Steve Rayson

The use of repetition can be very powerful in political speeches. There are six different forms of repetition that can be used to great effect.  1. Epistrophe The repetition of words at the end of a sentence. A prime example is Obama’s ‘Yes we can.’ This is a brief extract from his 2008 speech at Nashua High School South. “For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we’ve been told we’re not ready or we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights. Yes, we can.” It was a simple phrase but became powerful through repetition.  2. Anaphora A rhetorical device where you repeat a phrase at the beginning of a sentence. The classics include Mar...

Individuals draw on narratives to make sense of the world and their own life choices and decisions. They construct structures of meaning, making a sequence of complex events understandable. Influential psychologist Ted Sarbin argues that “human beings think, perceive, imagine, and make moral choices according to narrative structures.” Powerful narratives conjure up stories that reaffirm an audience’s sense of their collective and individual identity.  
 In political life, narratives are used to frame how events and issues are perceived, and to influence voting behaviour. While the media may direct public attention to certain issues the framing of these stories can be contested.  Political parties are preoccupied with their own narratives - the messages they want to present to voters. However, the public narrative - the stories that the public themselves are sharing - is far more significant. Stories are not simply transmitted and received, they are decoded by an audience,...

Following the 2016 EU referendum and US presidential election there has been renewed interest in the concept of political narratives and the power of storytelling.  One of the main aims of a political narrative is to shape the public narrative, namely the stories that people share about themselves, their communities, and what needs to be done. The transmission of stories, the political storytelling, is only the first step. The real power of political narratives resides in their retelling.

 From a review of the research, outlined in my book ' The Fall of the Red Wall ', it is clear that for a political narrative to be powerful and influence the public narrative it should:
 Reflect themes and narratives the audience is already familiar with 
 Connect the past and the present with an imagined future
 Align with the audience’s perceptions of reality
 Be capable of being understood, discussed, and retold in everyday language
 Enable the audience to identify with the narrator or th...

Public narratives are the narratives that people share publicly, typically with more than one other person. Each person has their own public narrative, it is the story they share. It is a story they share with others in their own words, their own use of everyday language. The story may be shared in a social setting such as over a drink in a bar or equally in a focus group or in response to a question from a journalist. There will be many different public narratives but within the public sphere some narratives will come to dominate. These narratives, the ones that become familiar and influential, are the narratives repeated the most often. These are the narratives that resonate with people.

Following the US presidential election of 2016 there has been increased interest amongst political scientists in the concept of political narratives and how storytelling influences how people understand and make sense of the world. Political narrative is both a theoretical concept and also a device used by political strategists to influence how people view their environment, their community and relationships between groups. (Graef et al, 2018). In this post I argue that for a political narrative to be powerful and persuasive it should: Reflect themes and narratives the audience is already familiar with Connect the past and the present with an imagined future Align with the audience’s perceptions of reality Be capable of being understood, discussed and retold in everyday language Enable the audience to identify with the narrator or the story Confirm rather than negate the audience’s sense of collective and individual identity Support the overall narrative arc by combining mu...

The British Election Survey (BES) data 2019 was published at the end of last week.  I was keen to explore the profiles of those voters that switched from Labour to Conservative as many of the 'red wall' seats appear to have involved direct Labour to Conservative switching. For example, in Bassetlaw the swing from Labour to the Conservatives was a record 18%. Such direct switching is unusual, particularly in former Labour heartlands. The BES panel data includes 1077 voters nationally who voted Labour in 2017 and switched to the Conservatives in 2019. This data helps us to build a profile of the people who switched directly between the two main parties.

Political podcast listening has increased significantly over the last two years and raises questions about adoption patterns in society. Who listens to these political podcasts? My recent survey of 1,346 listeners has found the audience is overwhelmingly male, highly educated and relatively wealthy. The average age of a listener is 41. Listeners discover political podcasts socially with 60% finding podcasts by word of mouth and 46% through social media. There is also a core of committed podcast listeners with 32% of the audience reporting to listen to five or more political podcasts a week. The audience characteristics are similar to an  audience study , published earlier this year, of the popular Making History podcast (covering science, history and politics) in Israel which found that 90% of listeners were male, mostly 26 to 45 and well educated with relatively high incomes.  The full details are set out below.

Emmanuel Macron's current approval rating is 24%, by contrast Matteo Salvini's approval rating in Italy is 60%.  Across Europe we are seeing the rise of national populists. It was therefore interesting to listen to Matthew Goodwin this week, discussing his new book  National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy , jointly authored with Roger Eatwell. Here are my takeaways from the talk. Many journalists and politicians argue populists have stolen elections and referendums through dishonesty and underhand tactics. For example the £350m on the side of the Leave campaign bus or Trump's use of Facebook ads. By contrast Goodwin and Eatwell argue that national populism is driven by four long term trends namely distrust, deprivation, destruction and dealignment.

"Strongly working-class parliamentary seats are no longer the Labour party’s heartlands" according to the Fabian Society as reported yesterday by the Guardian . It has often been said that Labour is a broad church with strong support in both middle class Hampstead and working class Hull. However, there have been increasing tensions between Labour's middle class, southern, younger, educated voters and Labour's working class, less educated, older voters in the north and the midlands. This cleavage was reflected in the Brexit vote. In Hull 66% voted for Leave. By contrast in Hampstead, north London, 75% voted for Remain

"What politics podcasts would you recommend?" This was one of the questions asked in my MSc Facebook Messenger group this week. As I scrolled through my podcast library I realised I now have over 20 political and media podcasts that I listen to regularly. I do love the podcast format, as I can listen while walking, driving or working out in the gym. Many also have an intimacy that make you feel part of the conversation. Here are ten political podcasts that I can recommend based on many hundreds of hours of personal listening.

I admit it, I am a curmudgeon when it comes to Twitter. I like my feed to be informative, something that keeps me updated and informed, that provokes new ideas and makes me reflect. Holiday pictures? Put them on Instagram. Entertaining videos? Share them on Facebook. For me Twitter is a learning tool. So I wanted a Twitter list of political scientists who primarily share interesting content and not pictures of the view from their hotel room.

"You can't fatten a pig on market day"  Lynton Crosby Tim Shipman's definitive account of the Brexit campaign ' All Out War ' provides many lessons for political campaigners. One of the key lessons I took away from the book was the importance of early preparation and planning. Over a year before the referendum Steve Baker of Vote Leave identified five early battles the campaign had to win. He also developed detailed action plans for each of these areas. This planning, and the early actions taken in 2015, were possibly decisive in winning the referendum.

The UK's vote to leave the European Union in 2016 led not only to intense debate and discussion, it also prompted over one million articles to be written about Brexit. In a fit of summer madness I decided to analyse these articles. These are my key findings: nearly half of all social engagement with Brexit articles was with articles from just three websites partisan content drives higher social engagements Brexit articles that get tens of thousands of social engagements are outliers most social engagements with Brexit articles take place on Facebook the Facebook posts about Brexit that gain most engagement are humorous 

One of the defining issues that emerged from David Goodhart's book The Road to Somewhere was the distinct geographical locations and identities of what he defined as the Anywheres and the Somewheres. The Somewheres are more likely to be found in towns and villages and the Anywheres are more likely to be found in the cities. Recent research from the Centre for Towns  has found that villages and towns are getting older while cities are getting younger. The following chart from the Centre for Towns  reveals the changing population structure of towns and cities over the thirty years to 2011.

The impact of the EU's free movement policy is heavily discussed here in the UK, particularly in relation to immigration from Eastern Europe. What is rarely discussed is the impact of this policy on Eastern Europe. The United Nations  latest population projections reveal that the ten countries with the fastest shrinking populations are all in Eastern Europe. Since 1989 there have been some significant falls in population, for example: Latvia        27% Lithuania   23% Bulgaria     21%

The latest poll from Suravtion ,  the polling company that got closest to the actual UK General Election result, shows just how much the generations are divided when it comes to politics. The sampling took place on 30th November 2017 and 1st December 2017. The poll, with undecided and refused removed, found the following split in voting intentions by age.

This weekend's newspapers will be full of hyperbole about the UK election results and what happened. In my view it is important to cut through opinion and look at the data to provide a clear context. Here are ten key data backed insights about the UK election: 1. Despite a poor campaign the Tories increased their votes and vote share The campaign run by Theresa May has been roundly criticised by all sides. It is claimed the campaign was the reason why May only won 318 seats, 12 less than David Cameron won at the previous election. However, May significantly increased the Conservative votes and vote share as we can see below. May's vote share is exactly the same as that Margaret Thatcher achieved in her 1983 landslide victory.