Don’t Look, Don’t Find – Media Coverage and Public Appreciation of the Benefit Fraud Issues
1:00pm - 2:30pm /
Wednesday 26th October 2022
/ Venue: Seminar Room 6, South Campus Teaching Hub South Teaching Hub
Type: Seminar /
Category: Research
- Dr Luca Bernardi
- Admission: This is a free event, however if you're attending online, please register via the Eventbrite link provided to receive the Zoom link
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Abstract: If you are inclined to think the media has little or no significant impact on the public and, therefore, on politics, you are likely to be incurious about the structure of coverage, especially over the longer term. In this presentation I’m going to look at research which highlights the poverty of this approach. The findings of the research focused on the issue of ‘benefit fraud’ and its prevalence across a range of media, over a ten year period. These show a veritable tidal wave of coverage, across the press (national and local), broadcast TV and the BBC News website. I will argue that there is strong circumstantial evidence this coverage influenced the public in a non-trivial manner. And I will outline the sort of future research needed to test more formally the impact of such coverage.
Short bio: Dr Neil Gavin is a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool University. He has been researching and publishing around the issue of politics and public opinion for thirty years, with a particular emphasis on political communication. Here the focus was often on a wide range of topics such as the mediation of ‘the economy’, ‘elections’, ‘climate change’ and, latterly ‘benefit fraud’. This research has often been articulate to assessments of the impact of such coverage.
Short bio: Dr Neil Gavin is a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool University. He has been researching and publishing around the issue of politics and public opinion for thirty years, with a particular emphasis on political communication. Here the focus was often on a wide range of topics such as the mediation of ‘the economy’, ‘elections’, ‘climate change’ and, latterly ‘benefit fraud’. This research has often been articulate to assessments of the impact of such coverage.