Does the Media Influence Voting Behaviour in UK General Elections?

Introduction
As mass media has becoming increasingly prevalent and ever-changing in modern
times the effects and power of it have been often researched and questioned. Much
debate has centred on the role of the media in the UK and whether it has an impact
on peoples beliefs, opinions, and politics (Newton and Brynin 2001). This paper will
examine the media influence on voting behaviour in UK general elections by
considering two methods adopted by media sources; persuasion and agendasetting, while considering the difficulties surrounding the research methods and the
uniqueness of the UK media.
Persuasion
Conventional theoretical wisdom on the how the media influences voting behaviour
in elections would arguably be a simple information-based model; whereby voters
would use media sources to receive a sufficient amount of information required to
inform themselves on how to vote and then act accordingly. In a perfect system
voters would disregard previously held political beliefs and weigh up the information
available (Glynn et al 2015). However, a perfect system fails to exist and instead the
realm of media influence is muddied by voters pre-existing political beliefs and the
bias nature of certain media sources.
The problem, described by Newton and Brynin (2001) as a chicken-and-egg
problem, is attempting to determine whether it is voters who choose media sources
that match their politics, or it is the media sources who influence their consumers
political opinions. Academics, with varying levels of success, have made numerous

attempts to isolate the impact of the media on voting intentions, while endeavouring
to control for various other social factors, such as education, income, gender, and
age (Newton and Brynin 2001).
The UK Print-Media Industry
The UK has an almost unique print-media industry. In the UK there are a relatively
small number of national newspapers, with large, though rapidly declining,
readership. UK newspapers, unlike most other Western publications, have clear
political leanings and most make their party preferences clearly known, often around
the run-up to a general election (Newton and Brynin 2001). As Scammell and
Semetko (2008) state; national newspapers, especially the popular tabloids, are
highly opinionated, pick sides and push agendas; they are powerful and overly
political players, willing and at times apparently able to shape the agenda and make
or break political careers (Scammell and Semetko 2008, p.74).
There are numerous cases of anecdotal evidence of the impact of newspapers on
elections results, often cited by journalists. Such as The Sun lending support for the
Conservatives in the 1992 general election, resulting in The Sun concluding that it
was them wot won it (Newton and Brynin 2001). However, the true electoral impact
of UK newspapers is less evident.
Theories on the Persuasive Abilities of Media
Katz and Lazarsfeld developed one of the first theories into the impact of media on
voting behaviour in the 1940s after studying the effects of radio on US presidential
elections (Miller 1991). They established the minimal effect model; whereby, contrary
to previously long held assumptions, they found that media sources were able to

change the voting intentions of very few people. In fact, they argued that the most
that media did was simply reinforce already held beliefs with only some notable
effect on voters who were politically unattached (Street 2011). For most of the postWar period in the UK this theory became widely accepted (Newton and Brynin 2001).
John Curtice and Holli Semetko (1994) researched the 1992 UK general election and
the media impact, and came to similar conclusions to that of Katz and Lazarsfeld.
Their research consisted of panel surveys in order to examine the effects of people
reading the same newspapers over a period of time. They found that many electors
still appear to view newspaper reports (and watch television news) through a
partisan filter that enables them to ignore politically uncongenial messages (Curtice
and Semetko 1994, p.56). Curtice and Semetko found that voters read newspapers
that held the same political beliefs as themselves, or that people interpret news
through their own long held belief system.
The research conducted by Curtice and Semetko, and Katz and Lazarsfeld,
therefore, suggests that the media, and especially newspapers, have little to no
impact on voting behaviour in UK elections, but instead the voters are influenced by
much deeper and more established political leanings.
Newton and Brynin (2001) developed a distinctive, and in my opinion the most
convincing, research method that aimed to discover the causality of the effects of
newspapers: whether newspapers effect how their readers voted or readers choose
to read newspapers that they politically align with. Newton and Brynin examined
three groups of people over time: people who share their papers politics, people
who dont share their papers politics, and people who dont read a newspaper
(Newton and Brynin 2001). The first would be expected to have their political views

reinforced by the paper they read, the second group would be more likely to
pressured to discard their political leanings and be influenced by their paper, and the
third group would a act as a control for other variables that may influence voting
(Newton and Brynin 2001).
There research lead to several significant conclusions. Firstly, as predicted, they
observed that there continues to be a strong correlation between the way people
vote and which newspaper they read. Though, as Newton and Brynin establish; this
method does not take full account of the tendency of some people to select their
paper for its politics (Newton and Brynin 2001, p.279).
Secondly, they found that individuals who fail to identify with any party are more
likely to vote inline with the politics of the paper they read. Therefore, it could be
argued that, according to Newton and Brynin, there may be a stronger link between
newspaper reading and voting among those with weak party identification (Newton
and Brynin 2001, p.280).
Finally, Newton and Brynin establish, perhaps most significantly, that; Conservative
identifiers reading a Conservative paper are more likely to vote Conservative than
Conservative identifiers reading a Labour paper (Newton and Brynin 2001, p.280).
Therefore, newspapers do have an effect on how people vote. Although Newton and
Brynin rightly argue that the effect is relatively small, in close elections, such as the
elections of 1992, 1997 and 2015, newspapers could have a significant and electionaltering impact.
Even if newspapers do impact the way people vote or not, the circulations of
newspapers are in steep decline. Newspapers in the UK have experienced decline
dramatically in recent years; 7.6% less newspapers were sold in March 2015, than

just one year earlier (The Guardian, 2015). Furthermore, the decline has been
indiscriminate across newspapers; tabloids, broadsheets, and Sunday editions all
face similar problems (The Guardian, 2015).
The majority of academic work on the subject of media influence in the UK has
focused on newspapers, due to their overtly partisan nature. However, if the
newspaper readership continues to decline then the influence on voting behaviour in
UK elections, however insignificant or not, will be diminished.

Influence of Alternative Media

While there is significant disagreement about the impact of newspapers on voting
behaviour there is increased academic consensus on the role of other media
sources, such as television (Street 2011).
Perhaps the reason that newspapers enjoy the largest proportion of academic
interest in the area of media influence is due to the fact that newspapers are free of
the rules of impartiality which govern television news in the UK. Law in the UK
dictates that television news, in stark contrast from print media, must be impartial
and balanced in reporting and must not show any bias to any particular policy, party,
or candidate (Scammell and Semetko 2008).
Possibly one of the earliest, if not the earliest, academic research on the impact of
television on voting intentions was carried out by Trenaman and McQuail, who
examined the 1959 UK General Election. Trenaman and McQuail found that in 1959
newspaper readership had no significant impact on a voters level of political

knowledge, but television viewership had a directly increased the electorates

political awareness (Gunther & Mughan 2000).
Pippa Norris (1996) researched the impact of television and found that is has a very
limited effect on British elections. Despite the seeming obsession television news
has with election campaigns, people seem to take little interest in what is being
shown. One possible explanation of this is due to viewers being required to offer
minimal attention when in front of a television, while newspapers do not suffer the
same problem (Street 2011).
The impact of Social Media is an area yet deeply researched, however similar
assumptions could be made: voters only follow news outlets who they politically align
with, or only connect online with friends of a similar political leaning. However, Social
Media is so different of a platform to newspapers or television that conventional
theories on the effect of media sources may not even be applied to it.
The persuasive effect of the media in the UK is, therefore, arguably very limited.
Academic research has shown that most voters who read a newspaper, choose a
paper which they politically align with, thus limiting the true persuasive effect of the
newspaper. Although some evidence shows that newspaper can have a small effect,
especially on a rare occasion when an election is close, the decline of newspaper
sales makes it even rarer. Thus, if UK media does not influence voting behaviour
through persuasive methods, then other approaches must be examined, such as
agenda-setting.
Agenda-Setting

Bernard Cohen stated that the press may not be successful much of the time in
telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what
to think about (Cohen 1963 p.13). Cohen wrote that at a time where the widely held
assumption was that media sources had little effect on changing peoples opinions,
described as the minimal effect model, as described above (Arceneaux and Johnson
2013).
Theoretically the medias ability to set the agenda of public debate is perhaps its
greatest source of influence. Most news media in the UK do not attempt to persuade
the electorate to vote in a certain way, in the case of television it is due to rules on
impartiality, as discussed. Instead the news media shape how much importance
voters attach to various issues (Arceneaux and Johnson 2013).
Agenda-setting is of vital importance for any political system, as Wolfe et al. (2013)
state; agenda-setting encompasses what issues are on the agenda, which ones are
not, when and why (Wolfe et al. 2013, p.175). The media decides which public
issues attract the most public attentions by deciding what to report on and what not
to. The level of public interest is often associated with the level of news coverages
an issue receives (Glynn et al 2015).
By allowing media outlets to choose which issues are most salient they are able to
cause significant political and electoral consequences, intended or otherwise. For
instance, if a media source devotes a lot of time to issues strongly associated with
one party, for example the National Health Service (NHS) and the Labour Party, or
law and order and the Conservative Party, then the saliency of the issue would
increase suggesting the issue was more important. Then theoretically this would

result in the electorate voting for the party which strongly associate with this,
seemingly important, issue (Arceneaux and Johnson 2013).
Research into Agenda-Setting
A significant amount of academic research has examined this phenomenon.
McCombs and Shaw (1972) were one the first to research the agenda-setting
abilities of media. The conclusions and suggestions of McCombs and Shaws
research arguably continues to be relevant today. McCombs and Shaw (1972) state
that although the evidence that mass media deeply change attitudes in a campaign
is far from conclusive, the evidence is much stronger that voters learn from the
immense amount of information available.
Most research into the impact of media agenda-setting attempt to see how closely
the medias agenda matches the public agenda; or put another way, whether what
the media is prioritising is the same as what the voters are prioritising. Again, much
like research into the persuasion effects of the media, issues of causality arise
(Norris 1999).
Norris (1999) researched the media effects on agenda-setting in the 1997 general
election, carrying on from Millers (1991) conclusion that during the 1987 election the
television agenda was very different to that of the publics agenda, suggesting no
evidence of the impact of the medias agenda setting. Using the British Election
Survey, Norris found that the medias agenda failed to align with the general publics
agenda, again suggesting little evidence of the impact of medias agenda-setting
powers (Norris 1999).

Norris research into the 2005 UK general election found similar results. The British
Election Survey found that before the 2005 election campaign the top three issues
that concerned voters were asylum seekers, the National Health Service (NHS), and
law and order (Norris 2005). After the campaign there had been noticeable changes
in the publics issue agenda; the top three issues after the election were the NHS,
law and order, and immigration (Norris 2005).
The theory of the impact of media agenda-setting would predict that these changes
came about because of the saliency of the issues in the media. However, as Norris
states; contrary to the media agenda-setting hypothesis, the results indicate that
none of the uses of campaign communications generated a significantly greater
propensity for the public to alter their issue agenda (Norris 2005, p.219). Which led
Norris to conclude that; stronger claims made by agenda setting theory - that the
media determine, not what the public thinks, but what they think about - are not
evident in the 2005 British general election campaign (Norris 2005, p.219).
Perhaps most notably; panel survey from the 2005 election shows that the saliency
of the Iraq War fell from the public agenda, while it remained the most reported issue
in the media (Scammell and Semetko 2008).
Therefore, the disconnect between the medias agenda and the public agenda
suggests that, just as the UK media have only limited persuasive effects, it also has
little, if any, agenda-setting powers.

Conclusion
In summary, this paper examined the media influence on voting behaviour in UK
general elections by considering two methods adopted by media sources;
persuasion and agenda-setting.
The UK newspaper industry have clear political leanings and most make their party
preferences clearly known, therefore it would be assumed that the persuasive effects
of them are great. However, as shown, the media, and especially newspapers, in the
UK have little to no impact on voting behaviour in UK elections, but instead the
voters are influenced by much deeper and more established political leanings.
However, as demonstrated by Newton and Brynin, there may be a limited persuasive
effect on undecided voters, which could potentially have an election-altering impact.
Nevertheless, the circulation of UK newspapers is in dramatic decline, suggesting
the influence on voting behaviour in UK elections, however insignificant or not, will
be diminished. Due to the impartiality rules that govern television news, the
persuasive effects of television news are close to none.
The medias power of agenda-setting and its political and electoral consequences
were also examined. Research using data from the British Election Survey found a
consistent and significant disconnect between the medias agenda and the public
agenda throughout a number of general elections. This suggests that the media fails
to have any meaningful impact on what voters consider to be important.
In conclusion, much academic debate surrounding the issues of the impact of the
media on voting preference has centred on methodology and causation. To attempt
to find the true impact of the media on voting intentions, while controlling for other
social and political factors, is highly problematic. As the research discussed above

shows there are many ways to attempt to measure the relationship. Despite these
problems, several conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, it is fair to assume that
newspapers, already declining in popularity, influence the voting behaviour of very
few people, but instead are more likely to concrete the political beliefs of their
readers, whos politics they share. Secondly, due to the impartiality of television news
media there seems to be no persuasive effects, and surprisingly limited agendasetting effects.
Therefore, the media fails to influence voting behaviour in UK general elections.

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