Personality politics and today's media
Isabelle Osborne argues that the media’s fixation on political personalities can be detrimental to our society.
In an interview with British Vogue, the award-winning actress Emma Watson discussed topics such as feminism and tackling gender stereotypes, her fame and how this impacts her daily life, and being a child star and the opportunities it opened for her. She considered transgender dating, her role as Meg in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and how she feels guilty for not enjoying her fame.
However, Watson’s identification as being “self-partnered” and happily single took centre stage as the headline of the interview, as the spotlight was focused on her defiance of the “home, husband, baby” vision that is expected of any thirty year old woman in today’s society. Though this particular discussion lasted less than five minutes of the interview, the title of the article transcription suggests interviewer Paris Lees was interested in nothing more than Watson’s private, romantic life, and had no concern for the many other topics of conversation.
This incident sparked my awareness of how the media funnels select pieces of information into an attention-grabbing headline that often ignores a wider context, specifically in regards to their portrayal of British politics and the upcoming general election. Arguably, the media’s exposure of many political debates become centralised on the personalities of the leading candidates. I want to consider why this is detrimental to our political system.
The media focalise the vast majority of their political news stories around party leaders or MPs, rarely concentrating on informing the British public about the latest party updates or current political debate. Because of this the people begin to vote for — or against — the campaigning MP, rather than the policies they are promoting, and how they will subsequently govern the state. This sparks serious flaws within our political system.
To an extent, personality is an important aspect of any general election, as it is how the public understand and relate to politics. The public see the party and the country’s future through the eyes of political leaders; so a leader who is confident, trustworthy, and decisive is much more likely to be voted in than a candidate who is dislikable and unpleasant. Statistics from 2014 prove this to be the case: a survey published by Professor Charles Pattie demonstrated that there was a significant correlation between the interviewed personnel's report of liking a party’s leader in Summer 2014, and the probability of that individual voting for that party in Autumn 2014.
However, this can become a problem when the media holds the power to taint the reputation of a political leader. Just as readers were immediately drawn into Watson’s romantic life by the headline of her Vogue interview, we become tuned into how Boris Johnson is considered “a clown” and a “power-hungry nihilist”, instead of the Conservative’s latest discussion on Brexit. Or, rather than hearing about Labour’s plans to transform Britain in the event of their election, we are presented with discourse of how Corbynism is “Britain’s most dangerous export”. These headlines are personality-focused, stripping people of what they require and deserve — a political education. Because of this phenomenon, our democracy is underpinned by an imbalance between personality and policy, where the former assumes control of the voting system.
If our voting decisions are heavily influenced by the media’s portrayal of a candidate, what are the potential threats facing our government? If it is founded upon a reflection of who the public prefer, rather than what the public prefer, parties and their policies can be clouded by voters’ perception of their leader, particularly if they attract a negative opinion. The consequence of this is that our conception of their manifesto is indefinitely attached to our perspective of the leader. On the other hand, being taken in by a charismatic politician means our attention deviates from the policies the leader is projecting, so that we are won over by their character rather than focusing on whether we align ourselves with their policies.
Overall, the media are successful in their role of providing the public with the news of the world. But it is times like this, when political discourse is underpinned by personality rather than policy at such a crucial time, that the integrity and quality of our political system is placed in danger.
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