This paper reports findings from a study of the changing nature of the narrative contents and production formats of Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs) produced by the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties for UK General Elections from 1979 to 2010. This analysis tracked production changes that might signal a movement on the part of the political parties towards using marketing-oriented techniques of the kind found in televised advertising. Although PEBs are not technically classified as advertisements by the broadcasting industry, but rather as programmes, they nevertheless present an opportunity to political parties to promote themselves and their policies. Using content analysis, it was found that PEBs have grown progressively shorter from 1979 to 2010 and become faster paced. They have become more sophisticated as productions with wider use of dramatised documentary formats rather than talking heads, popular music and professional performers.
Industry insiders and media academics often voice unease about the transformations taking place in the global news industry. Despite its usefulness in drawing attention to the twists and turns of organizational change and innovation in news production, much of the research on this topic shows less interest in journalists’ situated experience than is helpful. This article suggests that academic attention might be usefully refocused to the changing nature and experiences of journalists as they encounter the changes taking place in their industry. Such a focus can be justified on theoretical grounds: the implications of change in the news industry for its traditional democratic role cannot be understood without understanding in detail what journalists do and how they do it. While acknowledging that news production takes place in the context of competitive commercial enterprise, the authors argue that fruitful avenues for empirical enquiry can be opened up by adopting a more practice-centred analysis. The article concludes by introducing recent research that joins this pursuit.
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