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Why do we let Newspapers tell us who to vote for?


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I once met someone who read The Mail because he thought it was impartial and unpolitical...which says a lot about him and even more about the job centre who employed him to lead a "jobplan workshop"

 

What a knob.

 

The Mail may be political in that it's views are on the right, but it is impartial. Don't believe me, The Mail have been very critical of Cameron and the government (probably because the government is not to the right enough for their liking), particularly Clarke and justice reforms.

 

Here's just one of recent:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2016570/David-Camerons-spin-doctor-Andy-Coulson-advised-phone-hacking-suspect-Neil-Wallis.html

...which shows just because they are right wing they are not beyond being critical or giving bad press to the party you'd think they'd favour.

 

David Cameron was dragged deeper into the phone-hacking saga last night after it emerged that a key suspect gave media advice to his office in the run-up to the General Election.
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Read again and try thinking for once

 

I just read it again. What I read were perfectly plausable explanations of why Labour got a landslide in 1997 and why Tory's didn't get a majority in 2010, neither of which have anything to do with the press.

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Where'd you get these figures from then? :suspect:

 

if you're too bone idle to do the arithmetic yourself, I'll do it for you :

 

national titles' endorsements at 2010 election and their average circulations that year

 

Conservative

Daily Express 675,000

Dail Mail 2,100,000

Daily Star 780,000

Daily Telegraph 690,000

The Sun 3,000,000

The Times 500,000

 

total 7,745,000

 

Labour

Daily Mirror 1,220,000

Daily Record 325,000

 

total 1,525,000

 

Liberal Democrats

The Guardian 300,000

 

none

The Independent 185,000

 

the total circulation of these papers amounts to a figure of 9,775,000.

 

those that endorsed the Conservatives add up to 7,745,000 - that's 79%, though the Conservatives got less than half that number of the electorate to vote for them.

 

those that endorsed Labour add up 1,525,00 - that's 15%. Labour got double that number of people to vote for them.

 

my original calculation was off the top of the head, but it turns out that it wasn't far wrong.

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my original calculation was off the top of the head, but it turns out that it wasn't far wrong.

 

Fair enough, there are still a lot of assumptions in your argument though.

 

For one thing, you have no idea what the overlap is between the readerships of each newspaper and the electorate itself. Your numbers for readerships add up to 9 million yet the number who voted was 30 million.

 

Why would the proportions be exactly the same in the two groups?

 

For example, you have quoted newspapers with a readership of 8 million endorsed the tories, and in actuality, 11 million people voted tory. It could well be that every single person who read a tory endorsing paper voted for them for all you know.

 

Secondly, and more importantly, you wouldn't expect the relationship to be a perfect one anyway, that would be silly.

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For one thing, you have no idea what the overlap is between the readerships of each newspaper and the electorate itself.

 

all titles conduct research to find out how their readers vote. In this way we know that over 50% of Mail readers vote Conservative, whereas a much more overwhelming majority of Sun and Star readers vote Labour. Clearly Sun and Star readers pay scant attention to what the paper they buy 'tells' them to vote.

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I just read it again. What I read were perfectly plausable explanations of why Labour got a landslide in 1997 and why Tory's didn't get a majority in 2010, neither of which have anything to do with the press.

 

OK, I'll try and spell it out for you in Janet and John language - The media campanies are politically orientated and try to shape people opinions, but it's not always quite as simple as that. A lot of media companies will also pander to some perceived public opinion just to sell newspapers, but at the same time try to shape public opinion. Suffice to say, if most media companies are against a particular party, that party will not win the election.

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actually I made a boo-boo there, look at this :

 

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/latestnews/84/Labour-lost-Sun-readers-support-in-2008.aspx

 

The Sun's decision to switch its support to the Conservatives (announced today) is actually a reflection of a decision already taken by the newspaper's readers, as newly-published data from Ipsos MORI shows.

 

The Conservatives now have a convincing lead among regular readers of the Sun: Ipsos MORI’s aggregate political data from January to September 2009 shows that 42% would vote Conservative, compared to only 29% who would support the Labour Party.

 

what I don't understand is why people just jump to the conclusion that it's the readers that follow what decisions are taken by publishers, rather than vice-versa.

 

News International switched over to Labour in 1995. But so had their readership, and the public as a whole. They were just following them. By 1995, it was obvious that the Conservatives had no chance of winning the next election. People had made their minds up to give Labour a chance. Catching the public mood, a lot of titles similarly switched over.

 

in business, what sellers do to stay successful is find out what their customers want, and supply it to them at a price they can afford. They don't just proclaim that something is desirable and then expect them to fork out for it whether they like it or not.

 

witness what happened with the Scottish Sun and Scottish independence. As soon as they found out, despite the pro-Union editorial line that they had taken, that most of the readers wanted to see an independent Scotland, they paid attention, changed tack, and announced that this was the paper's position from now on.

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when theres a party that does not talk crap and puts our country first then I'll vote for them, until then I will not vote and never have. This country has been going to sh-t for years, and this country was called GREAT BRITAIN at one time what happened????

ALAN

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