How powerful are the newspapers?

According to popular wisdom, newspapers are important political actors. Newspapers certainly like to think so. And the public seem to believe it. Claiming 'it's The Sun wot won it' (as in 1992) just would not make sense in any other context. When newspapers declare their positions going into an election, it makes news.
But we know that newspapers are much less powerful than many people believe. Journalists are simply not trusted. Just 13% of people say that they would be pleased should their child become a tabloid journalist. If we do not trust people, how likely are we to slavishly follow their opinion? More importantly, newspapers are not a hypodermic needle injecting opinions directly into passive readers. For the most part, readers are critical and engaged.

The real power of newspapers comes in their ability to ‘frame’ news. This is the process by which a newspaper selects a story for publication, interprets it, and reports it. By highlighting negative issues, and importantly keeping the negative news focus upon a particular party, issues can be subtly shaped.

A paper in the Journal of Politics showed how newspapers can have a noticeable impact upon perceptions merely through the process of 'framing' news. These 'frames' are the ways in which newspapers cover electoral issues, whether the reporting is positive or negative towards a candidate or party. The impact of exposure to 'framed' news which systematically favours one candidate is about one-fourth as large as the impact of party identification. Given the importance of party identification, this is not trivial. Moreover, there is evidence that more extreme 'frames', such as those employed by Fox News in the USA, can be important not only in increasing vote share (where Fox News caused an increase in total Republican vote of about 0.5%), but also by encouraging greater turnout among non-voters who are more easily swayed by 'framed' news (resulting in a 3 to 8% shift in vote intentions to the Republicans among viewers). This implies that the non-political readers of 'framed' news will be more prominently affected. This lends credence to claims that tabloids – for whom political coverage is not the primary focus – could have an important impact.

As the election approaches, these 'frames' will increasingly come into play. They can be fairly obvious – such as The Sun's claim that 'MILITANT unions have given more than HALF of all donations to Labour since the last General Election' or the Mirror’s belief that the election is a choice between fairness or greed. Or they can be a bit more subtle but still important – the Guardian's focus upon Chris Grayling's comments about homosexuals is an example; a story which will clearly have a negative impact upon potential Conservative support among Guardian readers.

Newspaper's declarations, such as the recent News of the World declaration for the Conservatives, are not important in their own right. But a change in news frames will make those readers who might have voted Conservative more likely to do so. Those readers who have always voted Labour will almost certainly remain unmoved.

Jonathan Rose

Think tank in sloppy logic shocker

"...doing something that almost 80% think is daft is a curious way to reinvigorate the political process."

The age of majority has been the subject of two major independent reports in recent years. The first, by the Electoral Commission came out in 2004. It recommended against lowering the voting age to 16. The second, by the government’s Youth Citizenship Commission, came out in 2009. It too did not recommend votes at 16.

I need to declare an interest here, as Vice-Chair of the YCC. I cannot speak for all of my fellow commissioners – some of whom were in favour of votes at 16, some against – but one of the most frustrating things about the debate was how disingenuous many of the arguments were, especially those put forward by those who favoured lowering the voting age. You’d hear repeatedly about how people could get married at 16 – but without mention of the fact that (in England and Wales) it requires parental consent to do so. Or you’d hear about how people could pay tax – cue the cry: no taxation without representation! – without mention of the fact that taxation isn’t age-related: indirect tax (about which ‘no taxation without representation’ was first uttered) is entirely age-neutral, and even income tax begins at the point at which sufficient income exists, not at any specific age. Sometimes these errors and elisions were just the simplifications that inevitably creep into political campaigns, but at times the number of such weaknesses did raise the suspicion that they were in fact covering up a pretty weak case.

The thinktank Demos have just published a report arguing for votes at 16, and sadly it’s full of exactly the same kind of flaws. One paragraph is a particularly stunning example:

Being able to join the armed forces at 16 is just one example of an age-differentiated right that lends support to an argument for lowering the voting age to 16. The ‘Votes at 16’ coalition states that some 4560 16 and 17 year olds were serving in the armed forces as of April 2007. Of the first 100 British soldiers to be killed in the ongoing war in Iraq, at least six were too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election.

Leaving aside the fact that the Demos authors appear to have just accepted the evidence of the Votes at 16 coalition without verifying it (not something I would recommend), there are two huge sleights of hand going on here.

The first is in the word ‘serving’. Because whilst it is possible to serve in the armed forces below the age of 18, frontline service is supposed to be avoided until 18. So despite the line in the report’s conclusion about denying the vote to those who are fighting and dying for their country, there should be no such cases. Also note – only mentioned later in the Demos pamphlet – that joining the armed forces below the age of 18 is only possible with parental consent, because society does not see 16-17 year olds as able to make that decision alone.

Ah, but you say, what about the ‘at least’ six casualties, ‘too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election’. And here’s the second, and by far the worst, sleight of hand. All of those listed, terribly young though they were, were 18 or 19. All, in other words, were old enough to vote. Hence the curious construction of that sentence: it is not ‘too young to vote’, but ‘too young to have ever cast a vote in a general election’. Note here the belittling of all other elections such as local or European elections – presumably Demos thinks these aren’t real elections? – because that would not fit the authors’ arguments. And then try to follow the logic to its conclusion: to insist that all members of the armed forces cannot serve in front line roles – with all the attendant risks – until they have had the chance to participate in a Westminster election would require lowering the voting age to 13. Only then could we be certain that no one aged 18, or 19, or 20, could die serving in the armed forces without having had the chance to vote in a Westminster election. Perhaps this is what they think? If so, they should say so. Else, there is the danger that this appears as a pretty despicable bit of shroud waving, using the deaths of young soldiers to advance an otherwise weak argument.

The same sloppy logic unfortunately applies to much of the rest of the report. There is, for example, a section of the comparable rights and responsibilities of young people, which does not note that many of them have been rising in recent years – with 16 year olds today denied things that would have been available to them a decade ago. These are all inconvenient facts, but they are ones worth noting in any balanced weighing up of the evidence, which Demos claims to be doing.

The bit that the report does get right, however, is that this not a popular move amongst the wider public, no matter how much ground it is gaining amongst elements of the Westminster village. Whilst it rightly notes that public acceptability is not the only guide to reform, doing something that almost 80% think is daft is a curious way to reinvigorate the political process.

Professor Philip Cowley

Counting the cost of corruption

"The formal electoral process has become a game, behind which the realities of politics are played out in a manner which bears little resemblance to democratic accountability..."

Corruption scandals cost politicians votes, so goes the conventional wisdom. Try telling that to Silvio Berlusconi, a man almost synonymous with scandal, but who emerged as the big winner from last week’s regional elections in Italy. What does that tell us about the electoral impact of corruption? One reading might be that it shows voters don’t really care about accusations of corruption amongst their political leaders. The reputation of the political class is now so low across most European democracies that citizens more or less expect them to be involved in corrupt activities. And over time corruption scandals, like most scandals, lose their capacity to shock: what once generated outrage now elicits indifference. So, although voters may have been disgusted by the recent parliamentary expenses scandals in the UK, they are less likely to have been wholly surprised: for many, it will have represented confirmation of what they already suspected about the behaviour of their representatives.

However, even if citizens do become gradually inured to corruption within the political class, there is another reason why we should remain very concerned about its impact. In the post-communist era, electoral politics in the developed democracies has shifted from ‘selling ideologies’ to ‘selling leaders’. For although voters may increasingly expect their politicians to be corrupt, the political game itself demands a rhetoric of denial. The focus of election campaigns is increasingly on the honesty and trustworthiness of leaders, presented in contrast to the alleged dishonesty of their opponents, rather than on what they actually stand for.

This is doubly damaging for democracy. It reduces electoral competition to little more than a political beauty competition, where voters are being sold a confected ‘package’. Witness the recent focus on the wives of the main party leaders as extensions of their appeal. We are invited to get to ‘know’ our political leaders, as if they were characters in a national level soap opera, leading some commentators to talk of the ‘trivialisation’ of politics. An even more insidious problem is that this undermines comprehension of the real complexities of the political process and the capacity of politicians to effect change. There is an inevitable ratcheting up of increasingly implausible claims about what can be achieved, with political leaders trading promises that are almost bound to fail. That can only add to a sense of cynicism towards the political process as voters are increasingly turned off. In some countries, notably in the former communist world, such trends have opened the way to the emergence of ‘state capture’, whereby firms and other private bodies shape the laws, policies and regulations to their own advantage. The formal electoral process has become a game, behind which the realities of politics are played out in a manner which bears little resemblance to democratic accountability.

For all the recent hoo-ha around the claims by former ministers like Stephen Byers and others, it is highly unlikely that they are really in a position to ‘sell’ policy change to the highest bidder. But, even if their attempts to trumpet their self-importance were little more than bluster, the line between lobbying and improper influence can easily become blurred. So far, in addition to well-established and mainly effective parliamentary procedures, a strong and largely independent media has helped ensure that the UK retains sufficient scrutiny of the political process for it to be difficult to ‘buy’ policy. But there is no room for complacency.

Professor Paul M Heywood

Fire up the Hansom cab

"It seems odd for parties to look back into the relatively distant past, considering that they are in the business of providing better futures..."

In all the fuss about the new Labour poster featuring David Cameron as Gene Hunt one thing has been missed: this is not the first time that the party has turned to its supporters for poster designs. For that, you can go back to the distinctly pre-internet 1908, when the National Executive Committee decided to put an ad in Fabian News soliciting ideas. It’s not clear what ideas this produced, but Labour’s 1910 campaign went on to feature the iconic designs by the Royal Academician Gerald Spencer Pryse, ‘Workless’, ‘Landless’, and ‘Forward! The Day Is Breaking!’ The Conservative party agents journal of 1910 similarly asked if agents had any ideas for posters, and to send them in.

And note: it’s also not the first time Labour attempts to play on history have backfired. In 1979 Labour produced this:

The poster was meant to remind people of Heath’s three-day week, but coming just after the Winter of Discontent it was a marketing disaster.

It seems odd for parties to look back into the relatively distant past, considering that they are in the business of providing better futures. History, if nothing else, is open to interpretation as the Tory rebuttal has shown. To anyone under the age of 30 the 1980s were a time of childhood. To fans of Ashes to Ashes, Gene Hunt anyway is a hard nosed go-getter. Perhaps parties should concentrate more on the future, rather that arguments about a past that a significant number of the population can’t remember. However given what’s in store, whoever wins the election, perhaps it’s not so surprising that the future will not feature much in the current campaign.

Christopher Burgess

Things to read if the telly's rubbish this Easter weekend

With a Westminster election expected to be called just days away, here’s some things to read if the thought of a rerun of Diagnosis Murder doesn’t appeal.

You can read why academics forecast a hung parliament (and why that’s not just because they’re all ignorant lefties). Why the parties won’t talk about immigration, why the environment won’t be a big electoral issue, and why recent political scandals won’t necessarily be as big a factor as you might think (voters everywhere think politicians are at it). Why you shouldn’t expect MPs voting to affect their electoral fortunes, why focussing on the same high profile Conservative candidates is very misleading, and as Ken Clarke told us, why all those new MPs could put back the cause of parliamentary reform anyway (because they’ll do what the whips tell them – as we argued here).

We’ve also carried a piece on the Prime Minister’s visit to the University to unveil his party’s election promises, and on a debate of local candidates. Plus, how the internet is changing politics (and not in the ways everyone thinks), David Owen’s views on hung parliaments, the role of posters in campaigning, what the election means for the far right, the Conservatives and ‘property owning democracy’, and why a ‘new’ play about politics sounds pretty much like almost every other play about politics.

What more do you want?

Professor Philip Cowley

Not talking about immigration...

"Faced with parties that will be raising it, the major parties must decide whether to ignore or engage with them, and, if the latter, on what terms..."

One of Labour’s five election pledges – unveiled when the Prime Minister visited Nottingham University last weekend – was to ‘strengthen fairness in communities through controlled immigration’. And yet, despite persistently high levels of opposition to further immigration and evidence that it had a significant impact on voting in the 2005 election, immigration is unlikely to be one of the main issues on which the election is fought. Why?

First, because although people are overwhelmingly opposed to immigration, and opposition actually increased during the last decade, in recent years, it has become of less importance to voters as the economy has risen up the agenda. And whilst you might think that an economic downturn could coincide with increased concerns about immigration, for most people the predominant worry regarding immigration is less about economics and more about culture and security. Thus, trying to rally opposition to immigration to win enough votes to matter requires adopting more cultural/identity-based or security-related arguments, which none of the main parties seems likely to do.

Second, neither of the two largest parties wants to make immigration a key campaign issue. Labour has presided over the largest post-war rise in immigration ever witnessed – encouraging large-scale migration to help improve Britain’s economic performance and to run social services. It is unlikely to want to draw attention to this. And whilst evidence indicates that Conservatives—on balance—probably benefited from introducing the issue into the 2005 campaign it did not help them win that election; and as Smell the Coffee (a seminal document amongst Conservative modernisers) argued it dominated what people heard about the party and alienated liberal-minded voters amongst the upper and middle classes.

Matt Goodwin is ultimately doubtful about the prospects for the BNP in the election but argues that UKIP might perform better because it lacks the extremist baggage (or to be more specific, the racist baggage) of the BNP. Yet although support for these parties has risen in recent years, this support has come in elections which are ‘second order’—that is, elections which people tend to view as less important than national-level general elections. Although rising support for small parties like these via local and European Parliament elections cannot be completely discounted—this is, in fact, how the Front National began to mobilise large-scale support in France — the more interesting question is whether parties like the BNP and UKIP will force the more established parties to engage with the issue.

Faced with parties that will be raising it, the major parties must decide whether to ignore or engage with them, and, if the latter, on what terms. In countries like Sweden, the main parties have taken a consensus-building approach to this issue, developing cross-party agreements to address a growing concern about immigration, and the result has been that it has become almost an electoral non-issue. Hence Gordon Brown’s call yesterday for a united front’ amongst the major parties to address the immigration issue. Ignoring the issue entirely, though, is likely to backfire by pushing at least some voters to the BNP and other small parties, and perhaps worse, contributing to large-scale public resentment at a political class that is unwilling to address one of the issues that has been of major concern to the British public in the past decade.

Dr Lauren McLaren

Politics academics all ignorant lefties

"I’m sceptical about much election forecasting...but I confidently acquit my colleagues of the charge of being groupthinking lefties."

Politicalbetting.com had some fun this week with the results of a poll of politics academics, carried out back in 2006, which showed the vast majority both wanted and expected a Labour victory after the general election. A full 54% of politics academics wanted a Labour victory, compared to just 15% who wanted a Conservative win. Ditto their predictions for what the Commons would look like after the election: 53% expected a Labour victory, just 18% thought a Conservative victory was likely. And an overwhelming 80% thought Gordon Brown was the best chancellor of the post-war era. Given both this overwhelming Labour bias, and what currently look like very inaccurate predictions, why should we believe the academic election forecasts reported here a few days ago?

The problem is that we’re not comparing like with like. Politics, as a discipline, is extremely broad, a point we make repeatedly to students wanting to study it at university. At Nottingham, for example, our third year students can take modules from a list of about 30, covering everything from intervention in Africa to war and massacre, from the politics of science fiction to Middle Eastern politics, and from political utopianism to Russian security policy, as well as modules looking at parliamentary politics or the politics of public opinion.

The much-ridiculed survey was of members of the Political Studies Association, a group which represents that broad church. The result is that when the PSA does surveys of its members on things like this it often gets silly results, which is why I wish they wouldn’t, and have argued before – in an article that didn’t win me any friends – that they make us all look pretty stupid.

But the recent political forecasts didn’t come from all politics academics; they came from a very specialised group of election experts. Plenty of these aren’t in the PSA anyway (many of those presenting papers at the Manchester conference are not even UK academics). So, in short, those who did the forecasting are not all PSA members, and not all PSA members are election experts. I wouldn’t necessarily trust this lot’s views on political philosophy (nor they mine), but I do trust their knowledge when it comes to elections.

As for political bias, well, there’s no doubt that academics are on the whole left-of-centre. I was once told that academics used to be much more representative of the rest of the population, until the public sector/private sector voting cleavage became so prominent in the 1980s, although I’ve seen no evidence of that. For what it’s worth, I suspect – although again with no evidence – that the elections experts are not as left-of-centre as academia in general. But more importantly, where’s the evidence that any bias, if it exists, has impacted on the various voting forecasts? Anyone who studies the papers presented at the recent conference – or any similar work – will see that these are pretty hard headed models, into which the data go, and out of which the results flow. It’s really not clear where the bias is supposed to be.

As the original post pointed out, I’m sceptical about much election forecasting (as is my colleague Cees van der Eijk, who wrote an excellent short article for the British Journal of Politics and International Relations setting out his doubts), but I confidently acquit my colleagues of the charge of being groupthinking lefties.

They might well still be wrong, but if they are, we will be able to judge their models against the result, and say why. And it won’t be because of any bias.

Professor Philip Cowley