Performance, Politics, and Media: How the 2010 British General Election Leadership Debates Generated “Talk” Among the Electorate

Abstract

During the British General Election 2010, a major innovation was introduced in part to improve engagement: A series of three live-televised leadership debates took place in which the leader of each of the three main parties—Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Conservative—answered questions posed by members of the public and subsequently debated issues pertinent to the questions. In this study, we consider these potentially ground-breaking debates as the kind of event that was likely to generate discussion. We investigate various aspects of the “talk” that emerged as a result of watching the debates. As an exploratory study concerned with situated accounts of the participants' experiences, we take an interpretive perspective. In this paper we outline the meta-narratives (of talk) associated with the viewing of the leadership debates that were identified, concluding our analysis by suggesting that putting a live debate on television and promoting and positioning it as a major innovation is likely to mean that is how the audience will make sense of it: as a media event.

KEYWORDS:

• leadership debate
• political talk
• media event

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Scullion

Richard Scullion is a senior lecturer in Marketing Communications at the Media School, Bournemouth University, Dorset, United Kingdom.

Dan Jackson

Dan Jackson is a senior lecturer in Public Relations at the Media School, Bournemouth University, Dorset, United Kingdom.

Mike Molesworth

Mike Molesworth is a senior lecturer in Online Marketing at the Media School, Bournemouth University, Dorset, United Kingdom.