There is a massive difference between what traditional print media and social media were discussing in the run up to and day of the coalition government’s comprehensive spending review announcement, according to research conducted by Kantar Media.
Kantar Media’s intelligence researchers found that the internet buzz was still dominated by the role of the banks, but mainstream media was highlighting welfare cuts.
Further disconnects emerge in the research with only higher education funding being consistently mentioned as a hot issue in both types of media.
Philip Lynch, Evaluation Director, Kantar Media states: “In mainstream media, banks were a minority interest as editors moved the news agenda on to the Spending Review. But in social, the banks remain a key consideration, suggesting that the actions of the banks will remain long in the mind. Today’s headlines, tomorrow’s chip wrappers? Not in social.
“The differences between online debate and what the press covered were quite polarised. It is a complex media environment in the UK, and our findings highlight the gap between what newspapers consider important, and what people actually want to talk about.”
Research highlights include:
• Media reaction to targets of the Comprehensive Spending Review were analysed by Kantar Media. The targets that generated the least debate were the Film Council closing down (least), Civil List changes and the Severn Barrage being cancelled.
• Pensions (including retirement age), police, child benefit cuts and the BBC licence fee freezes generated the most debate overall.
Top 5 areas that sparked interest by media were:
Print Media Online/Social Media
1.Welfare cuts 1. Banks
2. Higher education funding 2. Higher education funding
3. Public sector job cuts 3. Police
4. Housing 4. BBC
5. Defence 5. Museums/art
Research methodology
The objective of the research was to measure the sense of (a) media concern around each of the major targets of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and (b) to map ‘mainstream’ interest against the wider buzz in online and social. 3,796 newspaper articles and 4,063,000 online mentions were tracked.
The online research consisted of analysing all publicly accessible blogs, forums, message boards in English combining statistics from a mix of Kantar Media’s metabase, Icerocket and Google Blogs. Sites with privacy protection were excluded.
For mainstream newspapers, Kantar Media tracked all relevant coverage published in daily national newspapers and daily paid-for regional newspapers. Newspapers were analysed from 14 October to the morning of 21 October and online from 14 October to midnight 20 October.
Source: www.kantarmediauk.com
