.png){kind=icon}
Chapter six: Media and agenda setting: political turbulence
- ‘Optimism does go viral: Labour, the Conservatives, and social media in the 2017 general election’
The 2017 General Election was characterised by both parties’ use of social media to galvanise support. This article unpacks how exactly social media contributed to both the Labour and Conservative party campaign. What is of particular interest is Labour’s ability to use social media to create enthusiasm and optimism among voters; especially young voters, who are known to typically engage less with politics (eg low election turnout).
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/social-media-2017/
- ‘How well does the UK’s media system support democratic politics and represent citizens’ interests?’
This article brings into focus the UK’s media system conditions that temper the quality of British democracy. While the UK does have free elections, without media diversity and some neutrality democracy cannot be delivered effectively. This article assesses whether UK media supports or damages the democratic running of politics.
- ‘Did the Media Matter? Agenda-Setting, Persuasion and Mobilization Effects in the British General Election Campaign’
This is a great paper by a well-known academic Pippa Norris, exploring how campaign communications effect voter preferences in general elections. Key concepts such as priming, media persuasion and mobilisation effects link to chapter six’s mention of framing and bias, contributing to the overall debate about how powerful the media can be.
- ‘Bots, #StrongerIn, and #Brexit: Computational Propaganda during the UK-EU Referendum’
This is a very interesting read, touching on the events during the UK-EU referendum, and so provides an up-to-date example. Political bots are automated accounts on social media that are noticeably active on topical public policy matters, elections and political issues. These political bots are looked at in this study, to analyse how the tweeting pattern of bots interact with human accounts.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1606/1606.06356.pdf
- ‘Andrew Chadwick on the Hybrid Media System’
A short video from Andrew Chadwick talking about the changing media system, into what is being called a hybrid media system. This touches on the intermingling of old and new media platforms, and what it means for politics. Pay particular attention to the mention of a decline in trust, what are the implications of this?