and
impartiality in news coverage, to 'inform, educate and entertain' according to high standards, and to provide an agreed allocation of unpaid airtime to party political broadcasts5. Within this familiar context, television centralised the campaign,
and
thereby
increased
the
influence
of
the
party
leaders:
what
appeared on BBC1's flagship 9 O'clock News and ITN's News at Ten, and related news and current affairs studios, was the principle means by which politicians reached the vast majority of voters.
To
work
effectively
within
this
environment
parties
developed
a
coordinated national campaign with professional communications by specialists skilled in advertising, marketing, and polling. The 'long campaign' in the year or
so
before
'official'
polling
campaign.
day These
became
as
changes
important
did
not
strategically
occur
overnight,
as nor
the did
short they
displace grassroots constituency activity,as the timeless ritual of canvassing and leafletting continued. A few trusted experts in polling and political marketing became influential during the campaign in each party, such as Maurice
4
Saatchi, Tim Bell and Gordon Reece in Conservative Central Office, but this role remained as part-time outside advisors, not integral to the process of government, nor even to campaigning which was still run by politicians. Unlike in the United States, no political marketing industry developed, in large part because
the
leaderships:
only the
major minor
clients parties
were had
the
Labour
limited
and
Conservative
resources,
while
party
parliamentary
candidates ran retail campaigns based on shoe -leather and grassroots helpers. But the net effect of television during the era of modernisation was to shift the primary focus of the campaign from the ad -hoccery of unpaid volunteers and local candidates towards the central party leadership flanked by paid, although not necessarily full-time, professionals6. Lastly
in
the
late twentieth
century
Britain
seems
to
have
been
experiencing the rise of the post-modern campaign, although there remains room for dispute in the interpretation of the central features of this development and its consequences. The most identifiable characteristics, evident in the 1997 campaign, include the emergence of a more autonomous, and less partisan, press
following
its
own
'media
logic';
the
growing
fragmentation
and
diversification of electronic media outlets, programmes and audiences; and, in reaction to these developments, the attempt by parties to reassert control through
strategic
communications
and
media
management
during
the
permanent
campaign. Partisan Dealignment in the Press In the post-war period parties have had long -standing and stable links with the press. In 1945 there was a rough partisan balance with about 6.7 million
readers
of
pro-Conservative
papers
and
4.4
million
readers
of
pro-Labour papers. This balance shifted decisively in the early 1970s, with the transformation of the left-leaning Daily Herald into the pro-Conservative Sun, and the more aggressively right -wing tone of The Times, both under Rupert Murdoch's
ownership.
By
1992
the
cards
had
become
overwhelmingly
stacked
against the left, since the circulation of the Conservative -leaning press had risen to about 8.7 million compared with only 3.3 million for Labour -leaning papers (see Figure 1).
Throughout the 1980s
5
Mrs Thatcher could campaign
assured of a largely sympathetic press, which provided a loyal platform to get her message across7. One of the most striking developments of recent years has been the crumbling of these traditional press -party loyalties.
The evidence comes partly from editorial policy. The Conservative press had started to turn against Mrs Thatcher in 1989 -90, when the economy was in recession and her leadership became deeply unpopular, and this constant barrage 8 of criticism probably contributed towards her eventual demise . During the 1992
election, while the Sun and the Daily Express continued to beat the Tory drum, comment from some of the other pro -Conservative press like the Mail and The Sunday Times was more muted, and four out of eleven daily papers failed to endorse
a
party9.
single
The
new
government
enjoyed
a
brief
respite
on
returning to office but press criticism of John Major's leadership deepened following the ERM debacle on 16th September 1992, with only theDaily Express staying loyal. Journalists continued to highlight the government's difficulties over Europe, and internal splits over the debate on the Maastricht Treaty. By the winter of 1993, a succession of scandals involving Conservative politicians created headline news while editorials regularly denunciated the government, and particularly the Prime Minister. By the time of the July 1995 leadership challenge only the Daily Express backed John Major solidly, while theSun, the Mail, The Times and the Telegraph all argued that it was time for him to be replaced10, an embarrassment for their leader writers given theoutcome.
The question, in the long run -up to the election, was whether the Tory press would return home, once the future of the Conservative government was under
real
threat.
In
the
event,
the
1997
election
represents
a
historic
watershed. In a major break with tradition, six out of ten national dailies, and
five
out
of
nine
Sundays,
endorsed
the
Labour
party
in
their
final
editorials (see Table 1). This was twice the highest number previously, and it reversed the long-standing pro-Conservative leanings in the national press. With impeccable timing, the Sun led the way on the first day of the campaign,
6
(THE SUN BACKS BLAIR), with a frontpage claiming Blair is a "breath of fresh air" while the Conservatives were "tired, divided and rudderless", and its defection stole the headlines and damaged Tory morale. This change of heart came
after
meetings
assiduous
between
efforts
Blair
and
by
Labour
Rupert
to
court
Murdoch,
press
support,
especially
Blair's
including visit
to
Australia in 1995. Throughout the campaign the Sun, with ten million readers a day, provided largely unswerving support for Blair, although opposing Labour policy on Europe and the unions, and many commentators predicted that the switch,
based
affinities,
on
would
Murdoch's not
last
commercial 11
long .
considerations
Labour's
rather
traditional
than
tabloid,
political the Daily
Mirror, with six million readers, continued its brand of centre -left journalism ("the paper for Labour's TRUE supporters"). On the last Sunday of e thcampaign, influenced by Murdoch, The News of the World decided to follow the lead of its sister paper, the Sun, and backed Labour.
Among the broadsheets The Guardian called for tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats in seats where it made sense, but broadly endorsed Labour. The Independent was more restrained in its backing, casting its editorial vote for Labour "with a degree of optimism that is not entirely justified by the evidence". The paper was clearly more anti -Tory than pro-anything. The Times advised
their
readers
to
back
Eurosceptic
candidates
from
whatever
party,
although, in practice, nearly all were Conservatives. Only leads in the Daily Telegraph,
and the Daily Mail ("LABOUR BULLY BOYS ARE BACK" "LABOUR'S BROKEN
PROMISES") remained strongly in the Tory camp. Even theDaily Express was more neutral
than
Hollick,
its
in
the
chief
past:
a
double -page
executive,
arguing
spread
for
was
Labour
divided
and
its
Stevens, arguing for the Conservatives. The front -page of the
between chairman,
Lord Lord
election-eve
Mail carried a colourful Union Jack border and the apocalyptic warning that a Labour victory could "undo 1,000 years of our nation's history". Yet
any
comparison
of
editorial
policy
probably
under -estimates
the
balance of partisanship in news coverage during the overall campaign. For example, the Mail ostensibly endorsed the Conservatives during the campaign,
7
but in practice it probably deeply damaged the government by headlining sexual scandals in the party, and reinforcing images ofdisunity with leading articles highlighting the number of Tory Eurosceptics. With friends like this, the Conservatives did not need opponents.
To understand this we need to go beyond
the leaders, which are rarely read, and even less heeded, to examine the broader
pattern
dealignment
of
is
front-page
that
stories.
certain
papers
The
most
like
plausible
the
Sun,
evidence
for
traditionally
pro-Conservative, switched camps, but also that front -page stories were often so similar across all the press, driven by news values irrespective of the paper's ostensible partisanship.
Since the early 1970s fierce competition for readers has encouraged far more sensational coverage in the popular press, fuelling an endless diet of stories about 'scandals', (mostly sexual but also financial), infotainment, and the Royals, preferably all three. This process started when Rupert Murdoch bought the News of the World in 1968, and the Sun a year later. It accelerated in the cut-throat competition produced by the launch of theDaily Star in 1978, which sought to out-do the Sun in its relentless search for sex, investigative 'exclusives' about celebrities, violent crime, and graphic coverage of the bizzare. Those who thought British newspapers had reached their nadir at this point had under-estimated the soft-porn Sunday Sport, launched in 198612. The tackiness of the popular press, such as their exhaustive gossip about the goings-on of the younger Royals, gradually infected and corroded the news culture of the broadsheets as well.By the mid-1990s, the journalism of scandal trumped party loyalties, hands down. This fuelled the series of sleaze stories about
senior
Conservative
politicians
throughout
John
Major's
years
in
government, and there was no let -up during the campaign. As documented in detail
later,
the
first
two
weeks
of
the
election
were
dominated
by
a
succession of stories about corruption in public life and sexual 'scandals', providing a steady diet of negative news for the government which swamped their message about the economy.
8
The most plausible reason for this focus on sensationalism is the fierce competition 1981-95
for
the
readers
following
proportion
of
the
plummeting public
circulation
reading
a
daily
figures: paper
between dropped
substantially (from 76 to 62 percent of men and from 68 to 54 percent of women)13.
In
Britain
headline-to-headline
in
the
national
newsagents
press
competes
shop -windows,
unlike
in
for
attention
countries
where
there is a strong regional press each with its own distinct market.
The drive for readers may also have indirectly influenced the shift in partisanship, if papers decided to follow, rather than lead, changes in popular support for the government, although evidence here remains inconclusive. At the start of the campaign, according to MORI polls from January 1st to March 17 1997, out of nineteen daily and Sunday papers, only theExpress and Telegraph had an overall majority of readers who said they would vote Conservative (see Table 2). Papers may have believ ed that they could not expect to retain their popularity if they advocated policies which failed to get the support of the majority of their readers. This was publicly acknowledged by Lord Rothermere, proprietor of the Mail, in the aftermath of the election, who was asked whether the
editor,
Paul
Dacre,
would
be
allowed
to
continue
to
express
his
Euroscepticism:"It is a free country, and he is entitled to his views and to express them. But, of course, if they start to affect the circulation that will be
different."
14
In many countries which used to have a strongly partisan
press, like the Netherlands, political coverage is now driven more strongly by an autonomous 'media logic' in the fierce competition for readers rather than by traditional allegiances or the politics of their proprietors. "Modern media are more powerful, more independent, and more determined to pursue their own interests dealignment
through
a
professional
culture
of
their
own
15 making." .
This
has increased the complexity and uncertainty ofmedia management
for parties, who can no longer rely on getting their message out through a few well-known and sympathetic sources. The Growing Fragmentation of the Electronic Media
9
Although newspapers have shrunk, the electronic media expanded during this same period, with far greater diversification in the 1990s. The erosion of the BBC/ITV duopoly of viewers proceeded relatively slowly in Britain, compared with the fall in the network share of the audience in wired countries like the United States, the Netherlands and Canada. Channel 5 covered about two -thirds of Britain when launched in March 1997, although with a modest audience, and this added to the choice of four terrestrial channels. But today the BBC and ITV duopoly faces the greatest competition from the rapid evolution of digital, cable
and
satellite
television
narrowcasting,
and
also
from
new
forms
of
interactive communications like the Internet. The first satellite services became available in Britain fromSky TV in February 1989, followed by BSB the following year. By 1992, about 3 percent of homes
had
access
to
cable
TV,
while
10
percent
had
a
satellite
dish.
In
contrast by 1997 almost a fifth of all households could tune into over fifty channels on satellite and cable. In these homes, more than a third of all viewing was on these channels. During the campaign, between 10 -15 percent of the audience usually watched cable and satellite programmes every evening. Occasionally when there was wall -to-wall election on the terrestrial channels, like on Thursday 24th April, a week before the election, the proportion of cable
and
satellite
viewers
jumped
to
almost
a
quarter
of
the
audience.
Moreover, Sky News, CNN, Channel 5, and BBC Radio's Five Live, have altered the pace of news, to brief headlines on the hour every hour.
While
probably
only
political
junkies
surfed
the
internet,
the
easy
availability of the BBC's Election '97, ITN Online, the online headlines from the Press Association and Reuters, party home pages, as well as electronic versions of The Times and The Telegraph, dramatically speeded the news cycle. The BBC's Politics '97, with easy access to RealAudio broadcasts of its major political
programmes,
promises
the
shape
of
things
to
come.
With
24
hour
coverage, the acceleration of the news cycle has dramatically increased the
10
need for parties to respond, or get knocked off their feet, by a suddenly shifting agenda. Strategic Party Communications during the Permanent Campaign
As press-party loyalties have declined, and the outlets fo r electronic news
have
diversified,
complex
communications
gradual
evolution
doctors,
opinion
of
politicians
have
environment. the
polls,
permanent
and
been
Parties campaign
professional
forced have
been
where
media
to
the
respond
to
a
transformed techniques
management
are
more
by of
the spin
increasingly
applied to routine everyday politics. The central role of Peter Mandelson in the Labour campaign, and the high -tech developments in media management at 16 Millbank Tower, are not isolated phenomenon .
Supposedly modelled on the war
room in the Clinton campaign, the Millbank organisation had a tight inner core, including Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown, the press secretary Alastair Campbell, the pollster Philip Gould, Blair's personal assistant Anji Hunter, of Lairg and Jonathan Powell.
The interior circle
Lord Irvine
was surrounded by about 200
staffers connecting via fax, modem and pagers to key shadow spokespersons and candidates out in the marginal constituencies, to keep the party 'on -message'. Briefings were
sent
out
nightly,
sometimes
twice
a
day.
The
Labour
party
designed their communications strategy down to the smallest detail, with a rebuttal unit (and the Excalibur programme) under the direction of Adrian McMenamin, ready for a rapid response to anticipated attacks.
After 1992 Labour realised that elections are not usually won or lost in the official campaign, and they subsequently designed their strategy for the long-haul. Labour renewed their interest in constituency campaigns, although local contests became increasingly professionalised by strategic targeting of key voters under the guidance of Millbank Tower.
For two years before polling
day a Labour task force was designed to switch 5000 voters in each of 90 target marginals. Those identified as potential Labour coverts in these seats were contacted
by
teams
of
volunteers
on
the
doorstep,
and
by
a
canvassing
operation run from twenty telephone banks around the country, coordinated from
11
Millbank during the campaign. In January 1997 get out th e vote letters were sent to each type of target voter, and young people received a video of Tony Blair17. Candidates in marginals were each asked to contact at least 1,000 switchers.
Information
from
concern raised by voters,
the
canvassing
operation,
especially
issues
of
was also fed back to Philip Gould, to help shape
Labour's presentations.
Opinion polling was carried out regularly from late 1993, and Philip Gould and Deborah Mattinson conducted a programme of focus group research to monitor reaction to Labour's policies. Strategy meetings were conducted almost daily from late 1994, tackling Labour's weaknesses on taxation, trade unions, and crime well before the official campaign came close. The manifesto,New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Betterwas designed to focus on five specific pledges: cutting class sizes for under seven year -olds; fast-track punishments for persistent young offenders; reducing NHS waiting lists; moving 250,000 young unemployed into work; and cutting VAT on heating. manifesto New Labour, new life for Britainas had
ample
opportunity
to
iron
out
By laun ching the draft
a dry run a year earlier, Labour
any
pledges
which
proved
unduly
controversial. The main theme of Labour's advertising was "Britain Deserves Better", fairly bland and safe, if unmemorable. To press home the message, Tony Blair visited 60 constituencies, travelling about 10,000 miles by road, rail and
air,
and
providing
controlled
photo -opportunities
rather
than
press
conferences for the media. The membership dri ve launched by Blair was also part of
this
long-term
strategy,
increasing
grassroots
membership
by
almost
18 two-thirds, up from 261,000 in 1991 to 420,000 by the time of the election .
This achievement was
in stark contrast to Conservative party membership which
has
by
fallen,
perhaps
half,
to
an
estimated
350,000
to
400,000,
from
1992-9719. Lastly Labour's assiduous courting of the city, including launching the
special
business
manifesto,
was
all
part
of
this
anticipate and batten down any lines of potential weakness.
12
careful
planning
to
In
contrast
Conservative
Central
office
more
often
appeared
to
be
knocked off message by events out of their control, with the topics planned for press conferences torn up at the last minute. The campaign was
led by the
party chairman, Brian Malwhinney, the deputy leader Michael Heseltine, Danny Finkelstein, head of Tory party research, and advised by Lord Saatchi, although up to twenty people attended strategy meetings, each with different priorities. During the long campaign the Conservatives seemed unable to decide whether the most effective strategy was to attack Old Labour (the party of trade unions and taxes) or New Labour (the party of 'smarmy', 'phony' and untrustworthy Blair). Tory briefings, and posters, veered back and forth uncertainly20. Their most effective slogans were probably "Britain is Booming- Don't let Labour Blow it", or "New Labour, New Danger", but their advertising was generally regarded as unconvincing (indeed their 'Tony and Bill' poster was wi dely believed to be a Labour advertisement).
Labour suffered a wobbly day or two in early -April, over privatisation of the air traffic control service, with contradictory messages coming from Blair and Prescott. There were also some wobbles in the second week over the unions, and Blair made an embarrassing 'parish council' slip over Scottish devolution. In the sixth week a rogue poll by ICM for the Guardian, suggesting the Labour lead was closing, also induced concern in the Labour camp. But these were
minor
upsets.
In
contrast
the
Conservatives
became
deeply
mired
in
divisions, arguing with each other not addressing the public, as the splits over Europe burst open again. On 14th April theMail published a list of 183 Conservative candidates who had come out against EMU in their constituency leaflets, in contradiction to the official 'wait and see' line. In response John Major tore up the PEB planned for 17th April, and instead broadcast an impromptu appeal on Europe. But the internal row only intensified the following day with publication of a Conservative advertisement showing Blair as a puppet on Kohl's lap, which brought public criticism from Edward Heath and Ken Clarke, (as
well
splits.
as Other
offence
from
diversions
Germany) included
13
thereby
only
speculation
highlighting
about
the
Tory
Conservative leadership
election to replace Major, and comments like Edwina Currie's prediction of Conservative
defeat
in
the
twilight
days
of
the
campaign.
In
short,
the
Conservative message of Britain's economic heal th was drowned out as much by internal conflicts, fuelled but not caused by the media, as by anything the opposition did or said. The Mail may have tossed the lighted match, but the row between Eurosceptics and Europhiles was a conflagration waiting to happen, based on years as a party tearing itself apart.
The shift towards the permanent campaign in Britain has still not gone as far as in the United States, in part because of the pattern of longer electoral cycles21. Nevertheless the way that the techni ques for campaigning are becoming merged with the techniques of governing was symbolised by the way that Tony Blair, once elected Prime Minister, announced monthly 'meet the public' sessions, to attract popular support and publicity outside of his appearances
in
the
Commons,
'town-hall'
meetings.
following
Moreover,
many
the
of
example
those
who
of
President
played
a
Clinton's
key
role
in
controlling Labour campaign communications were transferred to Number 10, with the aim of adopting the same techniques ni government. New Ministers, for example, were told that all press briefings had to be cleared centrally with Peter
Mandelson,
Minister
without
Portfolio
in
the
Blair
administration.
Whether this process succeeds or not remains an open question but what it indicates is that, given a more complex communications environment, modern parties have been forced to adapt, with greater or lesser success, to the new communications environment if they are to survive unscathed.
The 1997 election therefore suggeststhat the evolution to a post -modern campaign currently remains in transition in Britain, and certain components are more clearly developed than others. In particular, the full impact of the digital
television
revolution
and
the
internet
remains
uncertain,
and
if
Britain experiences an explosion of channels the next election is probably going to be fought in a very different broadcasting environment. Nevertheless these trends seem to be producing a distinctively new context for the process
14
of political campaigning in Britain, as elsewhere, characterised by dealignment of the press, an increasingly diverse and fragmented electronic media, and, in response, more strategic attempts by parties to maintain control and remain on-message.
The
term
'post-modern'
seems
appropriate
to
describe
a
communication process which has become increasingly diverse, fragmented, and complex.
Similar
developments
have
been
identified
in
many
industrialised
democracies, although the impact of technologically -driven change is mediated by
each
nation's
culture,
political
system,
and
media
22 structure .
The
consequences of this transition remain a matter of dispute. Some critics, reflecting on similar patterns in the United States, fear these developments will serve to disconnect leaders and citizens, to over -simplify and trivialise political discourse, and to produce a more cynical and disengaged public which tunes out from politics altogether. Others, however, remain more sanguine, while some speculate that the fragmentation of media out lets may provide a positive opportunity for more varied, and less mainstream, cultural voices to be heard23. Who Won the Battle of the Campaign Agenda? Within this environment, what was the contents of coverage of the 1997 campaign? And, in particular, did Labour win the battle of the campaign agenda, as well as the election? Here we can turn to content analysis of the national press provided by CARMA, who monitored 6,072
articles in the national daily
and Sunday newspapers from the announcement of the lection e (18th March) until polling
day
Conservative
(1st
May).
party
(4,827
CARMA
analysed
articles),
whether
Labour
the
(4,536),
article the
featured
Liberal
the
Democrats
(1,390) or the Referendum party (319), then for each party classified the major topic
of
these
articles
using
150
coding
categories
(such
as
inflation,
education and trade unions). CARMA counted the number of articles (although not the length) which mentioned each topic every day, as well as estimating the favourability or unfavourabilit y of each story24.
15
This analysis suggests that about a fifth of all the election coverage in the press (19 percent) focussed on campaigning, such as stories about party strategy, the prospects for marginal seats, and much speculation about the (in the
event
non-existent)
television
debate.
The
minutiae
of
insider
electioneering, such as campaign battle buses (complete with layout colour maps), high-tech and wooden soap-boxes, and Blairforce One were described in detail by journalists bored by listening to the standard leadership speeches. If we break the analysis down in more detail, (see Table 3) we find that one quarter of this coverage, but in total only 10 percent of all news stories, was about opinion polls, far less than in recent general elections. As others have noted, the media commissioned fewer polls than in 1987 or 1992, and they gave them
less
coverage.
About
a
fifth
of
all
front -page
lead
stories
in
the
national press were devoted to the polls in 1987 (20 percent) and ni 1992 (18 25 percent) compared with only 4 percent in 1997 . Coverage of the polls on 26 television news dropped from 14 percent in 1992 to only 7 percent in 1997 .
This was probably due to new guidelines on television, plus the flatness of the race, with perpetually large Labour leads, as well as the reputation of the polls following their fiasco in 1992. Overall there was relatively little difference
in
the
amount
of
attention
given
to
each
party
in
terms
of
electioneering, although it is notable that more tories s about the Liberal Democrats focussed on stories about tactical voting, such asThe Observer's detailed survey of marginal seats towards the end of the campaign, and this coverage may have influenced the high levels of tactical voting which were evident in the results.
Almost half of all the press coverage (45 percent) discussed policy issues (see Table 4), with detailed sections in the broadsheets analysing the contents of each party's manifesto promises. About one quarter ofhis t coverage (27
percent)
focussed
on
problems
of
domestic
social
policy,
particularly
education, the national health service, pensions and crime. The priority given to education by Labour, and even more by the Liberal Democrats, seems to have
16
paid dividends in their media coverage. The economy absorbed another quarter of the coverage, particularly taxation, trade unions (for Labour), unemployment and privatisation, in that order. The analysis clearly reveals the extent of the failure of the Conservatives o t focus media attention on their positive achievements. There was remarkably little political coverage of Britain's low levels of inflation, the balance of payments figures, strong economic growth, 27 and low interest rates, not to speak of the booming stockmarket .
Altogether economic and social policy absorbed the majority (58 percent) of
Labour's
issue
coverage,
broadly
reflecting
their
manifesto
priorities,
particularly the five specific policy pledges mentioned earlier. In terms of agenda-setting, the only major topics given significantly more attention in the press coverage than in Labour's manifesto were the issues of trade unions and privatisation. In contrast, despite John Major's strenuous attempts to trumpet the government's economic record at daily press conferences at Smith Square, and their BRITAIN IS BOOMING slogan, only a fifth (22 percent)
of their issue
coverage in the press focussed on the economy. The Conservatives simply failed to set the media agenda: there was twice as much coverage fo their record on unemployment as inflation.
In
most
elections
foreign
policy
rarely
surfaces
as
a
major
issue,
unless the country is at war or there is major international conflict abroad. During the 1992 campaign, for example, although Labour's defence policy was highlighted by Tory posters, foreign affairs occupied a mere one percent of front page news28. Yet in 1997, despite an era of peace and prosperity, at a time when the west has won the cold war, a remarkable 17 percent of all issue coverage
in
the
press
focussed
on
foreign
policy,
nearly
all
concerning
29 Britain's role within the European Union . As discussed earlier, the press
headlined Conservative splits over Europe: almost a fifth of the coverage of Conservative issues (19 percent) focussed on Europe.
17
The Conservative agenda was also sabotaged by the issue of standards of public life: 18 percent of their total issue coverage in the press concerned stories
about
sex
and
sleaze.
This
was
also
the
number
one
topic
in
editorials30. The extent to which the Conservatives lost the battle of the media agenda can be illustrated most clearly by this issue. The first week of the campaign was dominated by the 'cash for questions' row when part of the unpublished Commons report by Sir George Downey was leaked toThe Guardian on 21st March. As a result 23 Conservative MPs entered the election with a cloud over
their
heads,
notably
Neil
Hamilton
in
Tatton
and
Tim
Smith
in
Beaconsfield.
During the second week, the Tories started to mount a counter -offensive: both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph led with a splash story about the 'union threat' under Labour, with theMail publishing a 'secret union hit list' of employers. Conservative Central Office tried to lead their press conference on this story but before they could gain any traction this news was swept off the
front
pages
by
the
resignation
of
Allan
Stewart,
an
ex -minister
and
Conservative MP for Glasgow Eastwood, forced to stand down following allegation of an old affair which were published in he t Sunday Mail.
On Thursday 27th, in
a classic case of cheque-book journalism, the Sun led a scoop with photos of the Conservative MP, Piers Merchant, caught embracing a "17 -year-old blonde Soho nightclub hostess" while out canvassing in his Beckenham constituency ("SCANDAL OF TORY MP'S MISTRESS, 17", the Sun). Even the pro-Conservative Express and Mail could not resist giving this set -up story front-page coverage, and it continued to rumble on in the press throughout the quiet Easter weekend. As
if
this
was
not
enough,
that
same
day
Tim
Smith,
Conservative
MP
for
Beaconsfield, confessed to taking £25,000 from Harrods's owner, Mohammed Al Fayed, and he stood down from his candidacy. While the tabloids headlined sex, the broadsheets had their exclusives based on corruption, with the crusade against Tim Smith led by The Guardian ("THE DISHONOURABLE MEMBER"), thereby also renewing pressure on Neil Hamilton in Tatton.
18
The
following
week
Sir
Michael
Hirst,
chairman
of
Conservative party, and fron t-runner for the recently vacated
the
Scottish
Glasgow Eastwood
seat, had to resign because of allegations of past indiscretions in his private life. The story first broke in the Scottish press, but it was reputed to have been
planted
by
malcontents
from
within
the
Scottish
Conservative
party.
Whether all of these stories were really 'news', suitable of headline treatment in this feeding frenzy, in the British press
is highly debatable, but the culture of sensationalism
was by now too well entrenched to avoid such eatment. tr
The start of April saw the launch of the official manifestoes, and more traditional, issue-oriented coverage returned, but by then a third of the campaign
period
had
been
dominated
by
sleaze.
Coverage
reinforced
the
widespread sense that the government had run its course, and become faintly disreputable, divided and tired, fuelling the 'time for a change' sentiment. The issue failed to go away since Neil Hamilton (claiming to be innocent of cash for questions until proved guilty) refused to resi gn. John Major refused to intervene in Tatton, although he had earlier indicated that Piers Merchant (caught guilty of kissing) should rethink his position in the interests of the party, a curious choice of priorities concerning suitable standards in public 31 life, and one not, apparently, shared by the electorate .
The 'battle for Tatton' made headlines throughout the fourth week after Labour and the Liberal Democrats agreed to withdraw their candidates. This allowed the BBC war correspondent, Martin Bel l, to stand, and eventually win, as the first independent MP (without any previous party affiliation) for fifty years. The soap opera of Tatton, with all the personal drama of Hamilton v. Bell, was just too good a news story for any journalists, including those working for the Tory tabloids, to keep off their front pages. By dissolving parliament six weeks before polling day, well before the traditional launch of the manifestos and the formal beginning of the campaign, Major blundered into creating a yawning news hole into which, like the White Rabbit, fell the Conservative
party.
Without
policy
19
conflict,
something
had
to
fill
the
political columns. Throughout the first two weeks these stories reinforced the image of a discredited government under weak leadership, the final nails in the coffin from which the Conservatives never recovered.
Overall generally
negative
favourable, positive
CARMA
with
towards
estimated (44
the the
that
percent
rest
on
balance
Conservative
was
rated
unfavourable
neutr al).
CARMA
confirmed
Conservatives
in
their
to
that
contents,
coverage
only the
18
was
percent
papers
(reflecting
most their
editorial preferences) were the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express, and the Daily Mail32. If ratings are weighted by the size of circulation of newspaper articles, the government's overall disadvantage in the press was even more marked. Labour and the Liberal Democrat coverage was far more evenly balanced between positives and negatives.
Lastly, just over a third of all press stories concerne d the party leadership and candidates, which probably represents a substantial increase on previous campaigns33. Here, as shown in Table 5, most of the coverage focussed on the two main leaders, with Blair enjoying a slight edge over Major, while Ashdown trailed far behind (with only 4 percent of the leadership stories). Within the Labour party, Blair clearly dominated coverage (with 51 percent of stories), followed by Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Peter Mandelson and Robin Cook.
Ashdown's
dominance
of
the
i Lberal
Democrat
coverage
was
even
more
pronounced, with almost no stories about any other of their politicians.
In
contrast only a third of the Conservative leadership stories focussed on Major. In
second
place
within
his
party,
Neil
Hamilton
attracted
slightly
more
coverage than Mrs Thatcher, Ken Clark or Michael Heseltine. Overall the list is overwhelmingly masculine, due in large part to the predominance of the three main party leaders, although women spokespersons were slightly more prominent in the Labour party. Lastly, the content analysis also rated the favourability of the coverage of the leaders, and here coverage of all the Conservative leaders (with the single exception of Norma Major) was on balance classified as
20
unfavourable,
with
particularly
poor
ratings
of
Tim
Smith,
Neil
Hamilton,
Stephen Dorrell and Michael Forsyth, while the equivalent coverage of the Labour leadership was generally neutral.
The Impact on Voters
Lastly,
if
political
campaigns
in
Britain
are
moving
towards
the
post-modern era, what impact did this have on voters in the 1997 election? How did viewers react to the campaign coverage on television, in particular did they reach for their remotes to turn off, or turn over, from news and current affairs on television? And did viewers feel that the election coverage was interesting, informative and fair? Here we can monitor viewership figures using data
supplied
by
the
Broadcasters
Audience
Research
Board
(BARB),
which
provides the industry-standard measure of viewing behaviour fr om a panel sample of over 4,000 monitored households.
The evening news and current affairs programmes on British television continue to reach a mass audience, but the availability of alternative channels has slightly eroded their market share. Commentators noted that BBC1'sNine O'clock News suffered particularly sharply from a fall in viewership after it was specially extended with campaign news to 50 minutes after Easter. The BARB figures confirm that this programme lost one third fo its viewers, down from 5.8 million in the first week to 4 million thereafter (see Figure 2). This figure was also well down from the equivalent during the spring 1992 campaign, when about 6.3 million viewers tuned into BBC1's main evening news. But what commentators failed to notice was that ITN'sNews at Ten, with its regular 30 minute slot,
also steadily lost some of its audience during the campaign, down
from 6 million in the first week to 5.6 million in the last.Channel 4 News at 7pm (with 0.6 million viewers), ITV's Early Evening News at 5.45pm (with 4 million) and BBC1's 6pm News (with 5.8 million) remained popular and relatively stable,
subject
only
to
the
natural
television schedules.
21
trendless
fluctuations
caused
by
the
Current
affairs
programmes
also
experienced
fluctuations
in
their
audiences (see Figure 3). The sharpest fall was registered by BBC1's Panorama which carried interviews with all the major party leaders (with an average viewership of 2.8 million throughout the campaig n), although they also picked up towards the end of the campaign. A similar pattern was registered with Question Time (2.8m), while BBC1's On the Record (1.5m) managed a modest and steady rise during the campaign. Among the special programmes the BBC's 9am Election Call gathered about 0.6m television viewers, but more listened via Radio
4,
and
the
programme
maintaining
high
standards
of
public
service
broadcasting. ITN's People's Election, with a live studio audience of 500, attracted a stable viewership o f about 2.8 million.
On Channel 4 Vincent
Hanna's A Week in Politics (0.8m) and Midnight Special (0.2m) retained a loyal, if
modest,
audience
of
political
aficionados
throughout
the
campaign.
The
Labour and Conservative parties showed five election broadcasts each which attracted an average audience of about 11.2 million across all channels, while the four Liberal Democrat broadcasts were seen by 10.6 million, and minor parties were watched by about 10.1 million. None were particularly memorable, though
some
aroused
minor
controversy
(such
as
Labour's
use
of
Fitz
the
bulldog, traditionally seen as a symbol of the far right BNP, and a Pro -Life film featuring graphic footage of abortions). The ratings were well down on 34 1992, when PEBs averaged about 13 million viewers .
On election night, at its peak (at 10.45 pm) 12.7 million people tuned into the election specials, or almost one third of the electorate. While the news of Labour's landslide started to sink in across the nation, the BBC experienced an equivalent landslide of viewers against ITV, by a ratio of about 7:3. The numbers gradually subsided but even so 5.2 million remained glued to the set at 1.45 in the morning, as Tory after Tory faced the end of their political careers, and between 1.4 and 6.3 million watched bleary -eyed all the next day as Blair went to the Palace, then emerged triumphant to enthusiastic throngs in Downing Street. We can conclude that popular commentary exaggerated
22
how far the public turned off from the election, and, althoughBBC1's Nine O'clock News suffered more than most during the first week of the campaign, the pattern after then was relatively stable. Since, as mentioned earlier, about ten hours of news and current affairs was available every day throughout the campaign, and since the horse -race was flat almost throughout, this represents a remarkable achievement for television broadcasters. Yet viewing figures may provide a poor indication of interest, since the size of the audience for news and current affairs is strong ly influenced by the placement of a programme in the schedule. For more information about viewer's reactions we can turn to data from the four -wave panel survey, Television: The Public View with 15,356 viewers conducted before, during and after the campaign by RSL for the Independent Television Commission. The public were asked to evaluate a range of factors in television's coverage of the campaign.
As shown in Table 6, the results confirm that the public felt there was far too much coverage of the general election, as many television reviewers suggested. Nevertheless a more accurate picture is more complicated. While a clear majority (60 percent) agreed that there had been far too much about the campaign on television, nevertheless a quarter of the public thought that there had been too little, and few felt that broadcasters had got the balance right. This pattern may have important implications for future elections as British broadcasting
moves
into
a
more
diverse
digital
media
enviro nment.
A
multiplicity of channels will make it far easier for some to tune out from politics, while other political junkies will be able to watch 24 -hour news.
If
we
turn
to
coverage
by
different
channels,
contrary
to
the
conventional wisdom, Sky News (with Adam Boulton's rolling live campaign) and ITV were most widely criticised for providing too much coverage, while the public seemed more satisfied by the BBC
scheduling. Despite the decline in
coverage of opinion polls noted earlier, the public stillfelt that there was far too much attention to the horse -race on television. Outside pundits were
23
also unpopular and viewers seemed happier with television's own correspondents. Reflecting the government's
unpopularity in the polls, the public thought
there was too much coverage of the Conservative party in television news, while in contrast a fifth of all viewers would have liked more about the Labour party, and also the minor parties like the Greens who rarely featured in the news. As we have seen Europe received extensive attention in the press, but the public felt that the amount of news about this topic was excessive, along with the level of attention given to foreign policy more generally.
Lastly,
the
public
were
also
asked
to
evaluate
the
standards
of
television news, whether it met the requirements of public service broadcasting by
being
accurate,
informative,
balanced
and
interesting.
Here
viewers
expressed largely positive reaction to news programmes on British television (see Table 7). Channel 4's 7 O'Clock News anchored by John Snow came out particularly well from this evaluation, especially in terms of accuracy and balance,
perhaps
because
the
distinctively
longer
format
allows
more
opportunity to present all points of view. The general picture which emerges from this survey during the campaign confirms once more that British television news is widely held in high regard for providing a broadly impartial
source of
information, across all the major channels.
Conclusions: Evaluating the Coverage
During the 1997 British election many voices expressed disquiet about media coverage. On the one hand, some observers claimed that television failed 35 to provide serious, critical and informed debate about public policy issues .
As we have seen the media agenda was frequently taken over by a feeding frenzy focussing
on
sexual
and
financial
sleaze,
and
later
the
high
drama
of
Conservative party splits over Europe. The obsession with sensationalism may have obscured debate about many co mplex issues facing Britain, and hindered critical scrutiny of many aspects of the new Blair agenda. On the other hand, other critics argued that, far from providing too little serious coverage of
24
the election, television, -- particularly the BBC, -- provided far too much36. The media was charged with presenting a saturation diet of politics during the long campaign, including BBC1's specially extended9 O'Clock News, as well as the extensive campaign supplements in all the broadsheet newspapers, and this, some suggest, may have contributed towards turned -off voters. At present we can only speculate about the full effects of the campaign on voters, which awaits further
analysis
once
the
British
Election
Campaign
Panel
study
becomes
available. What does seem clear at this point, however, is the effects on parties. Little is certain in politics, but we can take a fairly safe bet that the techniques learnt by the Blair team for staying on -message in a more complex and diverse media environment during the permane nt campaign
are going
to be emulated by all the other parties. In this regard the 1997 election did represent a watershed, not just in terms of the outcome for the fortunes of the political parties, but also for the process of campaigning in Britain.
25
Table National
1 Daily
Press:
Ownership,
Circulation
and
Partisanship
_______________________________________________________________________________ _____ Paper Owner Editor Circ. Preferred Apr
1997
Winner
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Daily Mail Associated Newspapers P.Dacre 2,151 Conservative Lord
Rothermere
Daily Mirror
Mirror Group
P.Morgan
3,084
Labour
Daily Star
MAI/United
P.Walker
648
Labour
Lord
Hollick
Daily Telegraph C.Black/Hollinger
C.Moore
1,134
Conservative
Express
R.Addis
1,220
Conservative
MAI/United Lord
Hollick
Financial Times Pearson, Ld Blakenham
Guardian
Scott Trust
Independent
Mirror Group
Sun
The Times
R.Lambert
307
Labour
401
Labour
251
Labour
3,842
Labour
A.Rusbriger
A.Marr
New Int., R.Murdoch
News Int., R.Murdoch
S.Higgins
P.Stothard
719
Conservative
_______________________________________________________________________________ _____ Source: Colin Seymour-Ure 'Editorial Opinion in the National Press' Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997.
Table 3 Coverage of Campaigning, 1997 ______________________________________________________________________ All Con Lab LDem % % % % ---------------------------------------------------------------------Electioneering 25.3 26.8 24.5 22.3 Opinion polls, pundits 23.2 19.9 24 .2 31.1 Ads/PEBs 10.5 10.4 12.7 4.7 TV debate 10.1 8.7 10.9 12.4 Key marginal seats 8.8 7.9 8.8 11.7 Media party support 8.4 8.8 9.9 2.8 Voting behaviour 5.2 6.3 3.8 5.3 Leadership contest 3.2 6.7 .2 .1 Fundraising/donations 2.7 2.8 3.0 1.8 Tactical voters 2.7 1.7 2.0 7.8 ALL CAMPAIGNING
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
---------------------------------------------------------------------Note: Content analysis of 6,072 articles in the national press, 17 March -1 May 1997 Source: CARMA
28
Table
4:
Coverage
of
Policy
Issues,
1997
______________________________________________________________________________ All Major Con Lab LDem All Minor Issues % % % Issues -----------------------------------------------------------------------------DOMESTIC SOCIAL ISSUES 26.8 Education NHS Law & Order Pensions Social security Youth issues Housing Local government Environment Technology Food safety Family values Women's issues/votes Immigration Arts Transport Field sports ECONOMIC ISSUES
Single currency European Union Eurosceptics Social chapter Federalism EC Directives/Laws Referendum on EU Patriotism Defence Foreign policy STANDARDS OF PUBLIC LIFE
ALL ISSUES 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Note: Content analysis of 6,072 articles in the national press 17 March -1 May 1997 Source: CARMA
30
Table 5 Coverage of the Party Leadership, 1997 ______________________________________________________________________ All Con Lab LDem % % % % ---------------------------------------------------------------------John Major 17.7 32.9 .5 .1 Neil Hamilton 3.9 7.3 .2 .0 Margaret Thatcher 3.9 7.1 .2 .0 Ken Clarke 3.7 7.0 .0 .0 Michael Heseltine 3.4 6.4 .0 .0 Michael Howard 1.7 3.2 .1 .0 Brian Mawhinney 1.7 3.1 .0 .0 Michael Portillo 1.4 2.7 .0 .0 John Redwood 1.4 2.4 .3 .0 Peter Lilley 1.1 2.0 .0 .0 Tim Smith 1.1 2.0 .1 .0 Stephen Dorrell .9 1.7 .0 .0 Norma Major .9 1.7 .0 .0 Gillian Shepard .8 1.6 .0 .0 Michael Forsyth .8 1.4 .0 .2 Edward Heath .6 1.1 .0 .0 Tony Blair Gordon Brown John Prescott Peter Mandelson Robin Cook Cherie Blair Neil Kinnock Mo Mowlam Margaret Beckett Clare Short Glenda Jackson
19.7 4.6 2.3 1.7 1.5 1.1 1.0 .6 .5 .4 .1
.5 .0 .1 .0 .0 .1 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0
51.3 12.0 5.8 4.6 4.0 2.9 2.4 1.6 1.3 .9 .3
.2 .2 .0 .2 .1 .0 .5 .0 .0 .0 .0
Paddy Ashdown Lord Holme David Steel Simon Hughes Menzies Campbell Alan Beith
4.3 .3 .2 .2 .1 .1
.0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0
.0 .0 .0 .0 .0 .0
58.4 4.3 2.9 2.3 1.8 1.7
Other candidates Celebrities
13.5 2.8
13.7 1.9
11.2 4.0
26.8 3.4
TOTALS 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 ______________________________________________________________________ Note: Content analysis of 6,072 articles in the national press, 17 March -1 May 1997 Source: CARMA
31
Table Public
6 Evaluation
of
Television
Coverage
______________________________________ _________________________________________ ___ Coverage of Far too Too About Too Far too Net Election
Much
Much
Right Little
Little
PDI#
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------COVERAGE OF ELECTION 41 19 11 14 15 33
COVERAGE
BY
CHANNEL...
Sky News
72
21
7
0
0
92
ITV
57
19
19
5
0
71
Ch4
35
35
26
2
1
66
BBC1
35
22
42
1
0
57
BBC2
25
26
45
4
1
46
7
14
10
2
Ch5
COVERAGE
67
OF
10
TOPICS...
Opinion Polls
41
36
22
1
0
76
By outside experts
63
15
18
4
1
73
Party Leaders
12
53
34
1
0
64
Press conferences
31
28
28
3
1
56
By TV's correspondents
39
22
33
6
0
54
42
3
2
48
Party Policies
23
COVERAGE
30
OF
PARTIES...
Conservatives
28
39
31
1
0
66
Liberal Democrats
41
13
33
7
6
41
Labour
22
39
17
22
0
38
Referendum
43
9
29
12
7
34
Green
37
14
27
11
9
31
32
COVERAGE
OF
ISSUES
European issues
25
29
37
5
5
Economy
41
13
33
7
6
Foreign affairs
37
14
28
12
9
31
Social policy
43
9
29
12
7
34
10
6
24
13
10
13
Constitutional issues
17
Environment
15
22 20
45 42
45 41
_______________________________________________________________________________ ___ Note: Q:"Thinking about television news during the campaign, what did you feel
about
coverage
of..."
The Net Percentage Difference Index (PDI) is the proportion who think there is
too
Source:
much
minus
the
proportion
ITC
who
think (N.
33
there
is
not
enough. 15,356)
Table 7 Public Evaluation of Standards of Television News __________________________________________________________________________ % Positive BBC1 BBC2 ITV Ch 4 Ch 5 __________________________________________________________________________ Accurate 56 73 51 87 64 Interesting 35 71 51 54 56 Informative 46 59 65 60 50 Balanced 31 48 49 89 41 __________________________________________________________________________ Note: Q:"To what extent do you think that news programmes on ...are ... Percentage positive represents those who responded 'Just about always' or 'most of the time' as opposed to those who responded 'Some of the time' or 'hardly ever'. Source: ITC (N.15,356) Campaign Poll April 1997
34
Notes (*)The author would like to thank Bill Meredith at the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB), for releasing reports ofTelevision Audiences during the campaign. Peter Christopherson at CARMA kindly provided content analysis of the national press during April 1997. Jane Sancho -Aldrich and Bob Towler at the Independent Television Commission generously released advanced data from the . Lastly, Colin ITC 1997 4-wave campaign survey on Television: The Public View Seymour-Ure is to be thanked for providing information for natio nal press circulation and partisanship. [8800 words]
1.One content analysis found that during April the election absorbed 46 percent of television news. Peter Golding, David Deacon and Michael Billig 1997 Election Study for The Guardian Report No.5. (Loughborough: University of Loughborough, May 2nd 1997).
2.David L. Swanson and Paolo Mancini, Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997).
3.For a more detailed discussion see Pippa NorrisElectoral Change since 1945 (Oxford, Blackwell, 1997).
4.See Colin Seymour-Ure, The (Oxford, Blackwell, 1996).
British
Press
and
Broadcasting
since
1945
5.For a discussion of the ethos of election broadcasting see Jay G. Blumler and Michael Gurevitch, The Crisis of Public Communication (London: Routledge, 1995).
6.For accounts of these developments up until the 1992 election see Dennis Kavanagh, Election Campaigning (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). Also Margaret Scammell, Designer Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
7.For an insider account of government -press relations in these years see Bernard Ingham Kill the Messenger (London: Harper Collins, 1994).
8.Alan Watkins, A Conservative Coup: the fall of Margaret Thatcher(London: Duckworth, 1991).
9.Martin Harrop and Margaret Scammell 'A Tabloid War' in David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, The British General Election of 1992 (London: Macmillan, 1992).
10.For a discussion of press partisanship during the 1992 -97 period see Colin Seymour-Ure 'Newspapers: Editorial Opinion in he t National Press' in Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997.
11.See Andrew Neil 'Why Blair's honeymoon with Murdoch is going to end in tears' Daily Mail 19 March 1997.
12.See Brian McNair, News and Journalism in the UK (London, Routledge, 1994). Also Jeremy Tunstall, Newspaper Power: The New National Press in Britain (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1996).
te 14.Lord Rothermere quoted in The Times 24 May 1997. For an analysis of h trends in voting support among different groups of readers see Martin Linton Was it the Sun wot won it? Seventh Guardian Lecture, (Nuffield College:Oxford, October 1995).
15.See Swanson and Mancini, Op Cit, p15.
16.See, for example, Nicholas Jones, Soundbites and Spin Doctors (London: Cassell, 1995).
17.See Dennis Kavanagh 'The Labour Campaign' Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997. For journalistic accounts of the Labour campaign see Sidney Blumenthal 'All the Prime Minister's men' The Times May 3 1997; Robert Harris 'Behind closed doors' The Sunday Times 4 May 1997; Paul Vallely et al. 'Blair's Long Trek to Victory' The Independent 3 May 1997.
18.Although it should be noted that this figure still remains below estimated individual Labour party membership in 1979. See David Butler and Gareth Butler, British Political Facts 1900 -1994 (London: Macmillan, 1994).
19.Peter Riddell 'Conservative Membership Falls by Half in five years' The Times 6 June 1997.
20.See Paul Whiteley 'The Conservative Campaign'Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997; Tom Baldwin 'How they designed a disaster'The Sunday Telegraph 4 May 1997.
21.See Anthony King, Running Scared (New York: Free Press, 1997).
22.See, for example, Shaun Bowler and David M. Farrell, Electoral Strategies and Political Marketing (London, Macmillan, 1992) and David Butler and Austin Ranney, Electioneering (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992).
23.For this debate see Dennis Kavanagh 'New Campaign Communications: Consequences for British Political Parties' The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 1(3) Summer 1996; Bob Franklin Packaging Politics
(London: Edward Elgar, 1994); Ralph Negrine and Stylianos Papathanassopoulos 'The Americanization of Political Communications: A Critique'The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics1(2) Spring 1996.
24.The newspapers included the Daily/Sunday Telegraph, The Times/Sunday Times, Independent/Independent on Sunday, The Guardian/The Ovserver, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, The Express/Expresson Sunday, The Sun/News of the World, The Mirror/Sunday Mirror, the Daily Star and the People. Articles relevant to the general election were selected from all major sections of the paper, excluding cartoons and events listings. Details of the methodology were kindly provided by Peter Christopherson at CARMA International, Godalming, Surrey. The results are available in 'Media content analysis of national press' CARMA International Ltd (http/www.carma.com), May 1997.
25.Ivor Crewe 'The Affairs 50(4) 1997.
Opinion
Polls:
o Cnfidence
Restored?' Parliamentary
26.Golding, Deacon and Billig Op Cit.
27.For an analysis of television's coverage of the economy see Neil Gavin and David Sanders 'The Economy and Voting'Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997.
28.See Holli Semetko, Margaret Scammell and Tom Nossiter 'The Media's Coverage of the Campaign' in Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell, and John Curtice Labour's Last Chance? (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1994).
29.Another content analysis confirmed that Europe was the most impo rtant topic on broadcast news during April, after coverage of the conduct of the election itself. See Golding, Deacon and Billig Op Cit.
30.4 in Seymour-Ure 'Editorial Opinion in the National Press'Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997.
31.While all the Conservative MPs who entered the election with a cloud hanging over them suffered slightly higher than average swings against them, Piers Merchant was (just) returned to the depleted Tory backbenches whereas Neil Hamilton was roundly defeated. See Pippa Norris'Anatomy of a Labour Landslide' Parliamentary Affairs 50(4) 1997.
32.Another content analysis of the press confirmed that the papers most favourable to the Conservatives were the Mail and Express, with the pro-Conservative bias slightly less marked in the Telegraph. See Peter Golding, David Deacon and Michael Billig 1997 Election Study for The Guardian Report No.5 (Loughborough, University of Loughborough, May 2 1997).
33.For a comparison with 1992 see Semetko, Scammell and Nossiter, op cit.
34.Margaret Scammell and Holli A, Semetko 'Political Advertising on Television: The British Experience' in Lynda Lee Kaid and Christina Holtz-Bacha Political Advertising in Western Democracies(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishers, 1995).
35.See Peter Golding and David Deacon 'The Media Election: Campaign Fails to hold front page' The Guardian 14 April 1997.
36.See Holli Semetko, Margaret Parliamentary Affaors 50(4) 1997.
