6:00

we found with the older people whose

6:02

phones we looked at, they would still

6:04

be rooted to an extent in mainstream

6:06

outlets. They might flick through news apps,

6:08

they might have a look at the

6:10

headlines, they might still tune in even

6:12

to the evening TV news to get

6:15

an idea of everything that's going on

6:17

according to the mainstream media. And

6:19

we found younger voters, they weren't unaware of it,

6:21

but it filtered down to them in a different

6:23

way. Traditional news outlets still set

6:25

the agenda to an extent, but it came

6:27

down to them through influencers or through jokes

6:29

about things that happened elsewhere. Quite a lot

6:31

of people were learning about what was happening

6:33

in the news by seeing a

6:36

joke about it and then googling to find

6:38

out what the joke was about. So National

6:40

Service being an obvious example of that, in

6:42

the way that sort of trickled down to

6:44

being quite heavily memed online. Exactly. How do

6:46

you think that's shaping the campaign for party

6:49

organisers? Well, there's a couple of big trends

6:51

we've noticed. One is that parties are putting

6:54

way more emphasis on paying through

6:56

adverts online to reach people and that that's

6:58

a way to actually burst through the retreat

7:01

from other news outlets. But

7:03

also, it's not that younger people are stupid

7:05

or are informed, they're just informed in a

7:08

different way. People were very up on the

7:10

policy in Gaza or on issues like trans

7:12

rights. So if there was something that they

7:14

cared deeply about, they would go out there

7:16

ready to research it. What there wasn't was

7:18

the same feeling that they had to be

7:20

across the Westminster

7:22

news agenda as defined by

7:24

what political journalists might set as the parameters of

7:27

the debate. If there was something they cared about,

7:29

they got invested in it. And if there wasn't

7:31

something they cared about, they were less invested in

7:33

it. Right, yeah. So there are some big issues

7:35

that are cutting through. We

7:37

are now approaching crunch time for the main

7:39

UK papers to start publishing their endorsements. What

7:41

should we be looking out for, do you

7:44

think? Newspaper endorsements are

7:46

very odd things in

7:48

some ways because they are as

7:50

much symbolic and say something about the

7:53

publication and where the publication sees itself

7:55

and the publication's audience as the

7:58

actual impact on voters. But

8:01

you've got the Daily Record today in Scotland

8:03

came out very strongly for the first time

8:05

since 2010 said vote Labour

8:07

not the SNP which is an

8:09

indicator both of the SMP's decline

8:11

in Scotland but also an idea

8:14

of where the record sees its remaining

8:16

readers. Now of course all print newspaper

8:18

sales are way down across the board

8:20

but there's a still a symbolism attached

8:22

to them which makes it matter almost

8:24

indirectly you know does it matter that

8:26

the Sun in the coming week will

8:28

say who it thinks you

8:31

should vote for maybe not in terms of

8:33

the actual core people reading the paper

8:35

but as a signal that Rupert Murdoch

8:37

or now his son's media empire is

8:39

shifting in this direction as a you know

8:41

the BBC will report on it to

8:43

tens of millions of people and its

8:45

bulletins that the Sun has said this about

8:48

the election that the power almost comes

8:50

from the the ripples that it causes

8:52

rather than actual readers going well

8:54

I'd better now change my vote. Alright

8:56

well finally Jim we're in the final full week

8:58

of the campaign is there anything else that's caught

9:01

your eye this week? I've been enjoying

9:03

the the only deep fakes that seem to have

9:05

cut through in the whole campaign there was a

9:07

lot of angst and hand wringing about how deep

9:09

fakes will corrupt our democracy and what we found

9:11

in the UK election this time around is the

9:13

only things that have actually made

9:15

a splash are a series of fake Minecraft

9:17

game streaming videos made by a podcast app

9:19

that's trying to promote its services. So today

9:21

I had the brilliant idea of joining Rishi's

9:23

Minecraft server while he was offline just to

9:25

have a bit of fun and mess with

9:27

him. So after exploring the world for a

9:29

bit I've actually stumbled upon his house so

9:32

naturally I filled it to the brim with

9:34

TNT. Not a threat to democracy but

9:36

quite funny that they've managed to successfully

9:38

ape Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and Nigel

9:41

Farage into saying certain things. And

9:43

is there anyone that's fallen for it? I

9:45

feel Luke Trill who

9:47

has done a lot of work for the

9:50

Guardian on some excellent focus groups I think

9:52

did unfortunately get caught out on Newsnight talking

9:54

about this and I'm sure we've all been

9:56

there and there but for the grace of

9:58

God. Happens to the

10:00

best of us. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. That

10:05

was Jim Waterson, the Guardian's political media editor.

10:07

You can keep up with his coverage

10:09

on the election and more at theguardian.com. Today

10:12

in focus, we'll be back as usual tomorrow morning

10:14

with the fallout on the plea deal that's allowed

10:16

Julian Assange to walk free. Election Extra will be

10:19

back at the same time tomorrow. This

10:29

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