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Stirring up apathy? Political disengagement and the media in the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections
Author(s) -
Thomas James,
Cushion Stephen,
Jewell John
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of public affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.221
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1479-1854
pISSN - 1472-3891
DOI - 10.1002/pa.198
Subject(s) - welsh , apathy , disengagement theory , politics , context (archaeology) , political science , voting , media coverage , public relations , media studies , political economy , sociology , psychology , law , history , gerontology , medicine , cognition , archaeology , neuroscience
This paper examines the media coverage of the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections in the context of the wider academic debate about the media's relationship with political engagement. It draws on evidence to suggest a potentially positive relationship between media use and voting, before arguing that this relationship was limited in Wales in 2003, due both to the limited penetration of the Welsh media in Wales and the election's low prominence in this media. It then examines the way in which ‘the apathy story’ dominated media coverage. Such an emphasis wrongly equated apathy with discontent with the devolution process in Wales, and dominated the issues which the public were represented as discussing, while space was rarely given to their views on policy issues. Bad news about electoral disengagement was much more likely to be emphasised than good news, while emphasis on public ‘apathy’ offered a typically negative simplification of political attitudes among the electorally disengaged. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications