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**Hugh** · 14-12-2015, 15:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr K

When has the public ever voted anyway Rupert Murdoch didn't want them to vote ? (e.g pro Blair, pro Cameron, anti--Scottish Independence).

Although initially eurosceptic he's changed his mind and is now very much pro-Europe. To be fair on this occasion he's right. EU withdrawal would be a disaster for the British economy which as a business man he now realises.

You can be sure all his media outlets will have a combined strategy with the Govt. to make the public's mind up for them. A lot of the people don't have an opinion or know very little about the issues and are therefore easily swayed, particularly by scare stories about their own prosperity.

Channel 4 Factcheck

Quote:

Among all voters, there was a swing from Labour to Conservative of about 5 per cent between 2005 and 2010. But among Sun readers the swing was a massive 13.5 per cent.

This sounds like impressive evidence of the sway the Sun holds over its readers.

But Sir Robert Worcester from the LSE notes that most of the swing – 12.5 per centage points – had already happened before the Sun declared its support for David Cameron.

That makes it look very much like the editors were being led by the readers, not the other way round...

...The verdict

We’ll probably never be able to say decisively how much newspapers influence their readers. Often, readers themselves say they don’t know.

In-depth analysis of the Sun’s influence on the 1992 election is lacking, although the fact that Labour were slightly ahead in the polls when the newspaper launched its famous attack on Neil Kinnock was unusually brave.

The 1997 election has been studied extensively and analysis suggests the Sun’s switch of support did not decisively swing the vote for Tony Blair.

It’s interesting to note that Sun readers did swing back to the Conservatives in very large numbers in 2010, though it’s difficult to know what to make of this.

The fact that most of the change in support happened before the paper came out for Cameron suggests that newspapers may follow the opinions of their readers rather than trying to dictate them.