Very rarely, if ever, can an election campaign decisively determine the outcome of an election. Most of the time, what a campaign manages to achieve is ‘verify’ to a certain extent, political attitudes that already exist well before the announcement of an election date. An election campaign can increase or decrease the margin of victory or of defeat, but rarely, very rarely can a campaign determine on its own an election result.
However, even if the actual influence of a campaign is ultimately limited in terms of changing the minds and the hearts of a substantial number of citizens, its impact can still be of the utmost importance. Not only in closely fought election battles, but also in almost predetermined battles, like the one that is taking place next Saturday.
What we are witnessing in the last four pre-election weeks in this country is a well disciplined and well run campaign by the Coalition and Tony Abbott. However, what we are also seeing is a concentrated effort by quite a few vested interests, including huge media organisations, to make the Coalition’s pre-election run as effective as possible, and the margin of its win as great as possible. There are no better examples to highlight this than the coverage of the second leaders’ debate and the coverage of the official campaign launch of the Coalition.
The second people’s debate between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd in Brisbane on August 21 was not a media event. The debate took place in the afternoon during drive time. It was broadcast by Skynews and ABC News 24 only, watched by approximately 500,000 viewers and did not really make the news the following day. Or what did make the news was something ‘trivial’ and important at the same time, namely Tony Abbott’s remark “Does this guy ever shut up?”. The third debate in Sydney on August 28, was broadcast by ABC News 24, Skynews, One, Gem, 7TWO and SBS2, but it was not pre-announced by major dailies such as The Age and The Australian, and its aftermath was only briefly mentioned in the media the following day.
Compare this with the Coalition’s official campaign launch in Brisbane last Sunday, when quite a few sectors of the community wanted the Coalition’s message to be heard by as many voters as possible. Tony Abbot that Sunday morning was interviewed by one of the heavy- weights of the Australian conservative and right wing movement, Herald Sun columnist, blogger and channel 10 broadcaster Andrew Bolt. Then came the carefully staged launch. A launch that was televised live not only by the usual news suspects ABC News 24 and Skynews, but also by the free to air ‘supplementary channels’ of the Seven and Nine networks. The following day, almost all the metropolitan major dailies in Australia had the Coalition’s campaign launch as their main front page news item.
Was this media treatment of the Coalition’s official election campaign launch justified in terms of journalistic principles and priorities you might ask? I think it was. Having said that, the same can also be stated about the coverage of the second leader’s debate between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd. The second leader’s debate was a major national and media event that took place at a crucial time, eighteen days before the September 7 election. This debate, if broadcast by more media outlets and witnessed by more citizens, as is the norm in a USA or a European presidential or prime-ministerial debate, might have had a much greater impact on the actual outcome of the election.
The second leader’s debate, by becoming a non-media event, had negligible influence in the overall election campaign and election outcome. This made the life of the Coalition and of Tony Abbott much easier because it ensured that the momentum of their campaign at a crucial pre-election stage was retained.
Unfortunately, the dominant media coverage of the 2013 election campaign in Australia leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s hope readers, viewers and listeners, can read between the lines and make their own assessments.