They do still drive the opinion of boomers, who are a large block that still reads newspapers (especially the Mail), still votes by and large, and votes small c-conservative and anti-EU to radical right. That's why. - ThreadSky

katherineschof8.bsky.social • 57 days ago

They do still drive the opinion of boomers, who are a large block that still reads newspapers (especially the Mail), still votes by and large, and votes small c-conservative and anti-EU to radical right.

That's why.

Comments

gerryf.bsky.social•57 days ago

The right wing newspapers also have a significant influence when it comes to the BBCs editorial decision making. They are frightened of the Mail in particular.

alexvont.bsky.social•57 days ago

The evidence doesn’t back that up, though. More readers of all papers except the Mail planned to vote Labour rather than Conservative at the last election. I really it’s about going further up the food chain for them now. https://www.bestforbritain.org/the_read_wall

davidwearing.bsky.social•57 days ago

Think it may be possible to disaggregate (a) readers ignoring their newspaper's instructions about who to vote for, from (b) newspapers shaping a broader public discourse/worldview which politicians then cater to. Labour have pitched very hard at a far right tabloid worldview, e.g "open borders"

davidwearing.bsky.social•57 days ago

I mean, tbh I think it's really hard to pick apart causation in all this. I think the press, politicians and a fair chunk of the public (e.g. older, white, male homeowners in the home counties) are in a mutually reinforcing cycle of reactionary discourse and politics

alexvont.bsky.social•57 days ago

Certainly they are. The question I’m asking is just what the owners think they’re getting out of this. Assuming (maybe wrongly) some sort of cost/benefit justification, I think they must be looking at more complex indirect influence, rather than simplistically “we tell you to vote Tory and you do”

davidwearing.bsky.social•57 days ago

Yeah I think that's right. Like when Thatcher said her greatest achievement was New Labour, I think Murdoch et al could say that as well. Obviously they'd all prefer a Tory government, but when politics overall is shaped by their agenda they've won on a much more substantive level

davidwearing.bsky.social•57 days ago

Tbh I think that victory has gone so deep that we're no longer in a situation where Labour are reluctantly following that agenda out of a misconceived sense of pragmatism. I think over a generation many of them have internalised these politics and become authentic reactionaries themselves

katherineschof8.bsky.social•57 days ago

Temporarily :-) -- this would have been true in e.g. 1997 too, when everybody read papers. It's going to be a great deal more complicated.

alexvont.bsky.social•57 days ago

The Sun backed Blair in 1997! I think it’s really very different now: even the dwindling number of boomers who read papers aren’t necessarily relying on them as their sole source of info, though of course some of that ~30% of them who vote Tory may be supplementing with GB News & Facebook memes.

katherineschof8.bsky.social•57 days ago

There's still quite a substantial proportion of older (70+) less-well-educated voters who don't use the internet — there are at least 2 million who don't have internet at all. Digital exclusion is becoming a serious problem for this demographic now you need the internet to access almost everything.

katherineschof8.bsky.social•57 days ago

*that's 2 million of the 70+ age group. 1 million adults younger than 70 are also offline.

alexvont.bsky.social•57 days ago

Digital exclusion is certainly a serious issue, but it’s a different one. If our question is “how successful are right-wing papers at directly influencing their readers’ votes,” I would say the answer on recent data appears to be not very. Hence why I now think indirect influence is the goal.

alexvont.bsky.social•57 days ago

But those things may well be far more influential on individuals. What the right-wing press can now still do is create the false impression for politicians/BBC/etc that the point of balance of public opinion is further to the right than it may actually be.

drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social•57 days ago

I think this is especially the case when even Labour’s communication strategy seems to lean heavily on reaching people who normally wouldn’t vote for Labour via leaks to, interviews with, and columns for those papers. Which is incredibly outdated in so many ways.

mermaidspursej.bsky.social•57 days ago

As a by the by, this is how insurance companies tackle marketing. They rely on inertia for current customers to renew and spend the entire marketing budget on "new business."

arnabdutt.bsky.social•57 days ago

The right wing press creates a generally unchallenged false impression that every bigot can hang their hat on. Aided and abetted by a sadly supine broadcast media and GB news, enabling the Frog Faced Fuhrer and his party to grow in popularity.

alexkanefsky.bsky.social•57 days ago

And it seems incredibly successful in that. Which of course sets agendas, which then influence policy etc. Case in point, see all of Labour’s language and action thus far on immigration and asylum

paulkillick.bsky.social•57 days ago

I think they assume they can change public opinion and get the public to write to their MP’s & change policy. They are also trying to push “look how terrible everything is” try to push the idea Labour can’t be trusted in government and need to be one term only

paulkillick.bsky.social•57 days ago

Same views are pushed online to other generations too. Lots pushing the same agendas on YouTube & tictok etc. I had a 19 year old non voter at work tell be he thought Reform was going to win the election because of tictok. Loads of stuff attacking Starmer online

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply