Members of the media wait outside Downing Street for reactions to the result of the British general election
Rumor was that this election would be the first U.K. campaign to be dominated by new media. Much like in the U.S. election of 2008, the candidates were going to harness the power of e-mail, YouTube and social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to inspire Britons, particularly the young, to get out and vote.
But in fact, it was old media — network TV and newspapers — that drove the agenda. The majority of the daily papers, spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's Sun, seemed obsessed with getting David Cameron into power, with the lone voices of dissent being the likes of the Daily Mirror, which, as ever, backed Labour and, more surprising, the Guardian, which changed its allegiance from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. But it was TV that got most of our attention, with the weekly debates enthralling the nation.