Media in Context and the 2019 General Election: How Traditional and Social Media Shape Elections and Governing

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Boris Johnson called an election that represents the fifth time British voters will cast a preference in a national poll in less than five years. The Exeter based Media in Context team has been capturing media content during these campaigns. This grant will allow us, and others who use the data we deposit with the UK Data Service, a further opportunity to assess and understand the influence of social and traditional media in British politics. This opportunity comes at a critical point in British politics, with a country divided by the new Brexit cleavage; more extreme parties whose moderates have been "hollowed out" by deselections and retirements; an increasingly hostile environment accompanied by incivility and a "coarsening" of political debate; and growing salience of local concerns driven by austerity politics.The potential of misinformation and unchecked claims across traditional and social media platforms is an overlying factor that intensifies concern. The research will: 1) provide a comprehensive analysis of the role of traditional and social media in national and supra-national elections over the past five years in British politics; 2) build on our key findings with a closer focus on local media and its role in national elections, in particular its links to perceptions of local MPs and candidates and to the salient issues in elections; 3) examine the impact of actual and perceived incivility on perceptions of contemporary British politics and on political behaviour; 4) identify gaps in our longitudinal media data, collect additional data where gaps exist, and harmonise our database of traditional and social media election news coverage.