Election: Old and Offline Voters Saved Theresa (Just)

As Theresa May formed a new government today it became clear that most voters’ Facebook news feeds had failed to reflect a entire voter base which gave the Conservatives more MPs than Labour, the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens combined.

The “echo chamber” of social media left many voters, especially in London, wondering just who provided all those votes for the Conservatives, whose 42.4% support was the highest vote received by any party since Tony Blair’s “New Labour” surge in 1997. As with the referendum, it’s important to remember those older and no on social media are out there.

The simple explanation for stronger Labour support being shown on social media than in the ballot box is that social media users are younger and therefore more Left-leaning in an ageing population. Or is there something about “social” media that encourages people to express support for socialism? As big Right-wing newspapers wither in the digital age is it possible that we have entered a new online age of structural media bias, this time leaning to the left?

The whole point of a social network is to communicate with people you connect with on a social level. That means users generally have a bias in their feeds towards their own views since they are more likely to be friends with people who share those views.

YouGov researched the effect of social media on politics in May 2016. Some 40% of people who identified as Left-wing told the pollster that they saw more Left-wing than Right-wing sources on social media. However, 24% of Right-wing people still saw Left-wing sources and only 3% of them saw more Right-wing news than Lefties. That means that despite such online Right-wing crusaders as Britain First, social media is firmly Left-wing.

Age

What is the reason for this bias?  Age is a dominant factor in politics and is one of the most reliable indicators of Left and Right-wing leanings. YouGov found that 15% of 18 to 24-year-olds on social media identified as Right-wing compared to 39% of over-65s. A massive 88% of people aged 18–29 used Facebook compared to 62% of those aged over 65.

There were also factors that a survey would struggle to measure, such as how different ages use Facebook. Young people tend to actively post and interact with content often while many older users get as far as having a profile and being “on” Facebook without necessarily throwing themselves into much interaction.

The problem is not so much shy Tories as old Tories who aren’t savvy on social media.

That is demonstrated by the wealth of Left-leaning Facebook groups, especially of those in support of Jeremy Corbyn.

Facebook in recent elections

The Financial Times reported in May that social media was central to the Conservative victory at the 2015 General Election.”While Labour built an impressive army of like-minded followers on the social media platform, the Conservatives were quietly using their bigger digital budget to target undecided voters in key marginal seats,” the newspaper reported.

The Electoral Commission found that the Conservatives spent £1.2m during the 2015 general election on Facebook advertising, “more than seven times the £160,000 spent by Labour. The Liberal Democrats spent just over £22,000.” The report concluded that in the 2017 campaign Labour was trying to match the Conservatives’ £1m budget for social media advertising.

The future of media?

Social networks like Facebook are a huge part of the future of news and commentary. While news stands across the country were filled on June 7 with Daily Mail headlines declaring Jeremy Corbyn an “apologist for terror” Facebook was flooded by “I’m voting Labour” filters on profile pictures, and posts repeating the party’s election slogan “vote for the many, not the few”.

As the readers of the big Right-wing newspapers die out and online platforms take over from the tabloids, could decades of Right-wing media bias finally be giving way to Left-leaning social media? Or will those young smartphone users simply morph into Tories as they age and their salaries increase, leading Facebook to more closely reflect general voting intentions?

Newspaper advertising data from 2014 found that the average age of The Daily Mail’s readers was 58 while the Telegraph’s was 61. The Guardian, the FT and the Sun had a more even coverage of all age groups (left) and were not facing quite the same cliff-edge as the Telegraph, which had 46% of its readership over 65.

by Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

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