Monday, September 26, 2016

Left, Right, Centre - and an advertising boycott of the Daily Mail

A poll by Opinium and the Social Market Foundation
looked at where people place themselves on the political spectrum.

    10% left wing
  15% centre left
45%  in the centre
  17% centre right
    13% right wing

Now, what is everyone reading in their newspapers?
3 British people are reading right wing/centre right newspapers for every one British person who is reading a centre-left paper.

3:1.
Three quarters to one quarter.
75% right, 25% left.

Now, what were those Opinium numbers again?
25% of people are leftish, 30% are rightish, and 40% are centre.

This means that the centre is reading right leaning papers on a daily basis, getting their heads filled with right wing memes, but still they see themselves as in the centre.
If British newspapers were divided evenly across the spectrum, the Tory and Ukip parties would shrink. Their political dominance would fade away, and we would have a far more balanced politics in our country.

We are governed by tabloid editors. They set the agenda, they tell the electorate what is important and what is not. Most of all, they determine what is the centre. Only the self confessed left falls outside of their area of control.

What can we do about this? They are beyond reason. We cannot present an argument to them, as they will not print it.

Therefore we can only hit them where it hurts - in the pocket. If ethical corporations stop advertising in right wing papers because, for instance, they keep publishing inaccurate pieces about climate change, we could make a difference. The #Deadvertise campaign is the way to go.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seems to me we need to boycott, not just the Mail, but all RW media, including BBC and YouGov.