Making blame avoidance newsworthy: Identifying discursive strategies of ministerial blame avoidance and exploring their influence on media narratives

This research investigates the blame avoidance strategies employed by the Conservative Government during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores their influence on news media content during this period. It focuses on the dynamics between journalists and political actors shaping the newsmaking process, specifically in relation to the agenda setting of crises, policy outcomes and narratives of accountability. It engages with salient questions regarding the extent of media dependence on party-sponsored messaging and the susceptibility of journalism to methods such as spin, distraction and obscurantism. By investigating the recent history of Boris Johnson's premiership, during which pandemic management was the media's predominant policy focus, this study takes advantage of a unique period in British politics to further the understanding into crisis communications, the influence parties have over media agendas and the importance of structural media factors in determining party strategy.

Through a content analysis of print publication and broadcast output spanning a two-year period, this research will produce statistical data showcasing the efficacy of different media strategies for blame management purposes. Measures such as the exporting of frames and the variability of issues' salience will be theorised as evidence of a strategy's success. Time-series analysis will examine flows between sources, in turn identifying influential arbiters of discursive power. In addition, interviews with party strategists, communications officers and journalists will complement content analysis to help provide a more nuanced understanding into how the 'blame game' works in practice.

The hypotheses developed in conjunction with the coding scheme will draw upon existing research which finds factors such as press partisanship and incumbency to be strong determinants of media representation. Furthermore, in light of growing concerns that the Government has regularly employed divisive, populist techniques to evade accountability, this research aims to explore the role of certain methods - e.g. personal attacks, 'dead cat policies' - within the Government's wider PR arsenal. Whilst there are multiple studies which explain how populist communications can be an effective tool for insurgent parties in terms of agenda-setting and visibility-seeking, this project explores whether a broadly populist style is auspicious for a mainstream, governing party, and considers the impact it may have on the wider state of political news reporting. Lastly, it addresses questions concerning the media's ability to hold governments to account when confronted by public relations techniques, and will inform recommendations for the strengthening of regulatory frameworks and the improvement of newsroom practices.