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Immigration coverage and populist cultural work in the 2015 General Election campaign

Moore, Kerry ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7520-787X 2015. Immigration coverage and populist cultural work in the 2015 General Election campaign. Jackson, Daniel and Thorsen, Einar, eds. UK Election Analysis 2015: Media, Voters and the Campaign: Early reflections from leading UK academics, Bournemouth, UK: The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University, pp. 20-21.

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Abstract

In the 2015 General Election campaign immigration was a key battleground issue. It featured strongly in each of the main parties’ manifestos and attracted a steady volume of news media coverage. Immigration was firmly on the national electioneering agenda as if this were a matter of ‘common sense’. Perhaps this should not be surprising. The increasing significance of immigration at the polls certainly seems clear according to successive IPSOS MORI opinion poll data. When asked during the 2015 campaign, ‘Looking ahead to the next General Election, which, if any, of these issues do you think will be very important to you in helping you to decide which party to vote for?’ asylum and immigration was 3rd most cited – apparently as critical an issue as education and outranking previously stalwart areas such as law and order/crime. In the more general Issues Index poll, immigration consistently ranks in the top 5 – overtaking the NHS as the ‘most important issue facing Britain today’ in March 2015. However, this ‘common sense’ public profile of immigration is neither ‘natural’ nor guaranteed, but rather, I argue, the product of populist cultural work to which the main political parties and the press contribute.

Item Type: Book Section
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Publisher: The Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community, Bournemouth University
ISBN: 9781910042069
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 27 September 2018
Last Modified: 13 Jan 2023 02:38
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/75153

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