Julie and the Cybermums: Marketing and Women Voters in the UK 2010 General Election

Abstract

Certain groups of female voters have long been recognized as potentially vital in deciding the outcome of elections. This paper explores and compares efforts made by the British Conservatives to focus on addressing the concerns of mothers with children. The party made a significant attempt to cultivate this kind of woman during the 2010 campaign through the use of a layperson, Julie, whose personal testimony and image was central to this effort. Here comparisons are drawn with the intriguingly similar figure of Sylvia used by the Conservatives 40 years before. Discussion also focuses on another important gendered aspect of the election relating to the growth of new social media platforms and especially how they are represented through the still-important medium of agenda-setting newspapers to promote certain perspectives that can be highly partisan in their selectivity if not their intent.

KEYWORDS:

• campaigning
• new media
• targeting
• voters
• women

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emily Harmer

Emily Harmer is a research associate in Political Communication at Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom.

Dominic Wring

Dominic Wring is reader in Political Communication at Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom.