A lot is made of the 'influence' of the Tory press or the Guardanistas on this site. As someone who always used to buy a daily paper and now cannot remember the last one I did buy, does the press really influence people as much now as, say 20 years ago, politically?
Just one daily national title bucked the trend last year by increasing circulation - and all their sales are generally reducing year by year. Or do people register online and now read their 'morning paper' that way?
Daily titles Avg circ, December 2014 Y/y % change
Daily Mirror 912,291 -5.49
Daily Record 201,089 -10.39
Daily Star 426,300 -13.31
The Sun 1,892,207 -7.42
Daily Express 455,590 -9.27
Daily Mail 1,648,853 -5.29
The Daily Telegraph 485,513 -10.17
Financial Times 215,429 -8.92
The Guardian 177,880 -12.40
i 278,101 -4.92
The Independent 60,463 -10.11
The Times 390,765 1.64
So do newspapers significantly influence peoples attitudes, or do we buy the paper that most represents our views in the first place?
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for instance someone in the office always buys the Sun, everyone slates him etc.....................but everyone wants a read of it !
People who bang on about the right-wing press generally do so to avoid having to consider whether there are other reasons as to why their ideologies don't gain any traction with the voters.
: - )
PS I read the Sunday Times partly because it doesn't reflect my socio - political views
newspapers are becoming more like magazines filled with articles and opinions as well as 'uncovering scandal and crime' .. they have become expensive, a newspaper a day over a year is the price of a (cheap) weekend away
I do think it has an influence, its just delivered by a far different means than it was years ago.
http://algarvedailynews.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Smith_(journalist)
Every night he's hugging his hospital pillow
Sha la la la la lal la
We see it all the time on here on threads from whether Church is a crap striker or not, through to how much bin men get paid, whether the public sector needs putting back in its box, if George Osborne has met any of his own targets and all the other political stuff...
We all have Confirmation Bias to one extent or another because we all have theories and views as to why stuff happens. We are all hard wired take more note of 'evidence' that seemingly supports these views, than that that doesn't. We even go as far as to disregard completely or at least downplay proven, empirical, hard facts if they don't fit our existing theories i.e. Church plays international football...oh...er...maybe not the best example, but you get the picture.
The newspapers know this and have been trading on this for decades. My dad gets ALL his political views confirmed to him from reading a certain newspaper. Even when I point out the "fact" he is using to back up his opinion or view is utterly wrong, overly simplistic, out of date, not news but an opinion, etc, etc, he refuses to accept this because it's a challenge to his Confirmation Bias.
Basically the most successful news media outlets are those that are the best at feeding back the existing views of their readers and they remain hugely influential IMO.
It's actually a really interesting subject and our own Confirmation Bias is pretty vital to be aware of in some jobs. For example it's the reason the Yorkshire Ripper got away with it for so long (you'll remember the top copper on that job was convinced the offender was from Wearside and completely took his eye of the ball).
Not enough people read a wide enough range of media, so I think the press have a huge influence.
The fact the Sun and Mail are the to highest sellers is quite worrying.
Weirdos.
Occasionally Clicking links and going out to purchase a paper on a daily basis is a bit different though.