Terrorism, Media, and Elections in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Terrorism played a very minor role in the election campaign for the British Parliament in 2005. However, the conduct of the campaign does raise important questions about the relationship between parties, the media, the electorate, and fear appeals. The research presented in this chapter has two elements. The first involves an analysis of messages projected by politicians through Party Election Broadcasts, whilst the second consists of a content analysis of television news for the month-long election campaign. While there was little overt mention of terrorism in the election campaign, which ended two months before the July 2005 attacks on the London transport system, fear appeals were present in how the Conservative Party framed issues relating to immigration and asylum. However, no single frame such as the War on Terror dominated the British media, with both the broad-cast and print media being the site of competing accounts relating to the severity of the threat from terrorism.