Category: Three-D Issue 24

Einar Thorsen Bournemouth University Three debates, two debates, none? The pre-campaign buzz has been consumed with a farsical confusion about the televised leaders’ debates: who should debate, when, and how many times?! By the time you read this the permeautation will no doubt have changed again, but the debacle has at least contributed to extending …Continue Reading

Jamie Medhurst  Aberystwyth University The Welsh historian, John Davies, who sadly passed away last month, once wrote that Wales was an artefact created by broadcasting. Whilst space precludes a discussion of this notion, broadcasting, its place in Welsh society and its future in Wales is currently a topic of debate and scrutiny amongst academics, the …Continue Reading

Heather Savigny Bournemouth University Harriet Harman has wheeled out a ‘pink’ bus in an effort to attract ‘the female vote’. The photo op is a standard tactic in contemporary politicians’ media management strategising. But election coverage isn’t only about photo opportunities. It is about the way in which the media choose to present such coverage. …Continue Reading

Natalie Fenton Goldsmiths, University of London It’s nearly Spring and the General Election is on the horizon. The next few weeks will be a field day for political communications – will there be a televised debate with all the political parties? Who will make the biggest publicity gaff and which party will work the Twitter-sphere …Continue Reading

Stephen Cushion Cardiff University Gordon Neil Ramsay Media Standards Trust & King’s College London Despite evidence that the TV debates in 2010 engaged and excited many people – in particular 18-24 year olds – according to the Conservative Party chairman, Grant Shapps, they “sucked the life out of the campaign”. Rather than focus on the …Continue Reading

Rosie White, Karen Ross and James Leggott Northumbria University This year’s MeCCSA Annual Conference was hosted by Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne, 7th-9th January 2015. We started preparing for the event over a year in advance and one of our key concerns was that bad weather (snow, ice, hail, wind or other act of …Continue Reading

Stephen Coleman University of Leeds Forget the televised election debates. The debate about the debates is much more revealing. The pitiful ‘will they-won’t they’ saga that’s been played out in the past few months offers a telling insight into the assumptions of elite political communication and the grounds upon which so many people choose to …Continue Reading

Morgane Kimmich London South Bank University With Cameron refusing to participate without the Green party, Miliband and Clegg calling the Conservatives’ bluff, and minor parties now demanding to be invited, it is more than ever uncertain whether televised leader debates will be part of the 2015 election. So what exactly would we miss out on …Continue Reading

Ivor Gaber University of Sussex  A few weeks ago David Butler, the doyen of academic pollsters who has been following and writing about elections since 1945, said: “I have been watching elections for the past 70 years and this is, undoubtedly, the least predictable and most interesting one I have ever been involved with.” I …Continue Reading

Karin Wahl-Jorgensen City University, London  Election campaign coverage is an odd genre, made up of game show, satire and soap opera in equal measures. It tends to be about one of three topics: the election horse race; slinging mud and poking fun at the leaders, their gaffes and the weaknesses they imply; and the campaign …Continue Reading