The Scottish Elections 2003 Media Content Research
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The Scottish Elections 2003 Media Content Research Report to the Electoral Commission Institute of Governance University of Edinburgh 24 June 2003 Acknowledgements We would like to thank John McCormick, Douglas MacLeod and Linda Taylor of BBC Scotland for providing tapes of 'Good Morning Scotland, 'Reporting Scotland' and 'Newsnight Scotland'. Particular thanks are also due to Janet Pearse and Margaret MacPherson for their secretarial assistance in compiling this Report. CONTENTS Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 9 General Observations .............................................................................................11 Background .............................................................................................................12 Themes .....................................................................................................................15 Print Media...................................................................................................16 Broadcast Media..........................................................................................25 Week by Week Thematic Analysis .........................................................................35 Apathy...........................................................................................................35 Scottish Economy.........................................................................................42 Holyrood Building........................................................................................46 Crime.............................................................................................................48 Independence................................................................................................50 Internet Coverage ....................................................................................................55 The Political Parties’ Verdict..................................................................................56 Conclusions...............................................................................................................58 Research Team.........................................................................................................61 Appendix 1 – Newspapers by Council Area ..........................................................62 Appendix 2 – Statistical Data..................................................................................64 Executive Summary 1. Remit Our task was to analyse, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, the media coverage (print and broadcast media) of the last three weeks of the election campaign. 2. Data Collected Newspapers collected were the Daily Record, the Scottish Sun and the Scottish Daily Mail, the Scotsman, Herald, the Sunday Mail, News of the World Scotland, Mail on Sunday Scotland, Scotland On Sunday, Sunday Herald. We also consulted two regionally based Scottish titles, the Courier & Advertiser and the Press & Journal. Although the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent have neither strong sales nor particular influence in Scotland they, and their Sunday equivalents, the Observer Scotland, the Sunday Times Scotland, the Sunday Telegraph and the Independent on Sunday were also included in the study. Local evening papers – Edinburgh’s Evening News; Aberdeen’s Evening Express, and Dundee’s Evening Telegraph – were part of the analysis, as well as a sample of local weekly titles from smaller urban and more rural areas: Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser, Inverness Courier, Kilmarnock Standard, Southern Reporter, Oban Times, Campbeltown Courier, Wishaw Press. Among the broadcast media, we focused on ‘flagship’ news broadcasts of both Scottish Television (STV) and BBC Scotland ('Reporting Scotland' and 'Newsnight Scotland'), and the 'Good Morning, Scotland' programme of BBC Radio Scotland. 3. Background There does seem to be a strong association between attitudes to voting and consumption of media, with those not watching regional TV bulletins and those not regularly reading a newspaper much less likely to claim to vote (or to view voting as a civic duty) than those who do. Within this distinction, studies show that whilst readers of ‘quality’ or ‘serious’ newspapers seem supportive of voting, this is much less true amongst readers of those titles who enjoy the greater share of Scotland’s newspaper market. 4. Quantitative Analysis The ‘indigenous’ Scottish broadsheets devoted most space to Scottish election issues, with the Herald and Scotsman giving over, on average, 150-160 column inches per day to election news, the Courier and Press & Journal devoting somewhat less than that. There is a marked gap between these Scots broadsheets and their ‘Fleet Street’ rivals, with particularly sparse coverage in the Independent and the Guardian Of the four UK broadsheets, only the Times, with around 50 inches of coverage per day, gave sustained attention to the Holyrood campaign. Amongst the tabloids the Daily Mail gave over considerably more space to the Scottish elections than the Daily Record which, in turn, devoted a little more on average than the Sun. All three tabloids gave sustained coverage of the election throughout the campaign. Among the Sunday titles, the highest levels of coverage were found in the ‘indigenous’ Sunday Herald and (in particular) Scotland on Sunday. It is notable, however, that the Sunday Times Scotland gave over an impressive average of 259 column inches over the three issues analysed. There was, by contrast, an absolute absence of any coverage in the Independent on Sunday, and the Sunday Telegraph mustered one single article over the three Sundays. The Observer gave sustained, if limited, coverage. All in all, there were 9673’’, or about 250 yards, of election-related columns! Across all the broadsheet titles, whether Fleet Street or Scottish-based, a majority of election articles were in ‘omnibus’ form, that is they constituted general reports of the campaign, encompassing a variety of topics, issues and actors. Amongst the tabloids, on the other hand, omnibus articles were still the most frequent type of article but did not constitute a majority of coverage. STV, BBC1 and BBC2 regularly covered the election campaign, devoting large chunks of their news programmes to election and campaign issues. On Radio Scotland, the election coverage only made it to the headlines on 7 days, but it was there and it was consistent in format. Whilst all the websites associated with the more traditional media offered sustained and frequent coverage of the Scottish elections, the single dedicated internet news service, Ananova, offered only one Scottish election story in the period analysed. As a source for Scottish election news, therefore, the internet offers an alternative means to access traditional media sources rather than a radically ‘new’ forum for news. 5. Qualitative Content Analysis Different newspapers stressed different aspect of the campaign. It might have been expected, for example, that the ‘serious’ newspapers would have given over a higher proportion of their coverage to ‘serious’ issues such as the economy, it was in fact the Daily Record which gave over the largest proportion – fully one in five of its election coverage – to the economy. Crime proved to be a key battleground in the rhetoric of the four major parties, but while it did not feature greatly in the broadsheets, it took up more space in the tabloids. This was especially true in the Daily Mail which gave over fully 10% of its coverage to crime and policing issues. Independence also represented a bitter battleground, but again it was left to the tabloids to give over a small, though substantial proportion of their coverage to the constitutional issue. Here the Daily Mail (wholly opposed to independence) and the Sun (rather more ambiguous) gave over, proportionally, the most space to independence, with the Herald giving over almost none: A key issue in the campaign was the expected low turnout, regularly referred to as voter apathy. All newspapers analysed made frequent reference to the issue, although there was some difference between titles. Just over half (50.7%) of broadsheet articles could be meaningfully assigned to one or other of the competing parties, and it seems clear the Labour Party (46%) and the SNP (20.3%) dominated that coverage. Outside these ‘big fish’, all of the smaller parties (Conservative, Lib Dems, Greens and SSP) received broadly comparable coverage (between 6-9%) in the broadsheets, as did the various independent candidates. The even smaller parties (such as the Senior Citizens’ Unity Party or the Scottish Peoples Alliance) together received only a tiny fraction of broadsheet coverage Both the Lib Dems (12.3%) and the nationalists (27.4%) fared a little better in the tabloids, and Labour (42%) only a little worse, but these differences were not marked. Whilst the Greens had a relatively substantial presence in the broadsheets they received very little coverage in the tabloids. 6. Themes The five themes most frequently and most controversially discussed were voter apathy, the Scottish economy, crime, the Holyrood building project, and independence. Three other themes, though, made it difficult for the election campaign to make the front pages of the newspapers or gaining the