Voters in Wales failed by inaccurate UK media reports on devolved issues, study finds | Media
The UK media failed to properly report on devolved issues in Wales, leaving voters misinformed about May’s Senedd elections, a report has found.
A Cardiff University Review of more than 3,000 news stories It found recurring patterns in posts across different publishers and platforms, including failure to specify whether a topic relates only to England or England and Wales, common references to “the government” rather than “the UK government” and the use of “you” and “your” in contexts that only apply to people living in England.
Lead researcher Prof Stephen Pillow said reporting that did not distinguish between the UK’s devolved governments ignored the constitutional needs of audiences.
“When you say, ‘The government is building more homes, setting targets, changing the way people make doctor appointments,’ these are different systems, and most of them are invisible in the news across the UK,” he said. “A good example young man [resident] doctors’ strikes, or a very popular TikTok explainer V levelsHe talks about ‘how your education has changed’.
“The survey accompanying the research found that there is still a lot of confusion about which policy areas are devolved in Wales. Things reported in England are seen by audiences at a UK level, and this affects how people vote.”
The research found that almost three-quarters (73%) of social media posts from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky News, along with 57% of TV news and 35% of online articles, did not make clear whether the story was about England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Media misinformation has contributed to widespread uncertainty about political issues in Wales, according to the report: 26 years since devolution began, a third of those surveyed still did not know that health and education were devolved to the Welsh government.
Only 1 per cent correctly identified whether Cardiff Bay or Westminster was responsible for eight policy areas, and just 7 per cent of people knew May’s vote would be held under a new closed-list system, according to a representative survey of 1,544 people carried out by YouGov in conjunction with news analysis from Cardiff University.
similar voting From 2021, a higher level of understanding of devolution and decision-making has emerged in Scotland than in Wales; Pillow makes it Scotland’s healthier media environment.
The report found that UK-wide publications remain the primary source of news for many people in Wales: 46% of those surveyed trusted UK news most, while 10% trusted mostly Welsh-produced news.
It’s split along political lines: 60% of Reform voters said they mostly use UK news sources; This rate is higher than those voting for other parties. A third of Plaid Cymru voters said they primarily trust UK news, while 46% said they use sources across the UK and Wales equally, while 18% said they primarily trust Wales-specific sources.
Pillow said: “It may be the case that people vote on issues that affect England because there is more coverage of campaign events in England and the Nigel Farage v Keir Starmer dynamic in particular… But if you live in Wales these elections have nothing to do with that.
“There’s a huge communication problem here, and it’s important for democratic accountability.”
