Evaluating the Role of the Media in the British General Election 2010 Free Essays

Critically evaluate the role of the media in the British General Election 2010. â€Å"Media should keep people informed about public affairs so that individuals are adequately briefed when they take part in the process of self government. † (Curran, James 2005). We will write a custom essay sample on Evaluating the Role of the Media in the British General Election 2010 or any similar topic only for you Order Now The role of the media, as Curran as explained is a supposed to be a way of allowing individuals to think for themselves, having their own opinions and ideas about the news and information that is given to them through different medias. So for my essay I will be focusing on the way in which the media, mainly T.V, allowed the general public to think for themselves during the British General election, mainly focusing on the ‘Alternative General Election’ which was aired on the same night as the Election, on Channel 4 and on the political advertising used for each party and the ways in which the media use emotion to sway the general public. Television is a very powerful media form, as â€Å"more than 90% of the UK TV homes already have digital† (The Guardian Online 2010) shows that we are relatively dependant on having television in our day-to-day lives.Television as a media form is the most powerful source of information for the average person, as the news is on hourly on a large variety of channels, reporting news from all over the world. There are even specific channels that viewers can tune into to receive specialist television programs, like BBC Parliament, where viewers can watch the House of Commons live from the comfort of their own homes. The BBC hosted the British General Election on Thursday the 6th of May 2010, and on the same evening, for those who weren’t as eager to watch the real General Election, could tune into Channel 4’s ‘Alternative Election Night’.Channel 4’s aim was to make the Election a slightly more enjoyable event for the general public, as they say on the Channel 4 website â€Å"the show promises satire and sass, minus the staid political swing-o-meters†. Hosted by â€Å"comedy enthusiasts† Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Jimmy Carr and Lauren Laverne, is a constructive way of enticing the audience, using presenters that they have heard of and enjoy watching from other programs they have been in. Unlike the General Election,Channel 4 have focused mainly on the comedy aspect of the Election, also by using a live audience and intercepting the program with specially recorded shows, such as an Election special of ‘Come Dine with Me’ featuring Politian’s such as Edwina Curry and Derek Hatton. Advertising is another form of the media in which information and ideas are transmitted to an audience. Advertising unlike television to more so used for persuading and transforming the ideas and emotions of the public. Sabato (1981) once said â€Å"the increase in negative adverts attribute to the proprietary research that shows negative messages have powerful effects† (Biocca pg. 45), which relates to the ways political adverting was used in the 2010 General Elections. For example, the Labour party released a poster of David Cameron’s face (leader of the Conservative party) computerized onto the body of Jean Simmons from â€Å"Life on Mars† and â€Å"Ashes to Ashes† to present a 1979 government threat, but on the other hand this poster is speaking out to the Conservatives as when the government was last Conservative was when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. On the other hand it also relates to the Labour party insisting that they vote Labour, or the Margaret Thatcher days will be upon them again.Political advertising and Personal Relations go hand in hand to use the emotion of the public as a tactic to win over individuals. â€Å"Lord Young is reputed to have said that ‘Government programmes are like cornflakes. If they are not marketed, they will not sell’ The phrase, though not profound, expressed will ministers marketing and campaigning techniques to package polices and bring them to the attention of the public† (Franklin, Bob 1994) Therefore showing that personal relations along with marketing and advertising don’t seem to mind what they have to do as long as they get the end result.As Kaid mentions in ‘Political Advertising’, â€Å"Hart (2000) suggests that political ads are ‘effusive’ and full of emotional logic. He cautions that in fact, â€Å"†¦one must never underestimate the importance of that which advertising most reliably delivers – political emotion†. † (Kaid 2004). By using emotional advertising the companies and more importantly political parties are able to sway the public into believing what they find emotio nally satisfying, â€Å"commercials that contain both negative and positive emotional messages, are remembered significantly better than either negative-only or positive-only commercials.In addition, the single-emotion commercials remembered significantly better that neutral or non-emotional commercials† (Biocca 1991). In 2010, during and before the General Election, there where many poster around the UK trying to encourage the general public to vote for which ever party they were most influenced by. There were many posters for this year’s General Elections, and the main theme of 2010 Elections was to use the opposing party leader in their campaigns and try to manipulate their words and also in some cases put words into their mouths.For my first example, I have chosen the campaign poster for the Conservative party, they have featured a head and shoulders image of David Cameron with the text next to him saying, â€Å"We can’t go on like this. I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS†. When I looked into the other posters from the General Elections, I ten discovered the use of using the other party leaders as the main attraction of the poster, but then only to knock them down by using a quote or fact about them to contradict the poster itself.For example, I found the most effecti ve posters were that of the Conservative party, as they used a photograph of Gordon Brown’s face, next to a bold statement â€Å"I caused record youth unemployment. Let me do it again†. I found this poster more to the point, and it was a lot very obvious what the Conservative party was trying to do, and honestly for me, it works, I think if I had of voted at all this would probably would have swayed me against the Labour party.Gordon Brown’s true colours where presented when he left a Sky News microphone on after a confrontation from an old lady called Gillian Duffy. It was caught on tape that he called her a â€Å"bigoted woman†. If Brown had of known about the microphone he wouldn’t have commented like he did, and we as the public would not have known about his actual feelings towards the woman and neither would she. Because the report of this comment was circulated at such speed, Brown felt it right to go round to Duffy’s house and apologise to his for his comment.The reason for the confrontation was that Mrs. Duffy was in fact a long time Labour supporter who had challenged Brown about issues such as immigration from Eastern Europe an d then about the national debt in the UK. After this event, many articles broke out in newspapers and online, for example the BBC News website published a article called â€Å"Election 2010:Leaders prepare for TV debate on economy†, with the subtitle of, â€Å"Gordon Brown has said he is determined to focus on the economy ahead of the last live TV debate, a day after he was overheard calling a voter â€Å"bigoted†. What is interesting is that the fact that Brown has made a slight comment about a woman had been more important than the actual reason Brown was even on camera that day, for the TV debate. One reading that I found particularly interesting and in relation to media and the General Elections was written by Angela Phillips. She is focused on the journalists and their sources online, she talks about how â€Å"the relationship between journalists and their sources is central to any claim that the news media may make to a role within the Habermasian ‘public sphere’†.This extract explore s the reasons why and how the media have tried to relate to their key audience within the general public. She later goes on to speak about Silverstone (1988) and his ideas about the â€Å"story teller working to re-align cultural ties and allegiances through establishment and re-enforcing of cultural myth, it is through their choice of relationships and prioritization of information that they seek to reflect, or indeed to determine, the political and cultural agenda of the moment†. Phillips, 2009. pp. 87) So they are saying that journalists have used their status to get in touch with people who have the information that they need, and are willing to jeopardize their priorities if something better comes along; â€Å"cultural agenda of the moment†. To conclude, the role of the media during the British General Elections of 2010 has been the most powerful form of publishing and informing the nation of the in’s and out’s of British Politics.The tabloids have printed articles using the general public as there target zone, to print, on occasion, fad articles about opinions and the events, the Sky News microphone that was left on Gordon Brown, and managed to record him insulting a member of the general public and of course, the new room where the news is put together, and presented live to us at home, allowing us to indulge in news when ever we wish, well at hourly intervals throughout the day. Not forgetting one of the most important new forms of media, World Hav e Your Say on BBC radio†¦not only for the new bulletins of the day, but also or other members of the public to have their say about the news in question. With out the media, we would not be as well informed about what goes on around us, and we need to know what is going on around us for our own safety, and more importantly our knowledge.Bibliography http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/8649012. stmhttp://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8650546. stmhttp://www. channel4. com/programmes/channel-4s-alternative-election-night/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1http://www. guardian. co. uk/media/2010/may/04/thinkbox-television-viewinghttp://en. wikipedia. rg/wiki/Walter_Lippmannhttp://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election How to cite Evaluating the Role of the Media in the British General Election 2010, Papers