The Sun’s decision to support the UK Conservative party instead of Gordon Brown’s New Labour is creating plenty of interesting discussion. Spinmeister Alastair Campbell says The Sun isn’t as important as it once was. Well, he would say that wouldn’t he? However, whatever his motivation, he’s right. Now, there’s nothing I like more than putting my feet up with a bacon sandwich, cup of char and The Currant Bun, but it surely isn’t the massive social and cultural force it was in the eighties. In 1992, the paper had huge sway and cruelly lampooned Neil Kinnock with this classic front page. Then followed it up with the famous headline – ‘It Was The Sun Wot Won It!’. Powered by the vast yet always entertaining ego of Kelvin McKenzie, The Nation’s Favourite reached its highest average sale in the week ending 16 July, 1994, when the daily figure was 4,305,957. Today, along with all other nationals, The Sun's circulation is greatly diminished. Although at more than 3 million is still very substantial. However, in the nineties we weren't all connected up to each other. There weren't 10-20m Brits active on Facebook (depending on who you believe). The share-and-compare economy was still restricted to chats over the garden fence. I’ve long given up on the idea that one media will usurp another. But I really believe the soup is getting thicker and more interesting. In 1990, newspapers were opinion and opinion were newspapers. Today, the mainstream media shrieks out its sensational opinion often highlighting the darkest most gruesome aspects of our generally splendid country. However, that is then filleted, dissected and reduced down to a more reflective – frequently more positive view – by individuals who comment, link, curate, challenge and question the views of Murdoch & Co. Far from being the echo chamber that mainstream media often characterizes social and other networked media as, the web is now the way the majority of people filter what’s good and bad. They listen to their friends and see what they are paying attention to. So will it be The Sun wot win it for Cameron? Or will it be up to Facebook to give him the thumbs-up?
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