the media

• the 1983 election was the the first time that the modern media was used and when politics became much more performative
• in 2012 Murdoch admitted that newspapers do not swing voters but simply reflect opinions
• the fact that the sun backed every winning candidate between 1979 and 2015 does suggest that the media may have an influence
• the press and online sources have become increasingly partisan and mock and ridicule rather than providing an informed debate
• the media can be blamed for an increased cynicism toward politics and politicians due to their focus on scandal
• circulation of print media has declined since the 1980s and has been replaced by the internet and more recently social media
• television still dominates the media coverage of election and is the most important means by which voters obtain information: 10 million people watched the first leaders debate in 2010 and 7 million people watched the leaders debate in 2015
• the role of opinion polls increased considerably since the 1970's with parties, think tanks, and interest groups commissioning opinion polls
• opinion polls are also used by the media as a starting point for political discussion and reporting. these can be helpful in allowing parties to tailor their policies
• opinion polls are not always accurate: in 1992 most polls failed to predict Major's 21 seat majority instead predicting a narrow labour victory or a hung Parliament
• there are different explanations for the 1992 polling inaccuracy: the boomerang effect suggests that because early polls had shown Labour in the lead conservative voters were more likely to turnout. it has also been suggested that the "shy tories" phenomenon occurred in which conservative voters wouldn't express their preference in the polls
• polling agencies were also wrong in 2015: they correctly predicted the SNP victory in Scotland but underestimated the conservative success on a national level. an inquirer found that this was because they didn't represent all of society in their polling, more specifically, they didn't question enough retired people
• TV debates have become a bigger component of the media's influence on politics but it is not clear that they always have an impact: despite Clegg's good performance in the 2010 debates his party still had a fall in their vote share, despite Miliband's good performance in 2015 debates he still lost an election he was expected to win
• the internet has only began to have an influence in the last 10 years: in 2000 only 26% of households had internet access but by 2010 this had risen to 82%
• by 2010 most MP's had their own website and social media platform
• in the 2015 election the conservatives spent 100k per Month on Facebook adverts
• a survey after the 2015 election showed that 79% of 18 to 24 year olds relied almost totally on online sources
• Newspapers are notoriously partisan and will alter their allegiance in response to changing circumstances. For example, The Sun began as a Labour-supporting paper but switched to the Conservatives in the mid-1970s. 
• social media advertising allows party to target their adds to win marginal seats or groups: it was reported that the conservative NHS adverts in 2019 were targeted in marginal seats and adverts about policing to keep women safe were only seen by women
• the cultural effects theory argues that the media influence is not immediate but builds up over a long period
• the media can be fully attributed with creating the sleazy reputation of the Conservative Party during the 1992 parliament after reporting consistently on sex and corruption scandals. this ultimately helped swing the election to Blair in 1997 with his campaign that "things can only get better"
• In 2009, the Telegraph used a freedom of information request to obtain the records of MPs’ expenses. The newspaper then revealed details of wrongful claims and outright abuses by MPs and peers, including a £1,645 claim for a duck house in a garden. This created a mood of cynicism and distrust in politics and all politicians
• the rise in political satire since the 1960s has coincided with a decline in the reputation of politicians and an end to cultural deference. 
• the effects model of voting suggests that the media has a big influence on its audience. it sees the audience as passive recipients who have messages injected into them - this backs up the claim that "it was the sun wot won it"
• the reception model of media consumption suggests that audiences are active rather than passive and that different groups will draw different conclusions from the same context
• the pluralist model of media consumption suggests that the media is a market place for competing ideas and that the media itself is neutral
• the dominant ideology model of media suggests that there is a clear Bias in favour of the cultural elites, particularly those who own media sources, resulting in a dominant hegemonic ideology