Politicians appearing on news bulletins are shown attacking their opponents more often than talking about their own party’s policies, according to Cardiff University’s ongoing study of TV news coverage of the election.
Between 30 March and 24 April, 43.4% of election news items on the major evening bulletins that gave airtime to a party source saw them attacking a rival’s policy or personal character. In contrast, 38.2% of soundbites were about politicians’ own policy agendas.
The remaining 18.4% of sources were largely free of policy and did not involve attacking opponents, such as reacting to the TV debates or commenting upon possible coalition deals.
The BBC’s use of political soundbites was the most attack-driven, reflecting about half of all its sources, slightly more than ITV’s 49%, Sky’s 44.9% and Channel 5’s 41.9%.
However, on Channel 4 only a third of political soundbites – 36.4% – involved attacking an opponent, with a greater proportion – 43.8% – used to convey their own party’s policy.
Over the four weeks of the campaign analysed so far, there has been no decisive turn towards more negative campaigning on television news, but on certain days parties have attacked each other much more vociferously.
One example was Conservative party defence secretary Michael Fallon’s attack on Ed Miliband’s leadership in the second week of the campaign. However, since then Conservative campaigning has been more upbeat following criticism that the party’s negative tactics were proving counterproductive.
Television news bulletins have more consistently used attack soundbites throughout the campaign to rebut a party’s policy announcement, in particular during the manifesto launches in week three. Broadcasters aim to convey the arguments of competing parties, but the overwhelming focus on politicians either challenging an opponent or attacking their character has left little airtime for other actors.
For example, two-thirds of election airtime – 67.2% – has been granted to politicians, compared with 21.5% for citizens and just 11.3% for other non-party sources.
BBC coverage gave most airtime to the general public, regularly concluding its bulletin with a citizen-led story discussing election issues important to them, such as immigration, health care and resources for local businesses. Channel 5 also regularly used vox pops to explore election issues.
Although citizens made up a fifth of airtime granted to election sources in TV coverage overall, their role should not be overstated. While all broadcasters drew extensively on vox pops, they were given far less on average just 11 seconds to air their views, compared with 27 seconds for politicians.
Citizens tended to be used in horse race-type stories or in response to a specific party policy announcement, meaning the use of citizens in campaign coverage does not represent a radical departure from the agenda set by the parties.
But perhaps most striking is the limited airtime granted to non-party sources in election coverage so far.
When broadcasters did seek independent analysis sources, the most common figures were drawn from drawn from business, with thin tanks, journalists and media figures, pollsters and academics making up most of the rest. Between them, they represent 80.2% of airtime granted to non-party sources excluding citizens.
In contrast, a wider pool of sources such as legal/health professionals, economists, campaign/pressure groups and trade unions made up less than a fifth of airtime.
The most vocal non-party source was the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Its director Paul Johnson was especially prominent on 23 April after criticising the lack of transparency in the major parties’ spending commitments.
However, the IFS’s analysis focused on the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP – emphasising the big choice voters face – rather than more widely debating the economic consequences of pursuing either tougher or anti-austerity measures.
Listening to experts scrutinise party manifestos has not been a regular fixture in election coverage so far.
Although journalists do interpret the policy positions of parties, broadcast rules about impartiality limit how far they can reach clear verdicts. But relying to a greater extent on independent experts beyond party politics might widen election debate.
The Cardiff University study examined bulletins on Channel 5 at 5pm, Channel 4 at 7pm and at 10pm on BBC, ITV and Sky News. Research by Richard Thomas, Allaina Kilby, Marina Morani and Sue Bisson.
