At first sight the research reported here
is something that only political science researchers should worry
about. In trying to explain election results, it is better to use
‘real time’ data rather than ‘revised, final or vintage’
data. But as the authors point out, it has wider implications. Voters
do not seem to respond to how the economy actually is (which is best
measured by the final revised data), but how it is reported to be.
(This does not just matter for elections: here
is a discussion of some other research which suggests how the way
recessions are reported can influence economic decisions.)
Just one more indication that the media really matters. I would not
bother to report such things, if this point was generally accepted as
an obvious truth. That it is not, in the UK at least, reflects
various different tendencies. Those on the right know that the print
media is heavily biased their way, and that this has a big impact on
television, so they have an interest in denying that this matters
(while funding think tanks whose job is in part to harass the BBC
about its alleged left wing bias). Those on the centre left often
react negatively to a few of those further left who
discount all awkward facts by blaming the media.
And the media itself is very reluctant to concede its own power.
As an example, here
is Rafael Behr in the Guardian talking disapprovingly about Labour
supporters:
“I heard constant complaints about failure to “challenge myths” about the economy, benefits, immigration and other areas where Labour is deemed unfit to govern by the people who choose governments. The voters are wrong, and what is required is a louder exposition of their wrongness.”
What is really revealing about this paragraph is what is not there.
We go straight from myths to voters, as if no one else is involved. I
doubt very much that many who voice the ‘constant complaints’
Behr is talking about think that voters created and sustained these
myths all by themselves.
The discussion of issues involving the economy, the welfare system
and immigration among most of the ‘political class’ is often so
removed from reality that it deserves the label myth. In the case of
the economy, I provided chapter
and
verse
in my ‘mediamacro myth’ series before the election. It was not
just the myth that Labour profligacy was responsible for austerity,
but also the myth about the ‘strong recovery’ when the recovery
was the weakest for at least a century, and that this recovery had
'vindicated' austerity. Given the importance that voters attach to
economic credibility, I do not believe I was exaggerating in
suggesting
that the mediamacro myth was in good part responsible for the
Conservatives winning the election.
The media is vital in allowing myths to be sustained or dispelled.
That does not mean that the media itself creates myths out of thin
air. These myths on the economy were created by the Conservative
party and their supporters, and sustained by the media’s reliance
on City economists. They get support from half truths: pre-crisis
deficits were a little too large, GDP growth rates for the UK did
sometimes exceed all other major economies.
Myths on welfare do come from real concerns: there is benefit fraud,
and it is deeply resented by most voters. But who can deny that much
of the media (including the makers of certain television programmes)
have stoked that resentment? When the public
think
that £24 out of every £100 spent on benefits is claimed
fraudulently, compared with official estimates of £0.70 per £100,
that means that the public is wrong, and we have a myth. (An
excellent source for an objective view of the UK’s welfare system
is John Hills’ book,
which has myth in its subtitle) As I noted in that post,
when people are asked questions where they have much more direct
experience, they tend to give (on average of course) much more
accurate answers. Its when they source the media that things can go
wrong. It is well known that fears about immigration tend to be
greatest where there is least immigration.
Of course reluctance to acknowledge myths may not be denial but
fatalism. Fatalism in believing that voters will always believe that
migrants want to come to the UK because of our generous benefit
system because it suits their prejudices. Encouraging those beliefs
will be in the interests of what will always be a right wing
dominated press. Some argue that myths can only be changed from a
position of power. But myths are not the preserve of governments to
initiate. According to this,
over 60% of Trump supporters think their president is a Muslim who
was born overseas. [1]
Myths need to be confronted, not tolerated. The initial UK media
coverage of the European migrant crisis played to a mythical
narrative that migrants were a threat to our standard of living and
social infrastructure (to quote
the UK’s Foreign Secretary!). This reporting was not grounded in
facts, as Patrick Kingsley shows.
That changed when reporters saw who migrants really were and why they
had made the perilous journey north. It changed when Germany started
welcoming them rather than trying to build bigger fences. These facts
did not fit the mythical narrative.
The UK government was clearly rattled when it realised that many
people were not happy with their narrative and policies. Myths can be
challenged, but it is not easy. Policy has been changed somewhat, but
attempts are also being made to repair the narrative: to take some of
those who have made it to the EU will only encourage more (a variant
of the previous European policy of reducing the number of rescue
boats), and a long term solution is to drop more bombs. Such idiotic
claims need to be treated with contempt, before they become a new
myth that the opposition feels it is too dangerous to challenge.
Challenging these myths does not imply pretending real voter
anxieties about migration do not exist, but grounding discussion
and policy around the causes of those anxieties rather than the myths
they have spawned.
Yes, the non-partisan media needs to recognise the responsibility
they have, and use objective measures and academic analysis to judge
whether they are meeting that responsibility. But more generally
myths are real and have to be confronted. The biggest myth of all is
that there are no myths.
[1] The probability pedants among you who read the link will know
that I’m actually making an assumption in writing this!
