The Ties that Divide: Regional Press Campaigns, Community and Populism

Abstract

Increasingly under corporate ownership, UK city evening papers are seen as potentially very profitable. Achieving maximum sales, however, requires reaching an audience which is socially, demographically and culturally increasingly diverse. The newspapers must produce a flow of locality-based news in a context where the locus of political and economic decisions is becoming more centralized and globalized. It is argued that the currently favoured solution to this dilemma, campaigning, holds real risks for the quality of public debate. Campaigns tend to be framed in common-sense populist terms. At best, readers are addressed as consumers rather than responsible citizens; at worst, an indefensible `outsider' is mobilized to consolidate the shaky coalition of `insiders'.