Media + electoral outcomes

• Functions of the media: Party advertising + social media

  • In 2017 the Conservatives spent over £2M on Facebook advertising - attacking Labour Leader @ time (Jeremy Corbyn)
  • Labour reached out to voters on Snapchat - Jeremy Corbyn filter used over 9 million times
• Functions of the media: Television providing information + a medium of debate

  • Millions watched the 2017 election debates
  • Research by Electoral Reform Society: BBC Question Time Leader's show helped 34% of people know who to vote for.
• Functions of the media: Opinion Polls providing information + encouraging bandwagon effect
• Press: good facts

  • 1979: The Sun(Conservative) - 'Crisis, what crisis? - attacking James Callaghan(Labour) - poor handling of 'winter of discontent'
  • 2017: 74% of Daily Mail readers voted Tory - (Although press attack on Corbyn didn't work (15 page Daily Mail spread day before polling day) - Labour had a large increase in vote share)
  • Press influence between elections - Blair sought to hold a referendum on joining the Euro - but was discouraged by Murdoch owned press.
• What % actually read newspapers?

  Only 38% of adults regularly buy a newspaper
• Boris Johnson and his journalism lore


  Boris Johnson was editor of the Spectator

  He was sacked from The Times for fabricating a quote