Factors such as ethnicity, age and class clearly affect voting behaviour. However, it is arguable that the media also has an influence because it controls voters’ perception of events.
Historically, newspapers were the only information outlets and their proprietors used them as a mouthpiece for their own views. The Telegraph and The Times frequently backed the establishment, signifying voters as deferential and ‘doing as they were told.’ Thus, a dominant ideology theory of voting behaviour emerged, with notions of an all-powerful press and the twentieth-century dominance of the Conservative Party.
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