By Community Correspondent Charlie Hudson

One of the most unpredictable and exciting British elections of all time has finally come to a close, with a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition moving into Whitehall this week. It has been notable campaign in many ways, with the recent occurrence of the global financial crisis and the expenses scandal taking their toll on Labour’s previous majority in the House of Commons. However, what stood out for many was the way the media took on it upon themselves to bridge the gap between the politicians and the people. This isn’t, in itself, a particularly untoward thing. After all, the media is the tool by which information can be brought easily to the masses whether it be watching Sky news at breakfast time, looking at Reuter’s on one’s mobile phone, or picking up a ‘Metro’ on the train. What is perhaps worrying was to the extent to which newspaper, TV and internet news turned the election into an entertainment event which they had a sinister amount of control over.

It’d been known for a while that there would have to be an election around this time, as the 5 year deadline since the last one fast approached, and preparation started early. A leaky Polish plane, a leaky volcano and a leaky BP oil rig failed to take any major attention away from it. The conservatives rolled out billboard after patronising billboard, with person after fictional, average, middle Britain person explaining their intentions to vote Tory, at lavish expense. All parties tried to seize the new wave of viral advertising and made themselves known on facebook and twitter, competing for the most fans and followers. Despite the parties’ efforts to connect directly with voters, most information came to the public through the press, and here laid a problem- the shameless almost universal support for the Conservatives. The Daily Mail has long been known as reporting with an audaciously right wing perspective, having once proclaimed, when referring to the British Union of Facists: ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’. However, Rupert Murdoch’s vast empire of media, including Sky News and The Sun, also played a significant part in an unrelenting attack on the Labour government. A good example was the Murdoch-fabricated Gillian Duffy ‘scandal’, in which Gordon Brown was heard calling a labour supporter a ‘bigoted woman’. The fact that this was recorded on a Sky News microphone, broadcast by Sky News and within minutes appearing on The Sun’s website was apparently unimportant. Are we really to believe that David Cameron did not say a similar thing after a particularly difficult discussion with a man, who had a disabled son, about his education policies for the disabled?

Meanwhile the BBC managed to turn the election night coverage into an over the top extravaganza with a brightly coloured studio, worthless opinion from intoxicated celebrities from a party-barge in the middle of the Thames and a whole host of cheesy and unnecessary animations and ‘visualisations’- something more akin to ‘The X Factor’ than any political broadcasting I’d ever seen. This was accompanied by arbitrary commentary as the night went on, with bold statements that the electorate had ‘spoken’ and had ‘chosen a hung parliament’. This was both incorrect and misleading- few wanted a hung parliament, there were just similar numbers of people wanting different things.

Overall, the effect of media on the election has at best been annoying and at worst been downright manipulative. Unfortunately, like the ash cloud from Iceland’s most hated volcano which has flared up again, or the massive BP oil slick, the media shows no sign of disappearing.